Brendon Goddard and Brett Deledio share their recollections as No.1 draft picks
Brett Deledio had made it to the AFL big time as the No.1 pick in the 2004 draft but a star Richmond teammate put him back in his place.
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In the first of a two-part series, Rebecca Williams speaks to Brendon Goddard and Brett Deledio about the pressures and expectations of being the first kid picked in the national draft.
BRENDON GODDARD, No.1 pick 2002 National draft (St Kilda)
Games: St Kilda (205), Essendon (129)
Everything had aligned for Brendon Goddard.
A lifelong Carlton supporter, the teenager from Traralgon had emerged as the likely top pick in the national draft in 2002 in the season his Blues had finished bottom of the ladder.
In the weeks leading into the draft, Goddard had been given an indication from the Blues they were likely to take him with the first pick in the draft.
Then everything was turned on its head.
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Leading into the 2002 national draft, Carlton was fined almost $1 million and stripped of all of its first and second round draft picks across the next three years for salary cap cheating.
There would be no romantic link-up for Goddard with his boyhood team.
“It was quite a unique situation to be in, a bit different to most draftees,” Goddard reflected on his build-up to the draft.
“I knew I was going to go number one, Carlton had told me at that stage that myself and Daniel Wells would be one and two.
“I had a strong relationship with Shane O’Sullivan, the recruiting manager at Carlton at the time, through my junior days … and being a lifelong Carlton supporter as well so there was a lot of history and kind of love for the club already.
“I think it was only a couple of weeks leading into the draft when the hearing took place and I remember Shane O’Sullivan calling me as soon as it happened as he was walking out of the hearing and he told me Carlton had lost all their draft picks.
“I obviously had my heart set on going to Carlton, it was going to be a lifelong dream to be playing for the team you barracked for and my mum and mum’s sister are both one-eyed Carlton supporters, so they were just as invested as I was.
“For all that to change it was kind of a head-spin.”
No sooner had it emerged Carlton had lost its draft picks, St Kilda was on the phone.
Goddard had met with only three teams in the lead-up to the draft – Carlton, the Saints and Port Adelaide – and he quickly adjusted to a new reality.
“Within 24 hours St Kilda were on the phone … it’s funny how things change and my focus changed pretty quickly,” Goddard said.
“The Saints made it pretty clear they were picking me at No.1.
“My first communication with (coach) Grant Thomas was the day before the draft so I knew clearly by then.”
With the knowledge his name would be called out first by St Kilda, the pressure on draft day for Goddard was off.
Goddard described draft day as a “bit of a blur” but recalls the moment his name was read out almost being hijacked by a family heckler.
“I’m pretty sure that when my name was called out someone yelled out ‘go Blues’ and I think it was my aunty,” Goddard said.
“There was a rumour going around that it was my mum. I said: ‘If it had been my mum, I would have never forgiven her’. But I’m pretty certain it was my aunty.”
One of Goddard’s first conversations with his new coach, Thomas, as the league’s top pick was about what number he would wear.
He didn’t get his first choice, but there was sentiment attached to the one he ended up with.
“He asked me ‘What number do you want?’,” Goddard said.
“I’d worn No.9 my junior career and I said ‘is No.9 free?’, which I knew it wasn’t at the time but I just threw it out there. He said: ‘Nah, that’s Fraser Gehrig’s so you won’t be getting that one’.
“Literally after that Thommo goes ‘no, you’re having No.18’. I didn’t know at the time but that was his old number, he wore 18 for the Saints. He didn’t give me a choice, he gave me a choice at the start and then said ‘no, you’re getting No.18.”
Of course, a moment as big as getting taken as the top pick in the draft needs a good party.
And Goddard had one planned.
Setting up in the spare block next to his house in Glengarry on Sunday night, Goddard had organised a bus to transport his Caulfield Grammar schoolmates down to Gippsland, and all his mates from Traralgon were there, too.
“I told the Saints I was having a draft party and Thommo said ‘Johnny Beveridge (recruiting manager) is going to come down and pick you up on Monday morning because we need you at the club on Monday morning’,” Goddard said.
“I’m like ‘Yeah, OK, no worries, I’ll get it done.’
“I got to bed at about 5.30am that morning, so it was a late one. But I was in a reasonable state because I knew I had to be and I was excited anyway.
“So Johnny Beveridge picks me up at 7.30am drives me straight to Moorabbin. There were a few media commitments and I remember Thommo saying: ‘You’ll get an introduction, you’ll meet the boys, who have training, so you can just come out and have a look’.
“Before I know it, I’ve got my full gear on and I’m into my first training session with the boys and I’d had literally two hours sleep.
