How Sydney Stack went from being ignored in two drafts last year to cult hero status in four games

One by one the they put a line through him, so how do Richmond’s rivals feel now having overlooked electric 18-year-old Sydney Stack in both drafts?

Sydney Stack celebrates his first win as a Richmond player. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith.

The final straw for one club came when Sydney Stack failed to show up for work.

Stack had last year started a bank traineeship in Perth, but his sudden no-show was enough for this club’s recruiting team.

“You’re just thinking, ‘Gee whiz mate, footy is a grind. You can’t just not turn up whenever you feel like it’,” the recruiting chief said.

“You obviously start asking: ‘How will he go meeting the requirements and punctuality at AFL level?”

In a year in which Stack was turfed from the AFL Academy, kicked out of the WA State Academy, stood down for the first game of the under 18 championships and lost his licence, AFL clubs assessing his draft worth didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to discover his wayward nature.

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Despite possessing an on-field talent many clubs rated as first-round worthy, they were outweighed by the off-field problems.

It goes some way to explaining the now inconceivable — how Richmond’s four-game, 18-year-old cult-hero could be ignored in last year’s national and rookie drafts.

Sydney Stack on the burst for Western Australia at the Under-18 National Championships. Picture: Adam Trafford/AFL Media.

Sydney Stack after kicking his first AFL goal on debut against GWS. Picture: Matt King/AFL Photos/Getty Images.

The Tigers themselves didn’t take him with any of their four national draft picks and then overlooked him with their five rookie draft picks before choosing the ‘try before you buy’ approach in the new supplemental selection period.

Rival recruiters contacted by the Herald Sun praised Richmond for taking the risk they were never going to.

“I still remember when he left our interview thinking, ‘S. t i’d love to take a punt on this kid’. You realised footy could change his life, but we didn’t have the foundations set up enough to support him off-field,” one talent spotter said.

“It’s not a cheap exercise relocating a kid and you’re trying to evaluate where will they live and who will they mix with. There’s a lot that goes into it.

“Full credit to Richmond … but keep in mind they’ve got 100,000 members so budget isn’t such a big deal. For other clubs you’re weighing up risk versus reward.

“You hope it does all hold together because if it’s not footy there is no future for this kid. He’s not going to become a builder or something like that because he lacks the discipline.”

Sydney Stack pulls down a huge hanger during Richmond's win over Melbourne. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith.

One club’s list manager said: “He’s at the lower end in terms of his IQ off-field, but there was never any doubting his IQ on-field.

“You have to be able to sit back and ask, ‘Does the talent stack up and is the off-field stuff going to affect the on-field?

“You then have to assess your own club. Have we got the resources to give this a chance?

“This is where Richmond have done really well. They’ve clearly put things in place to minimise that risk.”

Incredibly, Damien Hardwick took Stack under his roof in December and for a week in January. He now lives with former Saint and Lion and development coach Xavier Clarke.

“It was massive for ‘Dimma’ to take him in,” one recruiter said.

“Daniel Rioli was completely different. He’s got a good sense of humour and is quite cheeky, whereas Sydney was a bit of a hard-arse … and didn’t trust many people and you can’t blame him for that because that’s what he’d grown up with.”

One recruiter who had followed Stack’s journey said idle time had been the danger.

“He comes from a really tough background, but during the footy season he always had focus. When there was no footy was the big worry,” he said.

“But perhaps the only way he was going to make it was how Richmond did it.”

Sydney Stack celebrates his first win as a Richmond player. Picture: AAP Image/Julian Smith.

DOESN’T STACK UP

AFL Academy

Not wanted

WA State Academy

Dumped, then reinstated

National Draft

Ignored

Rookie Draft

Overlooked