AFL Draft 2015: Kicking skills, good decision-making among recruiters’ draft non-negotiables

AFL recruiters call them “non-negotiables” — the requirements that determine whose name is called out on draft night. WHAT ARE THEY?

Alastair Clarkson with Lance Franklin, pick number 5 overall. AFL DRAFT 2004.

AFL recruiters call them “non-negotiables” — the requirements that determine whose name is called out next Tuesday night at the Adelaide Convention Centre during the national draft.

If a teenager doesn’t have them, he’ll probably be ignored, no matter that he is an onballer who has been picking up 30 possessions a game since he started kicking the dew off the grass in the under-9s and who has lived and breathed little else since.

It can be soul-destroying, although there are some shining examples — think Sam Mitchell and Michael Barlow — that suggest that being stood up once or twice isn’t necessarily the end of the dream.

Greg Boxall, 64, has been a recruiter, mainly with Hawthorn, since 1989.

Boxall, or “Bocca” to his mates, was an under-19s and reserves player with Carlton in the late 1960s before 88 games with Williamstown in the VFA. Like many of us he fancied himself as a step ahead when spotting a budding talent.

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On a trip to Tasmania with Carlton’s U19s in 1967 he saw a defender playing for Longford who seemed to have more time than everyone else on the ground. Barry Lawrence would later justify his assessment in a stellar career with St Kilda.

Seven years later Boxall spent a year at East Fremantle where he played alongside a kid called Brian Peake, the second-most talented teammate he saw behind Max Papley at Williamstown.

Peake became a legend and Boxall reckoned he had a gift so when the chance arose via a friendship with John Hook to join Hawthorn in 1989, he jumped at it and remains there today as part of the highly successful Graham Wright-led recruiting department.

Jacob Weitering is expected to be selected by Carlton with pick 1 in this year’s draft. Picture: Glenn Ferguson

Boxall describes himself as a very small part of the Hawthorn wheel but says the non-negotiables haven’t changed over the past 25 years.

“Kicking is the first thing you look at because if they can’t then you can just about cross a player off your list,” explained Boxall.

“Decision-making and time are of vital importance. And can they play to the state of the game and lift when required? You have to compare the tempo of the game they are playing in and ask yourself could they adapt to the next level.

“I will give you two examples. In 2003 a kid called Luke Herrington kicked nine for Vic Metro in an U18 National Championships game. He was a really clever player and a very good one but you couldn’t help but wonder if he could do the same things against bigger bodies in a quicker tempo. He ended up back at Cribb Point where he has killed it at footy and cricket.

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“Then in 2008 Steele Sidebottom kicked 10 goals in the TAC Cup Grand Final for Murray Bushrangers. He’s only 180cm and wasn’t that quick but he just seemed to have so much more time, making you think he would still find space at AFL level.”

Boxall also points to the endless player interviews as being important, although he claims you can sometimes save time by going straight to the parents.

Lance Franklin was drafted by Hawthorn with pick 5 despite being late to an interview with the club.

“If the parents are good people then there is a fair chance the kid will be fine,” said Boxall.

“I remember going to see a kid at 11am a few years back in suburban Melbourne. Dad came to the door with a pair of wire fronts on and nothing else but a stubby and fag. It wasn’t ideal and sadly the boy ended up going down the same path.

“I remember in 2004 with Hawthorn when Buddy Franklin was due for his interview but we couldn’t find him, so eventually I asked Jarryd Roughead, who had mated up with him even then. He told me he was down in a room miles away.

“I ran down and he’s lying on a couch watching a movie. I said ‘Listen, you are meant to be at an interview with Hawthorn’. He smiled and told me he had lost his running sheet. I asked him why he didn’t replace it and he just started laughing. So I took him back and we walked into our group, which was Alastair Clarkson’s first draft as senior coach.

“I said ‘What about a round of applause for Buddy making it’. He raised his arms, smiled and sat down. You just couldn’t help but like him even though he couldn’t give a rat’s that he was late.”

Boxall said there can be tricks for recruiters, such as finding a natural decision maker who isn’t an elite kick.

“Some blokes are beautiful kicks but not good decision makers. Others, and Anzac Day medallist Mark McGough springs to mind, are really good decision makers but not great kicks. McGough remains one of the best decision makers I have seen.

“Then there are those kids that demand you sit up and take notice. I saw Daisy Thomas kick a goal up at Shepparton one day after a couple of baulks and bounces. You just say to yourself, ‘hang on, get on this kid’.

“Then you see someone like Cameron Ling and despite being a great shot for goal you wondered if he would be tall enough as a key forward. To see his transformation remains the biggest surprise in my time in the game. Then again I thought Nat Fyfe was a really good mark but if you said he would dominate the competition I would have thought you were putting some funny stuff in the roll your owns.”

Boxall, who is well known around the recruiting traps for some handy Elvis Presley impersonations when the mood arises, points to Dane Swan and Hawthorn forward Mark Williams as two players he really liked from first sight.

But he admits with a smile recruiting never will be an exact science, despite up to 100 hours being put into some the talent prior to next Tuesday night.