BLACK'S 100TH GAME ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT MILESTONE IN YOUNG CAREER

HAVING already played in a premiership, played State football and won a Sandover Medal, Aaron Black has crammed a career full of achievements into his first 99 games, but the West Perth midfielder is far from content as he prepares for his 100th match at just 22 years of age.

Black made his debut back in Round 16, 2010 and has come a long way from the small, tagging midfielder on that cold and wet night at Fremantle Oval as he played in a heavy West Perth defeat.

He has barely missed a match ever since making his debut as a 17-year-old and now ever since has put together a remarkable career that he deserves a lot of credit for with the hard work and dedication he has put in to continue improve his football in all areas.

Black has now become one of, it not the hardest running player in the WAFL and that is a big reason why he continues to rack up big possession numbers as he prepares to play game No. 100 for the Falcons this Saturday against Claremont at HBF Arena.

At just 22, it's quite an achievement for Black and considering along the way he played in the 2013 premiership, won the 2014 Sandover Medal and has represented Western Australia in both 2013 and 2015, wins over Victoria and South Australia, he's crammed a lot into the 100 games.

Black feels fortunate to have been given his chance to play league football as a 17-year-old back in 2010 and for Bill Monaghan and the coaching staff to have stuck with him since, and he is now excited to reach 100 games while still feeling as though he's early on in his career.

"Obviously you consider yourself pretty lucky and humbled to now be about to become a 100-game player at a footy club," Black said.

"Even just before I started my journey, I didn’t think that I would have played this amount of footy by the time I'm still 22 so to get to that point now and to have achieved some pretty special things with winning the premiership by far my favourite, I consider myself very lucky.

"I was pretty lucky early on when I had to play in the State 18s team before I was able to play senior footy as an underage player, and I was lucky enough that we had a late withdrawal for a night game against South Fremantle. I got a late call up when I think it was Kepler Bradley got called up to play for Fremantle and I ended up getting my shot.

"From that point on, I've never really looked back and have tried to make sure that I continue to work on all areas of my game to show the coaching staff that I want to keep learning at training, and be fit and get fitter. Once I got that opportunity and got a taste of it, I didn’t want to let it go."

Black's entire career has been played under West Perth's longest ever serving coach Bill Monaghan. While they haven’t always seen eye to eye, Black has no doubt that Monaghan has been great for his career development and that in turn he's given his all as a player.

"Bill has been my coach all of my career and we have a very good relationship. It's developed from when we first started to now, and you always probably think you are further ahead than you actually are and Bill definitely kept me ground and made sure that he pushed me, and he keeps doing that now," he said.

"Me being the driven person that I am, having a coach that is on your own back and pushing you all the time to get better frustrated me at times, but it has really helped me develop and continue to want to get better to show him that I was improving. Our relationship has developed and I think we are at a point now where we have a very good respect for each other.

"We understand what it takes to get to the top level as a team because we've been there before and we know what we have to do as a senior player and coach to help make that happen, and to drive the rest of the team to get us there. I really appreciate Bill and the coaching staff back then giving me the opportunity to play league footy, and to constantly show faith in me the last six years and hopefully I'm repaying him more consistently with my form now."

While Black feels fortunate to have played with a host of star veteran West Perth players early in his career, he has no doubt that the influence that 213-game star and two-time premiership player (one as captain) Jason Salecic has had as big an impact on the growth in his career as anybody.

"Jason Salecic has been amazing in helping me develop and grow as a footballer, and as a person. I was only 16, turning 17, when I got into the senior system here and he took me under his wing," he said.

"He might have seen a few similarities in himself to me as the smaller, chunkier kid and someone who just wanted to work really hard.

"He was a blessing for me to have someone of his stature as a two-time premiership player and one of the top 25 players in the last 25 years in the WAFL to see something in me, it meant a lot and I learned so much from him.

"We have a great bond as premiership teammates and every time I see him now we have a very good chat, and I love catching up with him. I couldn’t be more grateful for what he's done for my football career and my life as well."

The difference between his debut on a terribly wet and cold night at Fremantle Oval to this Saturday at HBF Arena in front of supporters, family and friends, and on familiar territory is stark and Black now can't wait to get out there knowing that a win for the Falcons to stay second is the most important thing.

"If you look back to when I started my career and we played South Fremantle at Fremantle Oval on a Friday night and I saw more rain in half an hour than in the six years since, this Saturday will be a lot different," Black said.

"I hope it's a nice clear day, we are playing at home and hopefully we can get a win over Claremont because we lost back on that night by 64 points. It's an extremely important game against Claremont who since they beat us earlier in the year for their first win of the season have been in really good nick.

"We've been really good the last four or five weeks and were unlucky not to beat Swan Districts last week, but I'm pretty excited to get out there on Saturday and put on a good performance for the crowd and to get a win because that's the most important thing. We need to put ourselves in a good position to play in the finals again after missing out last year, so this game is a stepping stone to making that happen."