Published: 21 March 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Former Scopus student Harry Sheezel became the first nominee of the season for the AFL Rising Star Award and felt the love from the crowd during North Melbourne’s narrow victory on Saturday.
One of the staples when an AFL footballer is selected to make his debut is for the player to FaceTime his parents to give them the news.
The club captures the conversation and quickly puts it on social media to capture the emotion and excitement when a dream comes true.
Last Tuesday, when Harry Sheezel rang his parents, Dean and Lana Sheezel, to let them know he had been picked to play his first game, his father told him, “Now, it’s showtime.”
It certainly was.
The 19-year-old former AJAX junior football star, who completed Year 12 at Mount Scopus College last year, made what was immediately hailed as one of the most impressive AFL debut games ever played with 34 possessions for North Melbourne in his team’s thrilling five-point win over West Coast at Marvel Stadium.
It was third highest possession tally by a first-gamer in AFL history and was good enough for the first nomination for 2023 for the prestigious AFL Rising Star Award, which is awarded at the end of the season to the best young player in the competition.
Sheezel became the 11th* Jewish AFL footballer, and the first for 23 years, and as was the case last November when he was the third player selected in the AFL National Draft, the match captured the imagination of the Jewish community.
Because the game was played on Shabbat, the AJAX Junior Football Club chose not to arrange any formal outing to the game. And his mates who play for the AJAX senior club were otherwise occupied playing a practice game.
But the crowd of around 21,000 was still dotted with boys and girls in their AJAX tops and there were even a few Israeli flags and signs that read, “Mazel-Tov Harry”. North Melbourne also helped the Sheezel family source more than 60 tickets for family and friends.
When Sheezel took his first mark, early in the first quarter, he received a huge ovation.
“I felt it in the crowd. I felt the love,” he said after the game. “I saw every sign.”
Sheezel attracted a blaze of publicity as the first Jewish AFL draftee this century and enjoyed most of the headlines it attracted. But he was also keen to put that aside, knuckle down and tackle the pre-season because, as he noted, “that’s what I’m here to do."
“The community has been so supportive and that makes you feel loved and seeing so many familiar faces in the crowd today just made me want to go and do my thing.
“Even if I played badly, I knew they’d be there to support me, no matter what.”
There was little chance of that happening. Sheezel did not put a foot wrong throughout the entire three-month pre-season training campaign. His preparation was first-class.
But what was most astonishing that after playing most of his junior football as a forward and training there for most of the summer, the Kangaroos moved him to the half-back line for the last quarter of a recent practice game and played him there without reservation against West Coast.
It takes not just talent but high football intelligence to handle a positional switch like that with such ease and in those circumstances.
“I loved it,” he said of the positional change. “[It offered] great freedom. It’s different to having someone follow you and trying to stop you over time.”
Sheezel shanked his first kick but had touched the ball six times within the first 10 minutes and was already earning high praise from commentators while fans quickly cottoned on to what a special debut they were witnessing.
It was just his third game of open-age football, after two practice games, but he picked up the pace of the game immediately and played with the poise of a 100-game player.
“It was definitely faster. The boys who have been there before told me where to stand and where to be and gave me the confidence to do my own thing and made me feel more comfortable,” he said.
During the week, Dean Sheezel told The Jewish Independent that it was 10 years ago, after a kick-to-kick session in the park, that Harry looked his father in the eye and said, “Dad, you know that one day I’m going to play in the AFL.”
“I just laughed. What else are you supposed to think,” he said.
But on Saturday his son had the last laugh on what he said was “up there” with the best day of his life.
“It was incredible,” he said. “I couldn’t imagine anything better than this.
“It was the perfect debut to get the win in a close one. I had all the confidence we would win and hang on. It’s just incredible.”
And with that he went home to rest and recover. He flies to Perth next weekend for a game against Fremantle.
“There’s another 22 games to go,” he said. “There’s a lot that I need to do right.”
*THE OTHER JEWISH VFL/AFL PLAYERS
Bert Rapiport (Fitzroy)
Barney Lazarus (Carlton)
Ian Synman (St Kilda)
Keith Baskin (South Melbourne)
Henry Ritterman (Melbourne)
Michael Zemksi (Hawthorn)
Mordecai Bromberg (St Kilda)
Trevor Korn (Melbourne)
Julian Kirzner (Essendon/North Melbourne)
Ezra Poyas (Richmond)
Photo: Harry Sheezel with fans after the AFL Round 1 match between North Melbourne and West Coast Eagles at Marvel Stadium on Saturday (AAP/James Ross)
