As good as our young blokes have been this season, it’s hard to go past Trent West as of our most valuable recruit so far in 2014.

Westy has been enormous for the Club this season since moving across from Geelong.

He made a tough decision to leave the Cats at the end of last season in pursuit of more senior opportunities – but even he couldn’t have predicted the level of responsibility he’d been given in the opening six rounds.

We obviously spent a fair bit of time working with each other on the training track during the pre-season, and even had a couple of weekends away together to help familiarise him with his new environment.

He was expecting to play more as a back-up ruckman, and occasional pinch-hitter up forward.

But circumstances can change pretty quickly in football.

Injuries to myself, Stefan Martin and Sammy Michael has meant that Westy has been forced to shoulder most of the ruck load in recent weeks – and he’ll probably continue to do so for a while yet.

He seems to be relishing the opportunity as well, and boasts career-best figures in just about every area of his game.

He had a season-high 39 hitouts last week against the Saints, but it was a couple of those contested marks and tackles that stood out most for me.

He’s now moved into the AFL’s top 10 in terms of total hitouts, and ranks among the Club leaders in contested marks (second with four), one percenters (fourth with 22), goals (equal fourth with four), and contested possession (ninth with 30).

I’d hate to think where we would have been without him.

Just as importantly, he seems to have settled into the laid back Brisbane lifestyle pretty easily along with his fiancée Libby.

I guess you could say that Westy’s a bit of a country boy who loves camping and fishing, which are both popular activities among a lot of the boys in Brisbane.

He’s even bought a couple of chickens which now roam around his back yard.