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Trends in AFL recruiting can take years to become apparent, but one that has been increasingly obvious in recent times is the concept of the ruckman as the late developer.
It was underlined again over the past week as clubs passed over opportunities to take ruckmen early in last Friday's national draft, but in Monday's rookie version were prepared to roll the dice, with five ruckmen among the first-round selections.
History would suggest it's probably a smart move, too. For some of the best ruckman we've seen in the modern era have emerged from a draft initially a bit of an afterthought. And some more-than-handy types who played other positions as well.
We've had a crack at putting together a "best of" team from players whose introduction to AFL football came via the rookie draft, and it's a handy line-up, to say the least, starting at the centre bounce.
We've gone for a WA duo in Dean Cox and Aaron Sandilands, a pair with three best and fairests and no fewer than 10 All-Australian gongs between them. Eight seasons in a row between 2005 and 2012, one or the other was the No.1 ruckman in the team of the year.
Yet there have been plenty more quality ruckmen where they came from in the rookie draft. Four more premiership players for starters: Darren Jolly, Sydney pair Shane Mumford and Mike Pyke, and basketballer-turned-footballer Dean Brogan, part of Port Adelaide's 2004 flag side. Not to mention Sam Jacobs, Josh Jenkins and Mark Jamar.
A team spanning two decades' worth of rookie draft selections should offer enough hope to those picked up on Monday that they can forge decent AFL careers. It also backs up some stereotypes about the type of player who forces his way into the system via the draft's last-chance saloon.
This squad had no shortage of hard-working midfielders and determined defenders. Far more difficult was coming up with some key forwards, supporting the theory that most quality key forwards are taken as earlyish national draft selections.
The biggest contrast in that regard is this side's spearhead, James Podsiadly, who three times was selected in rookie drafts over a period of 10 years by first Essendon, then Collingwood, then Geelong, with whom he eventually made his debut at 28, going on to play in the Cats' 2011 premiership team.
Small forwards haven't been so much an issue, with one of the best of all time, St Kilda's Stephen Milne, taken by the Saints in the 2000 rookie draft after playing in an Essendon reserves premiership.
And, if the Western Bulldogs needed another pat on the back, there's one here, too, the Doggies with the most representatives in the team of "harder road" draftees – Dale Morris, Matthew Boyd, Liam Picken and Luke Dahlhaus.
Hard work and the right attitude might not take you all the way to AFL stardom, but that quartet's four premiership medallions, and the 21 this team has now won collectively, are a fair body of evidence that those picked on AFL lists as rookies have done far more than just make up the numbers.
Hard work and the right attitude might not take you all the way to AFL stardom, but that quartet's four premiership medallions, and the 21 this team has now won collectively, are a fair body of evidence that those picked on AFL lists as rookies have done far more than just make up the numbers.
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