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Cornelius is the latest newcomer to the senior ranks after impressing both as a key forward and key defender with the Lions Reserves side in recent weeks.
The 192cm Tasmanian will become the third Lions player to make his senior debut in the past four weeks.
It promises to be a tall order for the Glenorchy product who will likely be used in a key defensive post opposed to either Nick Riewoldt or Justin Koschitzke.
Coincidentally, Cornelius played his first match with the Lions in Round One of the 2009 AFL NAB Cup competition against this Sunday’s opponents – St Kilda.
Heroes turn villains for debutant
By Jennifer Witham
10:01 AM Mon 25 May, 2009
THERE was no better club for young Brisbane Lion Aaron Cornelius to make his debut against than St Kilda.
The 18-year-old Tasmanian has led a life punctuated with links to the Saints, culminating with his first league game against them on Sunday.
A childhood St Kilda supporter, Cornelius held club icons such as Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke in high esteem. He thought all his Christmases had come at once when one year, Riewoldt attended a camp on the Apple Isle.
"I was a mad supporter at the time, and I went along and had a bit of one-on-one with him," Cornelius enthused, after his debut match in round nine.
"He landed on my toe and broke it, so I ripped his t-shirt."
Riewoldt remembered the incident, and reminded Cornelius of it after they shared the Saints' attacking half for much of Sunday's match.
Koschitzke, who was the youngster's opponent for the first half, also extended conversation after the final siren.
"After the game, he asked me how many games I'd played and I said it was my first one. He told me to keep at it and good luck for the rest of the year," he said.
"It was good to have that at the end of the game. Growing up and supporting them and then playing against them was fantastic."
Cornelius also played with Riewoldt's cousin Jack in their native Tasmania. In even more links to the red, white and black club, his childhood hero was Robert Harvey, he spent a week at Moorabbin during his time with the AIS Academy, and played his first NAB Cup match against Ross Lyon's men.
And on Sunday, he was part of the Lions' second-half revival that nearly handed the Saints their first loss for the season.
"I came off the bench to rotate and slipped on, and was lucky enough to get one over the back that was a bit of a fluke," he said of his first goal, which came at the 12-minute mark of the third term.
"It was an adjustment [going forward], but to get the opportunity to play down back in the seconds and to then have the opportunity to play in the senior level was very good.
"I'm very happy they put their trust in me to have a go there, and hopefully I move on from that."
Cornelius' parents, David and Gaylene, were at Sunday's game, as was his younger sister. He gestured for them to join him in the rooms post-siren, but the family was headed to the airport to catch a Hobart-bound flight.
He said he relished the opportunity to see them on Saturday night, after making a tough move north following last year's draft.
"It was a bit daunting at the start, being away from my family, but the club has been fantastic and I've fit in well ... I'm loving it up there at the moment," he said.
Cornelius said while he had been nervous and "played a game of footy in bed" on Saturday night, his debut had been a day to remember.
"I'm still just coming off a high at the moment," he said.
"It was exhilarating ... It was a good challenge to play on someone like Koschitzke.
"You model your game growing up on people like that, and to play on him and then go forward was fantastic."
WHILE Michael Voss was bitterly disappointed Brisbane fell just short of becoming the first team to claim St Kilda's scalp this season, the performance of a pride of young Lions shows his side may again rule the jungle in seasons to come.
The most notable performance from a member of Brisbane's future came from debutant Aaron Cornelius, who was given a first-game task few of such inexperience are granted.
The young Tasmanian spent the first half manning Justin Koschitzke, a big task for even the most accomplished of defenders given the Saint has returned to his best form during his side's outstanding start to the year.
Consider the deficits Cornelius, who was taken at pick 57 in last year's national draft, was conceding to Koschitzke: six centimetres in height, a hefty 14kg in weight, nine seasons and 126 games of experience plus 139 goals.
