Jon Ralph re-ranks the 2021 mid-season draft where Sydney missed out on two midfield guns

In a recruiting world full of leaks, doublecrossing and espionage, Sydney still never saw Essendon coming in the 2021 mid-season draft. Jon Ralph looks back at just how the Dons landed their new star.

In a recruiting world full of leaks, doublecrossing and espionage, Sydney still never saw Essendon coming.

As D-Day approached ahead of the 2021 mid-season draft the Swans had a multi-pronged strategy focused on two players.

A kid from Seymour they had nearly drafted back in 2019 who had impressed via Richmond’s VFL side called Sam Durham.

And Box Hill’s tackling machine Jai Newcombe as they desperately tried to throw Hawthorn off the scent so the Hawks would allow him to go through to their second pick behind Sydney.

Jai Newcombe has become one of Hawthorn’s most important players. Picture: Michael Klein

Sydney recruiter Simon Dalrymple had loved Durham’s aggression and intensity playing as a top-age 18-year-old for Murray Bushrangers in 2019 after he was overlooked in the 2018 national draft.

But he knew a kid who was rising at 5.30am for a carpentry apprenticeship before sleeping in the car on the way to training at Wangaratta might still need three years of development.

He couldn’t take the risk on him in an AFL system.

Yet after a 2020 season wasted by Covid, Durham’s six games in early 2021 for Richmond’s VFL side had shown Dalrymple he had matured as an AFL talent.

Sydney hoped Hawthorn might take Norwood forward Jackson Callow at pick 3 then wait until pick 17 to secure Poowong junior Newcombe.

But Sydney had wined and dined Newcombe pre-draft and Hawthorn knew it, so swooped on him at pick 3 to ward off the Swans’ advances.

Sydney’s intelligence was that Richmond, with a selection two picks before them at No.10, was their only other contender for Durham’s services.

Essendon’s Adrian Dodoro came from the clouds at pick 9 to get his man, having watched a lightly framed kid in the Coates League add grit and athleticism in those handful of Richmond VFL clashes.

Dalrymple, now at St Kilda, missed both his targets but was thrilled Durham found a way to the AFL as Sydney ended up taking project ruckman Lachlan McAndrew.

Less than three years on Newcombe is a midfield bull with two runner-up finishes in the Peter Crimmins Medal.

But which of Durham or Newcombe would you take for the next five years after Durham, fresh from his own move into the midfield, just signed a four-year extension believed to be worth $2.5 million?

And consider how stacked Sydney’s midfield would be if Durham had found his way to the Swans.

Sam Durham is having a breakout year. Picture: Getty Images

It is another reminder of the worth of the mid-season draft as the 2024 version approaches.

Re-ranking that 2021 version is a mighty challenge given the talent available.

In that 2021 draft are pick 2 Newcombe (58 games), pick 3 Ash Johnson (Collingwood, 26 games), pick 4 Patty Parnell (Adelaide, 17 games), pick 5 Ned Moyle (Gold Coast, three games), pick 8 James Peatling (GWS, 31 games), pick 9 Durham (55 games), pick 13 Jed McEntee (Port Adelaide, 37 games), pick 19 Jordan Boyd (Carlton, 23 games), pick 20 Cooper Sharman (St Kilda, 38 games), and pick 22 Daniel Turner (Melbourne, four games).

McEntee is a Power regular, Demons key back Turner just kicked three goals playing forward for Melbourne, Peatling saved the Giants with his intercept mark against St Kilda and Sharman is a Saints regular.

It is an order that will change many times over.

But on exposed form so far the order might go like this.

1. Newcombe. 2. Durham. 3. Cooper Sharman. 4. McEntee. 5. Boyd. 6. Johnson. 7. Parnell. 8. Turner (mostly on potential) 9. Richmond’s Matt Parker 10. Moyle (again on potential).

So, as clubs continue to bemoan the talent in this year’s mid-season draft, the 2021 version shows what kids can do if given a chance at AFL level.

Durham might be the one that got away for Sydney but the Swans’ loss has been Brad Scott’s gain as he adds a new dimension to the Dons onball unit.