AFL Mid-Season Draft 2021: Collingwood recruits Sturt livewire Ash Johnson from SANFL
Collingwood mid-season recruit Ash Johnson has taken the same path to the AFL as his high-flying Adelaide Crows brother Shane McAdam.
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Ash Johnson reckons he jumped so high his head almost hit the ceiling when Collingwood called his name in Wednesday night’s mid-season rookie draft.
It is a fitting image, considering the 23-year-old Sturt forward’s aerial ability is a key attribute that has helped seal his rise from remote Western Australia to the elite level.
Just two years ago, Johnson was playing division two amateur football in Adelaide with Scotch Old Collegians.
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Before that, the 193cm talent was in Perth, having moved there from Halls Creek, a town of about 1500 people in the Kimberleys now boasting six players on AFL lists.
On Wednesday night, Johnson was watching the draft at home with his girlfriend and his brother, Crows forward Shane McAdam.
McAdam took the same path – from Halls Creek to Perth to Scotch Old Collegians then Sturt and the AFL – while providing inspiration to Johnson that he too could make it.
“We almost jumped and hit our head on the roof when we heard my name,” Johnson told The Advertiser.
“It’s just unreal – I’m trying to wrap my head around it.
“Ask me back then (at Scotch Old Collegians) and I wouldn’t say I’d be where I am now today.
“But I had the support and family and the pathway Shane set.”
Averaging 2.2 goals and 6.2 marks per game this season, Johnson will help boost the AFL’s second-lowest scoring attack.
He will also be Collingwood’s sole Indigenous player in its men’s squad.
Johnson had a feeling on Wednesday the Magpies, sitting 16th on the ladder with a 2-9 record, would draft him, despite there also being interest from Gold Coast.
His thought was confirmed when he received a text message from Collingwood a few minutes before being selected.
He kept the news to himself, leaving it as a surprise to his girlfriend and McAdam.
“I’m just stoked to be on board,” he said.
Johnson is 12cm taller than McAdam and is considered a better contested mark.
Asked who takes the bigger screamers, Johnson said: “definitely me”.
Johnson estimated he had more than 100 wellwishing messages from friends and family.
“My phone, it’s just going off,” he said.
Johnson, who played in a division three flag with Scotch Old Collegians in 2018 and was a Crows top-up player the next year, said reaching the AFL had always been his goal.
“But it wasn’t easy – if it was everyone would be there,” he said.
“There were tough times but I got over it and finally, here I am.
“I’ll bring everything I’ve got and want to show the AFL system I’m ready to be out there.”
Tigers dig up another rough diamond in draft surprise
Richmond has sensationally revived the AFL career of St Kilda discard Matthew Parker in an attempt to write another mid-season draft fairytale.
Two years after taking premiership midfielder Marlion Pickett, the Tigers plucked one of his former South Fremantle teammates in a bid to add an instant hit to Richmond’s forward line.
Parker, 25, made a huge statement about his desire to rejoin AFL ranks at the weekend with a superb performance in the WAFL, slotting four goals from 26 possessions and nine marks.
It continued his brilliant season in the west as a dynamic goal kicker and evasive playmaker who is highly-rated for his hardness and aerial marking.
Parker’s selection emerged as the story of the AFL’s mid-season draft on Wednesday night as the Tigers turned to another rough draft diamond in their hunt for three consecutives flags.
Senior club consultant Neil Balme said the 187cm Parker had been on the club’s radar for several years.
“We have been watching him play and we like the way he plays,” Balme said.
“He has been playing pretty well so we thought it was worth giving him the shot.
“We try not to just give up on people because something has happened at some stage and we think they deserve a second chance at times.
“We will back him in, he has got a wife and a couple of kids and we will help him with all of that (move back to Victoria).”
Parker, who played 19 games over two seasons at St Kilda before getting the chop last year, has spoken openly the challenges he faced throughout a tough upbringing.
Parker was raised by his grandparents for a period and said he hit a low point in his life after the passing of his grandfather.
“I hit a bit of a rock down in the dirt, and then Nan helped me find my feet and rose up from that,” Parker said in a 2019 story with the Herald Sun’s Lauren Wood.
For a while, things went off the rails, saying he was “doing things I shouldn’t be doing” before he began to knuckle down.
“I just ran amok down at footy, partying and just doing what young boys do — I wasn’t really caring about my future,” Parker said.
But Richmond has shown a penchant for taking players others may have written off and will look to bring him quickly up to speed at training in the coming weeks to be available for selection in the back half of the year.
And Parker remains driven by his young family, saying in his first year at Moorabbin “I want to give my son a good life, not the life I had. I had to learn the hard way.”
But former Tiger and Adelaide livewire Tyson Stengle was unable to find a new home on Wednesday night as he attempts to bounce back from some off-field misdemeanours.
Former Collingwood and St Kilda midfielder Nathan Freeman was also left on the shelf despite being linked to the Tigers after a prolific start to the VFL season.
Hawks deny pulling swifty to get their man
Hawthorn denies it was playing games with Jai Newcombe’s contract demands when it swooped on the ready-made Box Hill midfielder with the second overall selection.
The Hawks landed an impressive one-two punch in Wednesday night’s mid-season draft when they secured hard-nosed ballwinner Newcombe, 20 and red-hot SANFL key forward Jackson Callow, 19, with their two selections.
Callow, who leads the SANFL for contested marks, helps replenish Hawthorn’s key forward stocks after the departure of Jonathan Patton, with recruiting chief Mark McKenzie saying the club “couldn’t ignore his overall impact”.
“He (Callow) is aggressive, kicks goals and to have an impact like that in a senior competition, it is impressive for a 19-year-old,” McKenzie said.
“He has definitely got the physical capabilities to match it with senior guys.”
But it was the chase for Newcombe which attracted headlines all week and raised the ire of rival clubs who looked to swoop if the Hawks passed on him with their first pick.
Newcombe put a price on his head, including an inflated salary in his second year, to help ward off rivals.
McKenzie said it was well within players’ rights to bump up their terms when they were giving up their regular jobs for a $50,000 playing contract through the midseason draft.
“You can understand why players do that with the uncertainty of shorter term contracts and it is up to clubs to agree with that (player’s demands) or not,” McKenzie said.
“There has been some interesting commentary about it.
“We rated him highly and we liked what we have seen. For us to pick him at two is because that’s where we had him in our order.
“We think he can impact not only in the long term but also in the short term as well.”
McKenzie said Newcombe, who has averaged 23 possessions and seven tackles a game in the VFL, had thrived under Box Hill coach Sam Mitchell.
“Every now and then he (Mitchell) would come into my office and just remind me how well he was going,” McKenzie said.
“The impact he has had as a midfielder has been outstanding in the first six games (in the VFL).
“It’s the overall balance he has in regards to offence and defence, because sometimes the better players coming through have a very good offensive game and he has a really great defensive side of his game too.
“And he has got a bit of nastiness in his game which is good to see.”
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