Date of birth: 29/5/90
Height: 192cm
Weight: 84kg
Club: Tassie Mariners
Bio: A tall marking forward who is strong on the lead and has very clean hands. Cornelius reads the play well and has experienced senior VFL action with the Tassie Devils. He won All-Australian under-18 honours in 2007. An AIS/AFL Academy graduate. From Glenorchy FC.
Jason McCartney says: He's a very good player. All-Australian the year before last and was in our Academy as a bottom-ager, is a really good mark and played senior footy for the Devils this year and last year. His second last [championships] game, where the team got towelled up at Casey, was just fantastic. He was at centre half-forward, on the move and he tends to take a really good contested mark where he can run and jump and float across the pack.
Tasmania U18 coach Andrew Mellor says: He's played plenty of representative footy and he's probably had to deal with the weight of expectation from Tasmania for quite some time as he's one of the most talented players to come through the ranks. He is a very natural, inside forward-50 sort of player and for straight-out talent I think he's the most talented player that I've coached. Unfortunately there is that mental side of the game that he needs to come to grips with, but he is extremely talented. Once Aaron gets a bit more consistency into his game and more of the defensive aspects he could potentially be the best of the lot.
Stats:
| NAB AFL Under 18 Championships | ||||||||
| Team | Mt | K | HB | D | M | HO | T | G |
| Tas | 8 | 7.5 | 3.5 | 11.0 | 4.6 | 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.6 |
In his own words
What are your biggest strengths as a player?
I think my ability to read the play and take a strong mark. I’m also pretty sneaky around the goals.
What are your weaknesses?
My deficiencies are probably the defensive side of my game and my endurance, so I need to work on that. The defensive side is so big in the AFL now – you can kick goals from those kinds of efforts as well as from taking marks.
What type of player are you?
Maybe a third tall, not so much a key position, but someone who can take a mark and rove at the same time.
Which AFL club do you support?
I go for St Kilda. I actually trained with St Kilda through the AIS-AFL program during the pre-season. You see guys like Robert Harvey on the telly and the next thing you’re meeting them. You receive the ball off Harvs and then you’re kicking it to Fraser Gehrig, so it was a bit of a dream come true.
Which AFL player do you most resemble?
One of the recruiters said I reminded him of Ryan O’Keefe from the Swans, so that was a compliment.
