Forget a $50,000 contract — Simon Luhrs didn’t even get a pair of Hawthorn socks when he was drafted

Former Brisbane Bear Simon Luhrs was one of six SANFL players called in the last mid-season AFL draft, in 1993. Out of loyalty to Central District, Luhrs declined an immediate move and was later delisted by the Hawks and 26 years on, holds no regrets

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SIMON Luhrs is still waiting for his Hawthorn team socks to lob.

“Plus, I don’t hear about any past player reunions,” the former Central District key forward grins. “They haven’t invited me for a tour of the facilities, nothing — and they call themselves the ‘family club’.”

It was 26 years ago when the AFL staged the last of its mid-season drafts, in June of the 1993 season.

Unlike tomorrow’s reprised mid-season rookie draft, there was no nomination list, no guaranteed $50,000 contracts and no dedicated Fox Footy channel beaming the selections, stats and analysis live across the country.

“First I heard of it, I reckon it was Alan Joyce from Hawthorn who called me up and said ‘We’ve just had the draft, we’ve picked you, and the next conversation is are you interested in coming across?’,” Luhrs says.

“I certainly didn’t nominate for it — I think anyone who had been delisted from an AFL club in the previous couple of years just automatically went into the pile.

“I was aware the draft was coming up, but it wasn’t a big deal. I was as surprised as anyone to be called out.”

Former Central District player Simon Luhrs was part of the AFL's final mid-season draft in 1993.

In all, 32 men won selection in that ‘93 mid-season draft, six of whom were playing in the SANFL at the time — No. 1 pick Matthew Ahmat (Sydney, from Norwood), Tony Lynn (Carlton, from Centrals), Tim Perkins (Adelaide, from North Adelaide), Damian Ryan (Brisbane, from Port Adelaide), Cristian O’Brien (Geelong, from Norwood) and Luhrs.

Of those six, three played AFL as a result of their selection — Ahmat featured in two more AFL games in the 1994 season to add to his six previous appearances with Brisbane, Lynn played 27 times with Carlton and O’Brien posted a single game in each of the 1994 and 1995 seasons with the Cats.

Simon Luhrs during a SANFL match for Central District in 1993.

“But I never even went over,” says Luhrs, now co-owner and director at successful Adelaide recruitment company Red Appointments.

“I’d just come out of the (AFL) system with Brisbane when I came here to Centrals, and I certainly wasn’t focusing on the mid-season draft or anything like that.

“Once I’d made a commitment I was never going to walk out six or seven weeks into the season. Just didn’t seem right.

“We (Central) lost an elimination final to Norwood in ‘93 and after that I hung around for 30 days waiting to see what was happening (with Hawthorn) — and then I got the flick.

“Didn’t even get a pair of socks.”

Luhrs, 48, was part of the 1990s Doggies generation that, under coach Alan Stewart, built the platform for a SANFL dynasty that would stretch to nine SANFL premierships from 12 successive grand final appearances.

He retired following the 1999 season — the year before Centrals’ grand final domination began — but was part of the Dogs’ breakthrough flag in 2000 as an assistant coach under Peter Jonas.

Luhrs had arrived at the Ponderosa for 1993 having completed that year’s pre-season with Brisbane, only to be delisted on the eve of Round 1.

A Brisbane native, and one of four boys in his family, Luhrs was a standout junior before joining the Queensland club as a zone selection in an age when the “Good-time Bears” were in full swing.

Traditional Monday road trips with Croweater Matty Campbell after training involving a few cold beers on the return drive from Carrara to Brisbane also included a then 16-year-old Michael Voss.

“On the way back to Brisbane we’d get stop and get a couple, and Matty would say, ‘a glass of milk for the kid in the back’,” he laughs.

“Matty used to get into him, but he said right back then that Vossy would win a Brownlow one day.”

Footballers Simon Luhrs, Corey Bell and Craig Potter were Central District’s recruits from the Brisbane Bears in the 1993 SANFL season.

Luhrs registered 12 AFL games with Brisbane, six in each of the 1991 and 1992 seasons. His sole victory came in Round 3 of the 1992 season, against Fitzroy.

“That day I played centre half-back on Paul Abbott, who used to be the old Hawthorn tall, and halfway through the first quarter he went to play on and I knocked the ball out of his hands,” Luhrs says.

“So he got a 50m penalty and kicked the goal. Robert Walls was our coach, so he dragged me — and in those days there was two on the bench and no rotations like there is today.

“One bloke got taken to hospital, so I ended up sitting on the bench for the rest of the game, three quarters, on my own.

“That was the only AFL win I had. I went in to sing the song afterwards — so you can imagine, there wasn’t a whole lot of motivation.”

Luhrs’ unexpected second chance at the big time came following a State of Origin game, representing a combined Queensland-Northern Territory side against Tasmania, in early June of 1993.

He played centre half-forward, in tandem with Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall, who would go on to kick 123 goals for the Hawks in that remarkable AFL season.

The Queensland-NT team beat a Tasmania side boasting Alastair Lynch, Gale brothers Brendon and Michael, and Paul Williams, by six goals.

Eagles player Glenn Freeborn marks despite the efforts of Simon Luhrs during a 1994 SANFL match at Woodville Oval.

“I was fortunate enough to get a kick, and we won,” Luhrs says.

“That game was on the Sunday and Hawthorn picked me up in the draft on the Tuesday.

“I don’t know if Dunstall had anything to do with it, but he’s a good fella. I had roomed with him for a State of Origin game the year before in Sydney.

“I remember Alastair Lynch played for Tassie, he was their gun. He played full forward with the wind and full back against it.”

Having refused to break his own commitment to Central District, Luhrs remains at odds with the concept of a mid-season AFL draft that compromises premiership campaigns of state-league clubs by cherry-picking valuable players.

“I’m not a fan at all,” Luhrs says. “I think it’s a bad thing.

“Once a player has committed to a club for the year he should stay there. I think it’s all about the AFL, and it really doesn’t have much consideration for the leagues underneath.

“It’s a hard gig in those leagues to get players nowadays, particularly from interstate. To do all the work and all the expense to bring players into your club, to have that taken away with no real respect, I don’t think it’s good.

“It’s very one dimensional and very selfish (of the AFL), to be honest. They want the leagues to feed up and groom players, then they do that to them.”