Collingwood’s Ben Sinclair has been named the AFL’s round 11 Rising Star nominee.

The Magpies small forward had 12 possessions, took five marks and topped Collingwood’s goalkicking with three goals in the Magpies’ 42-point victory over Melbourne in the Queen’s Birthday match at the MCG on Monday.

Sinclair, 20, has played every game in 2012, and drew special praise from coach Nathan Buckley for grabbing his AFL opportunity.

“In the first half of this year Ben has consistently been impacting on games for us,” Buckley said.

“His contested footy, his pressure on the opposition and his ability to regularly get on the scoreboard have become really valuable and important to our flexibility.

“Right now he’s one of our first picked, certainly one of the first picked of our small forwards.”

The 20-year-old was selection 62 in the 2009 AFL draft and played 14 games for Collingwood’s VFL side in 2010. He suffered a fractured leg in early 2011 that delayed his AFL debut until Round 19, before playing the last three rounds and being an emergency for the grand final.