Fremantle great Paul Hasleby sees traits of Marcus Bontempelli in Dockers midfielder Hayden Young.
Young, 23, has made a full-time move into the midfield in 2024 after starting his career as a dashing half-back.
While Hasleby concedes that Young has a long way to go to match Bontempelli, he thinks that the young on-baller has similar attributes to the Bulldogs superstar.
Young helped himself to 30 disposals and two goals in Sunday’s win over Richmond which earned him the 10 coaches votes and it was during that game where the comparison popped into Hasleby’s mind.
Hasleby detailed the similarities he sees between the pair.
“The Young Bont. Hayden Young is the closest thing to Marcus Bontempelli in the game right now in terms of attributes,” Hasleby told SEN WA's The Run Home.
“He’s clean, a good kick on his left and right, puts players in space and has a crack at his kicks and that's exactly what the Fremantle Dockers need.
“Their ball movement is better when he's involved with that passage of play because he can kick it into the corridor, he can kick it long and he just needs to add more goals to his repertoire to sort of get towards Bontempelli.
“He's averaging 26 disposals this year and he had 30 disposals and two goals on the weekend.
“I just look at him and go, ‘He's close to Bont in the attributes’, but he’s got a long way to go, and he's got some work to do to be in that sort of category.
“When you see him moving around the field, do you see similarities?”
Hasleby’s co-host Peter Vlahos has been impressed particularly with Young’s ability to become such a competent midfielder in just eight proper games in the role.
“I tell you what, I'm really impressed with his ability to transition,” Vlahos said.
“Early in his career with Freo, he was an out and out backman that used to try and break the lines.
“Now he's been given the midfield opportunity, and it hasn't taken much time for him to actually take it on board.
“He's kicking goals, he got 10 out of 10 coaches votes at the weekend. It was an outstanding performance.”
Hasleby also added that he thinks Young’s midfield emergence makes Fremantle’s on-ball unit near impossible to stop as there’s so many stars that clubs will need to stop.
“This is the great thing about it. Who do you stop in that midfield?” Hasleby said.
“(Caleb) Serong’s close to leading the Brownlow right now up there with Isaac Heeney and probably Zach Merrett, you've got Andrew Brayshaw who's been the best player in the competition voted by his peers at some stage, Nathan Fyfe's having a purple patch as well and now Hayden Young.
“It just bodes well for Freo.”
Young will hope to keep his strong form up when the Dockers face the Swans at the SCG on Friday night.
