An athletic freak has been lauded for a positive attitude towards his footy in 2025 despite a cruel ACL setback.
Oakleigh captain Sam Allen gave himself a strong launchpad for 2025, averaging 11 disposals in 10 games as a hard-running winger, learning last season off similarly apt endurance athlete Patrick Retschko, now listed at Richmond.
While his stats are somewhat modest, clubs were enamoured with his balance of athletic traits and overhead ability - a perfect foundation for a modern winger.
His first three games of the Coates League season gave him a taste of on-ball minutes and he averaged 21 disposals and showed a good blend of work rate, ball-winning and class.
The Scotch College student then played four games at APS level before rupturing his ACL at a Vic Metro training session, putting an early end to his season.
“I think we were changing his role a little bit this season,” 2025 Oakleigh coach Ash Close said.
“We'd seen him on the wing the year before, but we wanted him to around the ball a little bit more to show his ball-winning traits he's been working on, and then his ball use, which he worked super hard on over the preseason.
“We played him forward a bit early and he dominated that role before his injury.
“(In pre-season), he was jumping over specky bags; he has this speed and agility and all the athletic traits that we measure.
“He was just blowing up the GPS.
“The games aren't long enough for him because he just keeps getting better as the game goes on.
“Some of what he did at Metro training was just phenomenal.”
The setback also ruled Allen out of the AFL Draft National Combine but clubs are well aware of his athletic traits, which he advertised at the Coates League pre-season testing.
Allen was the only player nation-wide to break a metre with the running vertical jump, leaping 101cm off his left foot.
That was his only top 10 finish but he tested well overall and he also breaks six minutes comfortably in the two kilometre time trial and would have been favoured to win it had he tested at the National Combine.
A National Combine invite despite the setback indicates the level of interest he has received and Zero Hanger understands he has met with more than half of the 18 AFL clubs.
“The injury happened was disappointing, but the way that he handled himself and the captaincy at Oakleigh was first class,” Close said.
“His character's the roof, some of the things he would do to gain perspective about, the fact that (in his words) it's just an ACL blew me away for an 18 year old.
“He's so mature and has such a positive outlook on every situation and what he can get out of it. So that'll hold him in good stead, not just in footy, but in life.”
