AUSTRALIA’S BEN BROWN has revealed he ended his honeymoon early to represent his country in this year’s International Rules series.
Brown was one of five late call-ups to Chris Scott’s squad for the two-test series, which begins in Adelaide on Sunday. He’s one of 12 rookies who’ll make their international debuts this weekend.
When the invitation came from Scott, Brown was in Iceland with his new wife Hester Mary MacKinnon.
But the 24-year-old, who enjoyed a career-best campaign with North Melbourne this year, had no hesitation in cutting his honeymoon short and returning home to don the green and gold.
“I got the message about 10 days ago about midway through my honeymoon when I was in Iceland,” Brown told AFL.com.
“My partner, Hester, she’s very supportive, straight away she was on the Flight Centre website trying to figure out how we were going to get home.
“We might have to go on another holiday at some point just to make up for it.”
Australia had their first collective training session on Thursday and Brown admitted it was his first time to swap the Sherrin for a round ball.
“The ball’s going to move differently in the air, so it’s going to be a challenge for myself and a couple of other tall players we have in our side,” he said.
“But I’m pretty confident, with a couple days of training, we should be able to pick it up pretty quickly and make it a pretty good game.”
The 6’7″ man scored 63 goals for the Kangaroos in the 2017 AFL season and he’s expected to be one of Australia’s key forwards in the series.
“It means the world,” Brown said
“Dad reminded me how I used to play International Rules in the backyard with my brothers with a trampoline turned up on its side as the goals, so that’s my memory of these kinds of games that I used to watch in the early 2000s.
“It’s really exciting to be part of it and something I never dreamed I’d be able to do.”
Australia had a light one-hour training session on Thursday, where they mainly focused on kicking and handpassing drills. They’re expected to have a more strenuous session on Friday.
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