{"id":57449,"date":"2019-09-10T19:49:24","date_gmt":"2019-09-10T09:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afl.draftcentral.localhost\/?p=57449"},"modified":"2021-11-12T07:37:35","modified_gmt":"2021-11-11T21:37:35","slug":"saxon-jones-ready-for-the-next-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2019\/09\/10\/saxon-jones-ready-for-the-next-step\/","title":{"rendered":"Saxon-Jones ready for the next step"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FOR Western Jets\u2019 <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/afl.draftcentral.com.au\/player\/cleo-saxon-jones\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Cleo Saxon-Jones<\/a><\/strong>, the journey through to the big league has been a bumpy road with plenty of footy action along the way. Despite starting Auskick at a young age like a lot of other Aussie kids, she explored other sporting avenues before ultimately coming back to where it all began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI started off at Auskick around five or six when it was the starting age years,&#8221; Saxon-Jones said. &#8220;Then I went to about Grade 3 and 4, stopped and went to basketball and cricket and played that for a few years and nagged mum and dad for about two years to go back to footy. \u201cThey were like &#8216;oh no it&#8217;s too rough&#8217; and then one of my mates from cricket came along and was like &#8216;come join my club&#8217; so I was nagging mum and dad to join the under 18 girls and I was only 13 at the time then. From Year 8 onwards it was just a build up from there. &#8220;Started local and then I think I was invited to a few try-outs for Western Jets and Geelong when it was combined. Got here and then went through the various pathways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With a booming kick and height on her side, Saxon-Jones says her aerobic fitness is something she wants to improve on while a big focus is her ability to impact the contest.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Definitely my aerobic fitness and some overhead contested marking,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Just being able to get up there just being able to take a mark and crash packs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The talented forward has now found herself playing with the Western Jets for a number of years in the NAB League and TAC Cup, progressing through to Vic Metro in the AFL Women\u2019s Under-18 Championships in both 2018 and 2019 and now playing with Melbourne Uni in the VFL Women\u2019s league.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI started on the wing in my first year and then was used as a ruck mainly onwards from then,&#8221; Saxon-Jones aid. &#8220;The last two years I&#8217;ve ventured down forward as a full-forward and now playing my game more as a centre half-forward and trying to get a run through the midfield every now and again. &#8220;(Vic Metro) was very good. &#8220;It was a very high standard, very different to TAC\/NAB League. &#8220;It was an honour to play with and against some of the best girls in the country and state.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While playing for Victoria is a massive step in the right direction, Saxon-Jones is ultimately aiming for the AFL Women\u2019s and is sure to push herself if given the opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(I\u2019ve dreamed of AFL) probably since I was little,&#8221; she said. &#8220;We used to go down to the VFL games with dad, used to go to the AFL games with him too. &#8220;Then watching them running around it was kind of like I want my time to be able to play. &#8220;It&#8217;s just gone on from there pretty much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOR Western Jets\u2019 Cleo Saxon-Jones, the journey through to the big league has been a bumpy road with plenty of footy action along the way. Despite starting Auskick at a young age like a lot of other Aussie kids, she explored other sporting avenues before ultimately coming back to where it all began. \u201cI started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":55368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5603,278,7950,8,3121,11598,18225],"tags":[3695,9797,9539,9795,41,9796],"class_list":["post-57449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aflw-national-championships","category-feature-articles","category-nab-league-girls","category-news","category-vflw","category-western-jets","category-western-jets-girls","tag-cleo-saxon-jones","tag-melbourne-uni-cleo-saxon-jones","tag-nab-league-girls-features","tag-vic-metro-saxon-jones","tag-western-jets","tag-western-jets-cleo-saxon-jones"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91186,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57449\/revisions\/91186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}