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.
