Xavier College: Best team of the past 50 years of AFL players

Xavier College has produced no shortage of AFL talent over the years, including 12 premiership players and three club captains. See the best of the best.

Jobe Watson is one of many AFL stars to have come through Xavier College. Picture: Getty Images

Twelve premiership flags, 11 All-Australians and three AFL club captains.

Xavier College has helped produce no shortage of AFL champions over the past 50 years.

A four-time premiership player and Richmond Team of the Century member, ruckman Michael Green is arguably the pick of the bunch.

Green debuted for the Tigers in 1966 and went on to win premierships in 1967, 1969, 1973 and 1974.

He played 146 games for Richmond, kicking 83 goals, and was inducted into the club’s Hall of Fame in 2004.

Green’s grandson Tom Green is now following in his footsteps, after being drafted to Greater Western Sydney in the 2019 national draft.

Current Sydney co-captain Josh Kennedy has also built an outstanding resume since graduating from Xavier College.

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Essendon champion Jobe Watson is a Xavier College product. Picture: Michael Klein

Jobe Watson and Luke Ball returned to Xavier after being drafted.

Originally drafted to Hawthorn, Kennedy has gone on to win a 2012 premiership with the Swans while also being a three-time All-Australian and three-time club best and fairest.

Former Essendon captain Jobe Watson is also a Xavier College product.

Watson played 220 games for the Bombers and was a three-time club best and fairest and two-time All-Australian midfielder.

Now at St Kilda, 2012 premiership player and three-time All-Australian Dan Hanneberry is another former standout junior player from Xavier College.

Hannebery played his first senior game for the Swans in 2009 while still completing Year 12 at the school.

THE ‘READY MADE’ BULLDOG WITH THE GOLDEN LOCKS

THE flowing golden mullet that Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith has become known for in the AFL had to be kept in check back in his high school days.

The Xavier College student still had a fair old mop of hair in his draft year in 2018, but school uniform rules meant the mullet had to be kept to a minimum.

“He didn’t have quite as long of a mullet,” former Xavier College 1st XVIII football coach Matt Ball said.

“I think with the school, he had to keep it above the collar.”

Smith might not have had the same mullet, but he did show the same ability to tear games apart on the football field in the APS competition.

Ball, a former Hawthorn midfielder, coached Xavier College alongside his younger brother Luke, a 2010 Collingwood premiership player, in 2017.

Smith won Xavier College’s best-and-fairest as a bottom-age player that year and went on to captain the school in 2018.

Ball stayed on as coach that year and helped Smith continue to flourish, after Luke had departed to take up a role at Essendon.

“He was a super talented school footballer,” Ball said.

“His greatest challenge was always just striking a balance. He could be really hard on himself sometimes. But he was a tremendous athlete. I don’t think many blokes that I’ve seen in the last 20 years have been as physically prepared to play AFL footy as he was, just by virtue of his athleticism – speed and endurance but also strength. He could have played AFL in his last year of school.”

Despite an Achilles injury limiting Smith’s Year 12 campaign, he was selected by the Bulldogs at pick 7 in the 2018 national draft and finished fourth in the NAB AFL Rising Star votes on debut in 2019.

In his two seasons in charge at Xavier College, Ball also saw Laitham Vandermeer (Western Bulldogs) and Changkuoth Jiath (Hawthorn) find AFL homes.

Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith was drafted from Xavier College in 2018. Picture: Michael Klein

Jiath was still learning the game, but given his athletic talents it was little surprise to Ball that the Hawks snapped him up as a Category B rookie.

“You’d see him do things and think, ‘Very few people who have ever played the game have got the agility to do that’,” Ball said.

One of 11 APS schools in Victoria, Xavier College has also produced Sydney premiership players Dan Hannebery and Josh Kennedy, North Melbourne’s Robbie Tarrant and former Essendon captain Jobe Watson.

“APS schools over the last 20 years have started producing a lot of top-end talent to the AFL,” Ball said.

“With Xavier, football’s always been a very strong sport at the school and something that there’s a lot of tradition in.”

Originally published as Xavier College: Best team of the past 50 years of AFL players