Payne excited for his upcoming move to Melbourne

Payne is making the move to Melbourne next year for university and has signed with the Essendon District Football League (EDFL) club for 2024.

The young forward is excited ahead of his impending move and was hoping to have a successful year with Avondale next season.

"Yeah it'll be good," Payne said.

"Originally I was looking to do some VFL next year but I went over to the (United) States for three weeks and the tryouts were while I was away so it didn't really fall into place.

"But the bloke who was helping me get into there at Port Melbourne was an ex-president of Avondale Heights so they were going to be my feeder club if I didn't play VFL.

"When VFL kind of fell through I just went to them and they were lovely, they helped me out heaps and they are going to help me get some part-time work.

"They seemed really good so I had no reason not to sign with them really."

Despite missing out on VFL football for next season, Payne was not giving up on playing in the state league competition in the not too distant future.

"I'd love to have a good year at Avondale and then maybe get a VFL pre-season under my belt," he said.

"You always want to strive to play at the highest level of footy and I think VFL would be a good eye opener.

"I'd love to do it at the end of next year."

Having played all of his footy at the Swans, Payne was looking forward to coming up against new opponents and playing at different venues.

"It'll be good to play footy at a different oval in a different league and I'll have no idea who I'm versing," he said.

"It'll be a good opportunity and an eye opener to meet some new fellas, I'm looking forward to it."

Payne was pretty happy with how the past season had gone from an individual standpoint despite falling narrowly short of premiership success with the Swans.

"It was an up and down year," he said.

"I didn't have the year I wanted with the Giants obviously as at the start of the year the dream is to get drafted.

"It was my draft year and our Giants year was good we just didn't quite have the squad we needed, but I was alright and personally I was pretty happy with it.

"Then the Swans year was good, we obviously made the grand final but fell short."

While predominantly playing as a forward, Payne has also showcased an ability to be quite influential in defence while also spending some time in the midfield with the Giants.

Payne believed that he would primarily be used as a forward with his new club, but wasn't opposed to playing wherever he was needed.

"I think I've signed as a forward," he said.

"I'm pretty sure I'll play on the forward flank as they've signed a centre half forward and hopefully I'm on the flank because I can run up and down the ground a bit more.

"But I'm happy to play anywhere and if I was to head down back there's no problem with that at all."

The Swans enjoyed a stellar run in 2023 and Payne admitted that it was hard to leave his junior club after having experienced a bit of success this past season.

"Yeah it is," he said.

"We've built there for three years and we won one game in the first season and the a few the year after.

"To then have the year we had having signed a few players and really giving it a good crack it is hard.

"But you've got to move on and play somewhere else and it'll be good to leave but I'll be keeping an eye on how they are going."