Mackie booted three goals on Sunday in the win over Melbourne at Skilled Stadium and joins Kane Tenace as Geelong nominee for the AFL’s premier rookie award in 2004.
He has been a lucky charm of sorts for the Cats, playing every match since making his debut against Sydney in round three, which represented the club's turnaround in fortune after losing the opening two matches of the season.
"We lost that one but we've won three or four since out of my six games so I might have to tell Bomber to keep me on," he joked on Tuesday.
"Since the Sydney game, although we lost by a goal ... we've pretty much had a good six weeks and I think we're just growing in confidence and believing in ourselves. I hadn't thought about it (the award) too much, but I suppose you'd rather have it than not so it's good," he added.
The 19-year-old didn’t take the traditional path to the top. He was a talented cricketer in Adelaide who played most of his junior football at school before being spotted by the Cats at a screening camp for players who did not make it to the National AFL Draft Camp.
Taken with the seventh pick overall at the 2002 National AFL Draft, MacKie spent the whole of last season with Geelong’s VFL team before making the step up this year and is loving being out there amongst the elite.
"It's always been a dream to be playing out there and running around with these great players and superstars. It's been everything I expected."
"It's a lot quicker and you get hurt a lot more by the opposition if you make a mistake. The bodies are much stronger as well, there are a lot of younger kids running around in the VFL, skinny kids like myself."
He has already reached his goal of playing five games in 2004.
With Tom Harley and Matthew Scarlett notching up their 100-game milestones against Essendon this weekend, a match pushing for match-of-the-round status, Mackie is keen to give his two teammates a fitting night to celebrate.
"It's a big game for us this week. It's a big day for ‘Harles’ and ‘Scarlo’ so we want to do it for them. We obviously want to play finals and that's where got to get to. We've just got to keep playing the good brand of footy that's beating teams."