Yet the young Lion proved serviceable, restricting his opponent to one goal to half-time before swapping positions with no less than Daniel Bradshaw, Brisbane's record-holding goalkicker, in the second half.
It proved a masterstroke from Voss, with Bradshaw moving on to St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt to curb his influence, freeing the more experienced Joel MacDonald to take Koschitzke.
Rather than be satisfied with a solid outing in defence, Cornelius, who was Tasmania's leading goalkicker in the national under-18 championship last year, soon proved a handful in attack as Brisbane seized the momentum in the third term.
St Kilda kicked two of the first three goals of the quarter to establish a 14-point lead but Cornelius showed an ability to read the game when roving a pack to kick his first goal.
However, it was his ability to take a strong pack mark in the goalsquare 10 minutes later and notch a second that showed Brisbane has a player of great potential on its list.
"I think you have seen the fact that (he has) clean hands," Voss said.
"That is what he can do."
Sporting Life
Peter Hanlon
May 26, 2009
The long haul to an AFL debut
HAD her feet actually touched the ground in the past few days, Gaylene Cornelius might have pondered that old line about how fast they grow up. Five years ago, there was her little boy Aaron, beaming alongside his hero Nick Riewoldt, at a St Kilda camp in Hobart. Then on Sunday, there he was alongside Riewoldt again — only this time chasing him around Etihad Stadium in his debut for the Brisbane Lions. Speaking to Greg Baum after the game, Cornelius recalled Riewoldt falling on his 13-year-old foot that week, breaking his toe — a fact the Saint remembered when their paths crossed after the siren on Sunday. His mum, meanwhile, has quite possibly broken something else — a record for the most kilometres travelled to see your son make his AFL debut. "Gaylene actually went up to Brisbane on Thursday — we thought he was playing in the rezzies, and she'd booked the trip a long time ago," David Cornelius said of his wife yesterday. "The flight into Melbourne got cancelled because of fog, so she flew into Canberra, waited there four hours, then while she was in the air to Brisbane it came through that AC was in the seniors. The club were good enough to fly her back down to Melbourne on Saturday morning for the game."
Aaron Cornelius and his then hero, now opponent Nick Riewoldt at a camp five years ago.
Beating the crowd
DAVID, Gaylene and 14-year-old daughter Rhea caught up with Aaron on Saturday night, but father and sister had to bolt to Tullamarine straight after the game the following evening and couldn't get down to the rooms. "We had to get out of there with 30,000 people, get our bags out of the lockers at the bus station, and catch the bus to be on a quarter-to-seven plane," David said. Gaylene, meanwhile, had to fly back to Brisbane to pick up the return leg of her ticket, while Aaron stayed in Melbourne with about half the team to attend a sponsors' function. "The good thing was Beau McDonald was on her flight, and he gave Gaylene a ride home (to Aaron's place in Brisbane). AC's flight got delayed, they didn't get home until after midnight. I spoke to her this morning and said, 'Did you hear Aaron come home?' She said, 'No, I was out to it, tucked up in bed asleep.' " Gaylene will fly home today, touching down with about 6500 kilometres behind her since she left home on Thursday. David will be back in Melbourne to see the Lions play North Melbourne on Saturday, and might come over a day earlier to help Aaron celebrate his 19th birthday. He couldn't say for sure that Gaylene would be with him. "She might be all flown out by then."
Cornelius on debut
Tassie pair's shock axing
29/05/2009 12:00:00 AM
ONE of Tasmanian football's modern champs and one of its emerging ones have been dumped from their sides in twin AFL selection table shocks last night.
Penguin footballer Russell Robertson, long the mainstay of the Melbourne forward line, has been dropped for Saturday's clash against top side St Kilda, just a month after returning from a long-term ankle injury.
At the other end of his career, Hobart footballer Aaron Cornelius did a solid job on St Kilda's two most damaging tall forwards last week, and kicked two goals himself, but was still dropped from the Brisbane side to play North Melbourne.
