AFL Draft 2021: All the latest draft news, updates and interviews with top prospects
Josh Rachele is in Adelaide’s sights. The livewire Victorian opens up on the prospect of playing interstate, his crazy celebration and choosing footy over soccer.
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For all of the weird and mostly wonderful contributions Toby Greene has given to football even his athletic gifts have a limit.
Next year the kid dubbed Toby Greene 2.0 will be strutting the AFL stage with the same mercurial brilliance and play-on-the-edge DNA, but also a trick Greene has never pulled off.
Murray Bushrangers 180cm forward Josh Rachele chose AFL football in his teens despite being offered a Melbourne City soccer scholarship after years with their youth team and initial selection in the Australian Under-17 squad.
Surely that is where he picked up the inspiration for the celebration he knows even he will probably never be able to unveil at AFL level.
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“I have always loved watching Toby and those guys who play on edge. I feel like I am a unique type of high half forward than Toby but there are similar traits,” he told the Herald Sun yesterday.
“I have always loved a goal and I think I am definitely a bit of a livewire, pretty hot headed. I love a celebration. Especially if I kick a good goal I like to go for a run. I learnt how to do a round-off backflip later this year so I can’t wait to incorporate it later on but we will have to wait to see what happens.”
Say that again?
A Sam Kerr-style gymnastics flip that would give famed disciplinarian Denis Pagan nightmares?
“Yeah, I think I would have to wipe that out in my first game, the coach would probably give me the arse if I did that,” he says with a hearty laugh.
Rachele might not be able to pull out that brash celebration next year — depending on his AFL coach — but his audacity and showmanship and sheer talent are going to make an AFL club very happy next year.
It is why GWS will consider him at pick two before he likely finds himself at Adelaide, where coach Matthew Nicks and recruiter Hamish Ogilvie have beaten a regular path to his door.
But for all the individualism and flashiness clubs know Rachele’s talent will be burnished by hard work and the kind of attitude that saw him give up soccer stardom because he loved playing a more team-focused sport.
“I started out like everyone playing Auskick and played both footy and soccer through to Year 7 to the age of 13 and then played soccer with Vic country squad from Under-11s to Under-14s and was lucky enough to be selected in the Melbourne City youth squad,” he said.
“In Year 8 I had to focus on one or the other and travelled to Melbourne three or four times a week pretty regularly. I went down the soccer path from 13 to 15 and was lucky enough to be selected in the Under-17 Australian squad. I was cut after the initial stage but then the V Line Cup (featuring the best country kids in AFL) opened up for me. I hadn’t played footy properly for a couple of years
“But I found that love and mateship again in football. Soccer is more individual. Once you get higher up it’s more dog eat dog and so coming back to football was a completely different culture.
“From there I was lucky enough to be offered a Melbourne City scholarship contract with a minimum salary training with the A League team and playing full time with the youth squad.
“Normally you go into meetings and they tell you that you are leaving but I was the one telling them I was leaving. They weren’t too happy at the time but I haven’t looked back since.”
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Father Jason works on the family’s third-generation commercial orchard in Shepparton and is a bush legend nicknamed “Kouta” given his European heritage — his family is actually Italian — and brilliant football displays.
Mum Michelle’s father was born in Greece, and while she will have some tears on Wednesday night, Josh has boarded at Caulfield Grammar, so is ready for the move.
The consensus is that Adelaide, currently with the four pick, will take him off the board in a heartbeat if GWS takes midfielder Finn Callaghan and Gold Coast plumbs for versatile ruck-forward Mac Andrew.
He says he would be thrilled to go to Adelaide after regular interactions with the hierarchy including coach Matthew Nicks.
“I am very keen to actually move interstate and I think Adelaide would be a great fit. I know a few Bushies (Murray Bushrangers players) at the moment who are there and it looks like a great culture at the moment. They are a team I would love to join,” he said.
“I have always wanted to be a big game player and they have big games like the Showdown. It would be amazing to play at Adelaide Oval in one of them. I feel like I am ready to change.
“If I pursued a soccer career I would have had to move to England at 14 or 15 if I wanted to take it to the next level. If you have to move states to follow your dream, so be it.
“Some clubs give you more of an inkling than others and if I had to say two it would be GWS and Adelaide. The last few weeks I have spoken to Adelaide a fair bit on a regular basis. I have had a couple of home visits from both those clubs.
