Mason Cox Continues to Destroy Australia

Since Mason Cox was called up to the big boy club of Collingwood, the Magpies have gone 3-2 in the AFL after starting out the year with a 1-3 mark.

“We’re back in the season now off the last couple of weeks, and we come up against the Bulldogs next week,” said head coach Nathan Buckley.

“We’ll welcome any tests if we’re prepared to bring that work rate and that effort. On occasions, earlier this year, we just didn’t bring our best to the table.”

I’m not going to pretend like I totally know what’s going on here, but Mason seems to have been a bit of a revelation for Collingwood. He scored again on Saturday as the Magpies blew out Geelong in spectacular fashion.

Mason Cox has a look around, takes a bounce and finishes coolly! #ohwhatafeeling #AFLPiesCats https://t.co/rBnmkx90ot

— AFL (@AFL) May 21, 2016

Here’s Tim Burke of Deadspin explaining what happened.

Cox takes a mark late in the game, and finding no defenders around him elects to go for a running bounce—in Aussie rules, you can’t run more than 15 meters without “dribbling”—which is one of the sport’s most difficult skills to develop. Watching AFL noob Cox do it, then, en route to a goal that more-or-less sealed a Collingwood win, thrilled everybody

Mason said he was just trying to not screw up the moment. But it was a little bit bigger than he let on.

Took me15 years @CarltonFC to learn to do this, less than 5 games for @masonsixtencox @CollingwoodFC….fantastic! pic.twitter.com/mX7tnxRZ5z

— Justin Madden (@JMadden2015) May 21, 2016

#piesinprint makes for good reading this morning… https://t.co/ofTU9b1FyT Recap the weekend's wins. #sidebyside pic.twitter.com/U5uLgRcYpK

— Collingwood FC (@CollingwoodFC) May 23, 2016

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at any of this. Mason is a great athlete (though not the best in his family) and the 6’10 body combined with past soccer skills are basically the perfect potion for a supreme AFL player. But that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

Mason Cox is taking over Australia playing a sport I barely knew existed six months ago. What a world indeed.