AFL National Draft 2023: Where are the top 20 of the 1993 draft now, 30 years on?
In 1993, Trent Cummings thought he’d missed out on draft selection altogether, but he’d just missed seeing his name called in the top 10.
AFL
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The order may still be up for debate, but the top 20 picks in Monday’s National Draft are all but agreed upon.
Don’t expect any major surprises anyway, not like there was in 1993.
That draft was full of players who eventually became stars and premiership players.
Try on Nigel Lappin, Chris Johnson and Chris Scott with eight Brisbane Lions premierships between them.
Or Brad Johnson with 364 games and six all-Australian selections for the Western Bulldogs.
But with pick No.6 that year, Fitzroy threw up a major surprise – even to the man himself.
30 years ago, Trent Cummings was working in the stockroom at Savery’s Retravision in suburban Adelaide on the day of the draft.
He’d grown up in Melbourne’s outer-east the son of five-game Hawk Percy Cummings, but had moved to Central Districts in the SANFL for a greater chance at his AFL dream.
“I was in the warehouse, but you’ve got 50 televisions out the front,” he remembered this week.
“So the draft was telecast but I was never invited, I don’t think I was expected to go as high as I did.”
Cummings’ plan was to watch the draft from the store.
“I rolled out (to the showroom) and I think it was about pick 13 or 14 on the telly once I got out there,” he said.
“I think Carlton had 44 or 52 or something like that and they called a name and it wasn’t me and I was devastated because I hadn’t been picked up yet and I was thinking ‘I’m not getting drafted’.
“Then there’s a phone call at the Retravision, I get a call out ‘Trent, can you pick up line one’, and it’s my Mum bawling her eyes out telling me I’m going to Richmond.
“And my brother’s in the background going, ‘No mum, he’s going to Fitzroy’
“So I missed the whole thing.”
Fitzroy were just three years from the eventual merger — or takeover — with the Brisbane Bears, and the massive cracks at the club were already plain to see, including the fire-sale of some of their established stars.
“They gave up Dundas, Gale and Broderick for pick No.6 and they reckon — and I don’t know if it’s true or not – Richmond gave the goal nets behind Punt Road to them and threw that in the deal and so they did it.”
Cummings’ football career started brightly enough at the struggling Roys, but it was ruined by knee injuries — first in the final season of Fitzroy and then again soon after he was given a lifeline by West Coast.
But West Coast was where Cummings met and became good friends with another member of the 1993 draft class, one who ended up with a far more enduring AFL career – Fraser Gehrig.
And that friendship has now become a business partnership with Cummings the accountant recently becoming the Chief Financial Officer at Gehrig’s Tuff Turf and the two establishing Australia’s first synthetic turf recycling company, Re4orm.
And he credits the disappointments of his footy career as leading to his later professional success.
“That’s why you’ve really got to be thankful for Fitzroy,” he said.
They were really dark times, it was hard for kids, 20, 21 to go through it but it taught you resilience, it taught you to keep moving forward and to not give up.”
Cummings has no memories of playing against his fellow 1993 draftees given he bypassed the then TAC Cup to play in the SANFL, but has since learned his and Gehrig’s paths could have been very different.
“Fraser’s uncle is Ross Thornton,” Cummings says.
“And he’s a Fitzroy god and they all thought Fitzroy was going to take Fraser at Pick 6 and Fraser thought he was going to Fitzroy too.”
30 years is a long time in footy, so where are the top 20 from the 1993 AFL National Draft class now?
Originally published as AFL National Draft 2023: Where are the top 20 of the 1993 draft now, 30 years on?
Through the fire: How Rioli found happiness after ‘very dark days’
Willie Rioli’s best footy comes when he’s happy according to his cousin Dean – but there was serious doubt he’d ever get back here. MATT TURNER tells the Port star’s story of perseverance.
Eight years since Port’s last loss to Sydney: Where are they now?
Port has the wood over Sydney – in fact, the Swans haven’t beaten the Power in eight matches. So where are the players from that Swans win in round 20, 2016, now?