“I had an interview with Nicksy early this year on zoom.“
Is South Australia ready for the Xavier Duursma bow-and-arrow celebration and the Rachele round-off backflip?
Even if we never get to see it on an AFL field, buckle up for the ride that will be Rachele’s next 10 years in the AFL.
Bont clone’s meteoric rise after shattering snub
— Nick Smart
Melbourne teenager Finn Callaghan has grown – literally – from being snubbed from the Vic Metro Under-16 team to be on the cusp of a top-three selection in this week’s AFL National Draft.
Only two years ago, the now St Bede’s College graduate was a 178cm “outside” player who weighed in at just 68kg and would have barely been on any AFL clubs’ radars.
When he was tested last week, the Sandringham Dragons NAB League product came in at 191cm and topped the scales at 86kg.
And his remarkable growth spurt might not be done just yet.
“I always knew I’d get a bit taller, I just developed a little bit later,” Callaghan said.
“I think maybe a little bit more, I might get to 192cm or 193cm.
“Dad’s about 194cm so hopefully I can reach him.”
Now former Sandringham coach Jackson Kornberg – who has just been poached to become Gold Coast’s new VFL coach – has watched Callaghan grow before his eyes.
“He started the under-16’s shorter than me and now he’s about 16cm taller,” Kornberg laughed.
“He was sensational to coach.
“I’ve seen him all the way through for three years and seen his transformation from more of an outside player, and a lot skinnier and shorter, to the 191cm inside mid beast he is now.”
It is almost inconceivable to think that Callaghan, who has been strongly linked to the GWS Giants at pick No.2, missed out on Vic Metro representative honours just two years ago.
Particularly given four years earlier he’d captained the Victorian Under 12 schoolboys team.
Callaghan said he decided to take the snub the right way by working harder.
“I was very disappointed but it just made me more motivated and it was probably a good reality check at the time that I wasn’t quite up to the standard,” Callaghan said.
“It made me go away and work really hard and more determined to succeed.”
Kornberg said Callaghan’s setback was a blessing in disguise.
“Everything he’s done this year in the games he’s played, we’ve seen in training for three or four years now,” Kornberg said.
“We knew he could do it but he couldn’t quite string together that training into games in the under-16’s, which is probably why he didn’t make that Vic Metro team.
“But in hindsight it was probably one of the best things that’s happened to him because it forced him to re-evaluate what he needed to do to improve.”
The 18-year-old, who is a Western Bulldogs supporter, has a penetrating left foot and has drawn comparisons to his “favourite player” in Marcus Bontempelli.
“Being a Doggies fan, he’s our best player and I try to model my game on him a bit as well,” Callaghan said.
“I love how he can go forward and kick goals, win the contested ball and he’s a great kick, so he can do everything really.
“He’s great to watch.”
When asked how he felt about being compared to a young Bontempelli, Callaghan said:
“I’ve got a very fair way to go to get anywhere near the Bont, but it’s pretty humbling and a great honour I suppose.”
Born and raised in Parkdale, Callaghan is the son of former Commonwealth Games runner and 400m national champion Brett Callaghan.
Although, it was football and cricket that captured Callaghan’s heart growing up rather than the running track.
Mordialloc-Braeside was his junior football club.
“Up until I was about 14 I probably loved cricket more, to be honest, before switching to footy and I’ve been focusing on that since,” he said.
Despite his AFL dream, Callaghan has maintained his interest in cricket.
In March, he played a big part in Mordialloc’s win in the Cricket Southern Bayside Division 1 grand final, making 54 in a tight run chase.
It might be his last competitive cricket game for awhile as a promising AFL career beckons.
Kornberg said he saw Callaghan starting his AFL career on a wing before transforming into a tall inside midfielder who can drift forward.
“His running patterns as a winger was as good as anyone in the NAB League this year,” he said.
With the Giants at pick No.2 and a host of other non-Victorian clubs lurking in the top five, Callaghan is aware a move interstate is a real possibility.
He admitted he was bracing for it to happen.
“If you ask any Victorian boy I’m sure they’d say they would love to stay in Melbourne, but you don’t really get a choice,” he said.
“I’d be open to moving interstate and I’ve probably come to terms with that it’s probably going to happen, so I’m really just embracing the opportunity.
“A whole new bunch of people and living in a new place would be a great experience and good fun.”
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