"He said, 'something you don't know is you will be playing your first game this week'," McInerney said. The Swans made one other change for Thursday night's clash with Melbourne at the SCG, recalling former captain Kieren Jack for his first game of the season to replace injured pair Jarrad McVeigh and Will Hayward. It has been a rapid rise for McInerney, 18, who only two years ago was playing in the seconds of his school team, Marcellin College in Melbourne. Then in year 11, McInerney could not break into a first team that had won three premierships in a row. The future Swan's big break came at a junior game for his club Banyule, in Melbourne's north-east, when he was spotted by a talent scout for TAC Cup club the Northern Knights.

"He called me after the game and said we need to get him in straight away," Knights talent manager Rhy Gieschen said of his conversation with scout Russell Gardner. Loading "He has some AFL-like attributes. He runs well, kicks well, takes the game on, has game sense, speed and backs himself in." Gieschen alerted Marcellin's firsts coach to McInerney's talent and he played the last three games of the year in the senior side. McInerney impressed the Knights in his first pre-season, which Gieschen described as "unbelievable". A feature was his running ability.

McInerney has some serious wheels. As a year 12 student, he clocked a sub-52 second time for 400 metres and finished second in a major schools championships in Melbourne. Gieschen has not seen a player record the type of GPS numbers for game-day running and high-speed efforts that McInerney did. That's saying something as West Coast speedster Jack Petruccelle has also come through the club in Gieschen's time. The Swans could do with a player who can break the lines. "He doubled Petruccelle for repeat efforts at speed," Gieschen said. "He was the only player to hit one kilometre in real high-speed efforts. That's elite end of the AFL already. His work rate and running ability for a half-back or wing was exceptional." McInerney grew up a Carlton supporter who idolised Chris Judd. As he got older, his taste became more influenced by his own football so Hawthorn's running machine Isaac Smith became a favourite.