AFL draft guru backs Wodonga's Elijah Hollands despite setback

The Wodonga export suffered a major setback training with the Bulldogs on Tuesday night, tearing his ACL attempting to mark.

Sheehan said there's no need for the 17-year-old to be alarmed having shown he has talent in spades in the past two seasons as a bottom-age prospect.

"It's terrible luck for him but we just hope he has a successful break which I'm sure he will and gets stuck into recovery," Sheehan said.

"His score is on the board as far as talent is concerned. He's been outstanding in both his 17th and 16th year.

"We don't see this affecting him long term, it's quite a setback for him, but he's a strong-minded individual.

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"He was in our best couple of players, if not best on ground (AFL) grand final day (last year) where the best 48 17-year-olds in Australia played in the curtain-raiser game.

"That's always a good indication of the level of talent a young fellow has.

"That's not lost on anyone.

"We know he can play and he just needs to keep his head down and get stuck into the challenge of recovery after the disappointment of it.

"We all feel for him and you don't want to see it happen to any player, but certainly not the very best players that we have around the nation and he's one of those."

Hollands is still processing the initial disappointment of the injury, but has been blown away by the support.

"I've had an endless amount of people that have been in touch and people from the AFL contact me and reassure me that the dream is not over I guess," Hollands said.

"It gives me a lot of internal strength to get back out there and get stuck into rehab.

"I have surgery next week, but we haven't planned out how my rehab starts. I guess that will all depend on how surgery goes.

"I was basically just running back to take a mark and sort of lost my footing and my left leg planted into the ground and my knee buckled in.

"The buckling action is pretty normal, but I guess mine was a bit different to how you usually see it.

"I missed a couple of weeks last year with a shoulder injury, but no injuries as serious as this."

Sheehan believes clubs today have no qualms in selecting players injured in their draft years.

"We had three boys (drafted last year), Max King, a top 10 choice at St Kilda, Brodie Kemp ended up at Carlton in the teens and Flynn Perez ended up at North Melbourne, who all had ACL injuries," Sheehan said.

"It can turn fairly quickly, it will seem like a long time for Elijah. He'll have some challenges getting into the routine of recovery, but all we can do is wish him the best and give him our support.

"He's a very mature, well-balanced young man who has given the right sort of indications from the outside that he would be able to cope.

"It's terribly disappointing for the first number of days no doubt, but hopefully he gets on with things very quickly."

Hollands said he will use the lay-off to focus more on life outside of football and isn't getting ahead of himself.

"Nothing is certain, it's still a long year and we'll see what happens," he added.