Claremont shining light focused on winning at TigerlandSunday, May 29, 2016 - 8:22 AM - by Chris Pike

DARCY Cameron has been a great shining light in Claremont's WAFL season to date and it could very well lead him to an AFL future, but his focus is firmly on helping get the Tigers back on the winner's list starting Sunday against Swan Districts.

Claremont comes into Sunday's clash at the Showground on the back of five straight losses and despite how competitive the Tigers have been, to remain in the finals race they need to beat Swans in what is their fourth straight match at home.

Cameron is having an outstanding season, though, mixing his time between playing as a key forward and helping out premiership ruckman Mitch Andrews in the middle.

That has seen the 20-year-old so far kick 20 goals for the season from his nine matches while averaging 11.8 possessions, 6.1 marks and 11.8 hit outs as well.

That ability to kick goals, take marks, do well in the ruck and around the ground without question has Cameron in the sights of AFL clubs looking towards 2017, but in the past he has found himself getting too caught up on that dream and now is focusing fully on things at Claremont week to week.

"I just want to keep that stuff behind me and focus on playing well. My focus is on getting wins for Claremont and I want to focus on having a good season and not let thinking about the AFL interrupt me," Cameron told 91.3 SportFM.

"I just want to be the best player I can be for Claremont because I love the club and playing there. If I do that, things might come my way but I don’t want to let that get into my head because it has in the past few years. I just really want to stay focused with Claremont and how the boys are going."

Cameron is happy personally with his start to the season but a lot of hard work has gone into it and over the pre-season there were a couple of areas he really wanted to work hard on to ensure he improved as a player in 2016.

"It's good to get off to a good start to the season personally. I just want to concentrate on the rest of the season now and trying to keep up my consistency," he said.

"I worked hard on being able to improve my follow up work. As soon as the ball hit the ground I wanted to be able to put as much pressure on as I could. I also wanted to kick more goals.

"I know that I can ruck pretty well but I wanted to be able to go down forward and kick goals as well which I have been able to do so far this year."

Despite winning just two games from nine matches this season, Claremont has been competitive in each game it's played and in particular in losses to Peel Thunder, Perth, South Fremantle, Swan Districts and West Perth, it was poor finishes to the contest that cost them victory.

Everyone at Claremont has been trying to work out the answer as to why that has been happening, but Cameron is confident the Tigers can start turning that around and coach Michael Broadbridge is instilling the faith in them that they can.

"There's been a lot of discussion about it and whether it's down to fitness, if we're choking away or whatever it is. But we are always putting in 100 per cent and Broady never doubts us that we can still win those games if we get in the position again," he said.

"We just haven’t been able to pull them off and it's been four or five times where we could have won in the last quarter but haven’t.

"We have addressed it a number of times and it's still not coming together, but hopefully we can pull it together from now on because the window is starting to shut. Hopefully we can start getting a few wins on the board soon."

Cameron also still has no question that Claremont can make a run to play finals again in 2016 after getting into fifth position in 2015. And not only does he think the Tigers can make it, he thinks they can have a big impact once there.

"When we are up and about we can be really dominant. We lost to South Fremantle by a real narrow margin in a game we should have won, which shows what we can do against the top teams," Cameron said.

"Once we get that next win on the board I think we can start being dominant in the second half of the season. The way we have put it together against some of the top sides shows that I think we can make finals, and be pretty dominant there as well."