“It was quite the whirlwind the first few days. The draft, into the celebration at my house, to training for the Saints two days later. It all happened very quickly.”
Already a dedicated trainer, Goddard did not have any trouble adjusting to the work required at the AFL level.
He said the club did an “incredible job” shielding him from the expectation associated with being the No. 1 draft pick in his first year in the “so-called St Kilda bubble”.
But they couldn’t block it all out and Goddard – who would go on to play 205 games for the Saints before crossing to Essendon – made sure he used some opposition advice as motivation early in his career.
“I quickly realised that the only people to listen to are the people inside the footy club because they are the ones that really matter,” Goddard said.
“I remember individuals making comments, players on the field giving me grief, like Brad Green was one that used to terrorise me saying I was the worst No.1 draft pick ever and all this kind of thing and I still remember that.
“The Brisbane Lions used to absolutely terrorise me back when they were flying, but I just used that as motivation. It was just more people I was going to prove wrong.”
BRETT DELEDIO, No. 1 pick (PS) 2004 National draft (Richmond)
Games: 243 (Richmond), 32 (Greater Western Sydney)
Brett Deledio got the phone call from the Tigers the night before.
Like most draft hopefuls, he had been reading the papers for weeks, seeing where all the experts thought he would go.
He’d had interviews with Richmond, Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs, but wasn’t sure if he would go pick one, two or three.
But Deledio’s pre-draft nerves were eased when he was told he would be “going No.1”.
Better still, he thought he’d end up at Punt Rd with his good mate from the Vic Country rep team, Jarryd Roughead.
“The Tigers had rung me the night before and I thought a good friend of mine, Jarryd Roughead, was going (to go) pick two (for Richmond at No. 4 overall),” Deledio said.
“We spoke on the phone the night before and said ‘How good is this? We’ll sit together, with training it will be so good’. We had known each other for quite a few years and played in the rep sides together.
“And then pick two comes around and Hawthorn selected Jarryd Roughead and wrecked all of our plans.
“But it was a massive relief to have that call the night before and be told that you were going No. 1 … I was very relieved at the end of it and rapt to be a Tiger.”
A handshake from the “old man” – who had the young Deledio in the car at 6.30am for the drive from Kyabram to Melbourne for the draft – and a kiss from mum sealed the deal.
Deledio’s opening engagement as the No.1 draft pick was a visit to Punt Rd – and his first impressions of his new teammates were ingrained.
“We went to the club first and the boys were doing a rehab session,” Deledio said.
“I saw a few guys there and I was impressed and thought ‘Geez, I can’t wait to try and look like those boys’.”
Iconic, muscle-bound training images of Deledio wrestling with battle ropes later in his career attest that he did.
But the biggest shock for the kid from country Victoria was still to come.
“Then we went around to (then Richmond president) Clinton Casey’s house,” Deledio said.
“And, oh my goodness, was that an eye opener for a country kid going around to Shakespeare Grove in Hawthorn and seeing a $20m house. That was a real eye-opener.”
Deledio’s first training session with his new teammates was equally eye-opening.
“My first session was out at the Box Hill running track and I remember just watching the boys get flogged doing their boxing sessions,” Deledio said.
“I didn’t get a taste of that until my second week I don’t reckon and then I paired up with Troy Simmonds and I remember him picking me up and throwing me out of the ring.
“I was like ‘Jeepers, I’ve got a fair way to go here’. I’m 80kg wringing wet and he’s a big ruckman at 105kg.”
Deledio stayed with Mark Coughlan when he first arrived in Melbourne and he “fed off” the older players as much as he could.
But even though he was the top pick in the draft, he soon learned his place in the pecking order.
“Wayne Campbell and I shared a room in my first away game and I was in the room with him and stood up to make sure my towel was drying and he said ‘While you’re up mate, I suppose you can make me a coffee’,” Deledio said.
“I said ‘Ah, good one Wayne’. He goes ‘Nah, seriously, white with one, thank you’. I went ‘Righto, that’s how it goes. OK, righto, I know my place. I’ve got to earn my stripes’.
“But he’s someone who I call a close mate now, so I obviously earned his respect.”
Deledio said at the time he had set himself the goal of playing 10 games in his first season, but played 22.
He said having other players – like fellow top draftee Richard Tambling – make their debut had helped take the spotlight off him as the No. 1 pick.
“We were a couple of young guys playing in our first season together and it was really good to share that, that made it a bit easier,” Deledio said.
“If I had been one-out by myself you probably feel it a bit more. But having other guys to share the spotlight with and having other guys make their debut regularly throughout the year took a lot of pressure off myself.”
Originally published as Brendon Goddard and Brett Deledio share their recollections as No.1 draft picks
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