AFL Mid-season Draft: Geelong Falcons prospect Will McLachlan on his rise and kicking six in final audition

This mid-season fancy finished with another big haul in his last game before the draft. But he almost didn’t play at all. He sheds light on that and his rapid improvement in the last six months.

Will McLachlan is right in the mid-season draft mix. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos

Performing in your final mid-season draft audition is nerve-racking enough, let alone while under the weather.

But it didn’t seem to faze 185 centimetre Geelong Falcons prospect Will McLachlan on a chilly Autumn evening down in Warrnambool.

“I’ve been a bit crook the last few days so I was a bit nervous about how I was going to go. I spoke to Paul Corrigan our coach earlier in the week and he said, ‘you don’t have to play, it is up to you’,” McLachlan said.

“If it works out Wednesday, I just wanted to have one last game with the boys and hopefully get a win and it all worked out pretty good.”

‘Pretty good’ for the powerful forward would be a day out for anyone else: six goals, three behind (two of which hit the post) and three contested marks in the Falcons’ 36-point win over the GWV Rebels, strengthening his mid-season draft chances in the process.

Compared to the rest of his barnstorming over-age year, it is relatively stock standard, though.

The Colac talent leads the Talent League goalkicking with 26 goals in six games, with his latest haul his fourth bag of five goals or more – having slotted 5.3 against the Rebels earlier in the season, 6.2 in their win over Murray Bushrangers, and five straight in a loss to Calder Cannons.

It is a far cry from his draft year in 2023, where he managed 19 goals across 13 games for the Falcons and wasn’t on the radar of AFL clubs last November.

Will McLachlan celebrates a goal during the Falcons’ preliminary final. Picture: Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Fast forward six months and the strong-marking goalkicker shapes as one of the top mid-season draft candidates, meeting with half of the clubs in the competition in the lead-up.

Falcons coach Paul Corrigan believes he deserves his chance at the next level.

“I don’t think he can do much more than what he has done,” Corrigan said.

“He has been super consistent through the six games we’ve played and I think he has got the attributes with his athleticism and the way he plays to step into an AFL environment and really absorb it.”

McLachlan is still pinching himself that he in this position and could become an AFL player on Wednesday night.

Fortunately he has had his good mate Tobyn Murray, who he has played with through the ranks at Colac and then the Geelong Falcons, to lean on.

Murray has also attracting mid-season draft interest after a hot start to the season for Geelong’s VFL side.

“It has been a little bit surprising for me. I was pretty aware of the ability I had, but to put it all into a game is something I really worked on this year. It has all been pretty surreal, but it has been great,” McLachlan said.

“You never know what clubs are sort of looking for. Anything can happen in the mid-season draft so I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself and just taking it step by step really.

“It has been good being able to go through the whole process with ‘Tobes’. He has been really positive and he has been really good for me this year.

“(Getting drafted) would be massive for me, it has been a lifelong dream for me since I have been a little kid and if my name gets read out on Wednesday night it will be pretty incredible.”

Tobyn Murray also played with McLachlan for the Young Guns. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos

McLachlan showed some exciting glimpses of his potential in the Falcons’ finals runs with hauls of four, three and two in consecutive games on the big stage.

And during the Falcons’ bye weeks, Colac coach Rowan McSparron gave McLachlan the opportunity to play senior footy with the Tigers in the Geelong Football Netball League.

“I think I started playing some good footy off the back of last year in the finals series and that probably helped me with a bit of confidence coming into this year,” McLachlan said.

“Just having a bit more experience than the rest of the league and I think that has really helped me with confidence coming into the year.

“I think even just getting used to the bigger bodies and playing with adults has really helped me with my development. It has been massive for me playing a bit of senior footy last year.

“He (McSparron) has been great, even just giving me opportunities to play in the senior side when we’ve got weeks off and he has been pretty good for me and Tobyn and some of the other boys in the Falcons side.”

McLachlan is one of several Geelong products in the mix to be taken on Wednesday night, with Murray, Falcons and Geelong VFL ruckman Joe Pike, Anakie sensation Ajang Kuol mun and Falcons playmaker Liam Kershaw all under the eye of AFL clubs.

Originally published as AFL Mid-season Draft: Geelong Falcons prospect Will McLachlan on his rise and kicking six in final audition