The Architects: How Geelong tapped into a junior footy team to build a premiership-contending list

From October 20 to November 28 in 2016, Stephen Wells was a busy man. He was wheeling and dealing his way to securing the players who are one win away from delivering a premiership. This is what happened in those 39 days.

Stephen Wells doesn’t like to blow his own trumpet. In fact, he goes out of his way to avoid even saying which are his favourite draft stories.
For the Geelong recruiting boss they’re like his children — he loves them all, if they played 300 games or three.
So getting the man who is responsible for putting the Cats Grand Final team together to explain his genius is like trying to win a loose ball against Joel Selwood.

But near the end of the 20-minute conversation as the goodbyes are being wound up and talk of a golf game down the track, Wells sneakily throws in a gold nugget.
“I think if you count them up there are 10 Falcons kids,” he says.
Air raid sirens start going off. Finally, a clue to breaking the Wells Code.
Almost half of the Grand Final team on Saturday have spent time in the Geelong Falcons organisation, the local Under-18 team which was run for the past 25 years by former Cats great Michael Turner.

Catch Fox Footy’s Grand Final Week coverage on Kayo. Stream all the latest news and insight right up until first bounce plus halftime and full-time analysis from the Fox Footy commentary team. New to Kayo? Get your 14-day free trial & start streaming instantly >

Father-son legend Gary Ablett Jr was among a number of Cats to come through the Geelong Falcons talent factory.

It has long been a production line of AFL greats — including names such as Luke Hodge, Jonathan Brown, Matthew Scarlett, Jimmy Bartel — and is set to have its fingerprints all over the 2020 Grand Final.
The count finds 16 players on the Cats list with ties to the Falcons, 10 of which will run out against Richmond.
They are Gary Ablett, Patrick Dangerfield, Jed Bews, Luke Dahlhaus, Lachie Henderson, Jack Henry, Gryan Miers, Gary Rohan, Sam Simpson and Tom Stewart who Wells points out may not have played a game but was part of Falcons training squads.

Wells’ inclination to either draft locally or keep tabs on former Falcons and then lure them back at a later stage has been a masterstroke according to former Western Bulldogs and Richmond coach Terry Wallace.
“They tap into their ability to get homegrown products back which I think has been really really important for them,” Wallace explains.
“No matter where they go first, Geelong keeps track of them, keeps in touch with their management and then eventually you get them gravitating back and they come back as mature age players.
“It’s a winning formula that a lot of other clubs haven’t got.
“If you say pick four players over a three-year period who are coming to your club directly because they used to live in the region … Collingwood can‘t compete with that, Essendon can’t compete with that, they just haven’t got that type of a region so that is a just a pure win.
“There is the go-back to Melbourne factor from interstate but they’re going anywhere, you’re lucky if you’re up the top of the ladder you might get a Tom Lynch or if you’re Collingwood you might get an Adam Treloar.
“But this is something that is almost guaranteed, you are dragging them back to something they know. And then you can still play the rest of the field like everyone else but you‘ve got something that no-one else has got.”

Patrick Dangerfield left after his time with the Geelong Falcons, but then came home.

The most celebrated case is Dangerfield who left Geelong when he was still in high school and returned from Adelaide eight years later as one of the best players in the competition.
His arrival at Kardinia Park had a seismic impact on many levels, none more profound than on the whiteboard in Wells’ office.

Geelong’s first premiership for 44 years in 2007 was a “draft flag”.
There were only three “outsiders” from other clubs — ruckman Brad Ottens, full-forward Cameron Mooney and defender Tom Harley (one game for Port Adelaide).
The majority of the premiership team came from two drafting masterclasses by Wells in 1999 and 2001.
In 1999 he selected Joel Corey, Paul Chapman, Cameron Ling, Corey Enright in the national draft and got Mooney in a trade.
Two years later in the 2001 national draft the Cats secured Jimmy Bartel, James Kelly, Steve Johnson and Gary Ablett.
Seven of those players played in three premierships, six of them played over 250 games, two won Brownlow Medals, three won Norm Smith Medals and one became a premiership captain.

It was the nirvana of drafting and in all likelihood is never going to happen again.
So after the premiership run ended in 2011, Wells began the tricky process of rebuilding while focused on still remaining a contender.
Many clubs had tried this path in the past but failed, usually resulting in a bottoming out which can set clubs back for a decade.
According to Wallace, the difference for Geelong was that Wells knew he still had the main pillars of a premiership team at his disposal.
Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins and Harry Taylor had all been a part of the premiership run but they were only now coming into the best years of their career.
“I always thought they could pinch one, that’s not the right word but try to get another one while Harry is down one end and Hawkins up the other end with Selwood in the middle,” Wallace said.
“And then to get Dangerfield in the door … now that is what the whole thing is based around.”
So after the Cats finished out of the eight for the first time in nine years in 2015, Wells went to work on his whiteboard to identify players who could play specific roles to compliment the big four.

Zach Tuohy was among a 39-day haul of stars in 2016. Picture: Michael Klein

MORE AFL:

Revealed: Running man Mark Blicavs on what made him a rare jewel on the playing field

From Marlion Pickett’s debut to the end of the Colliwobbles, Glenn McFarlane and Jon Ralph remember 30 great Grand Final moments

In the space of 39 days from October 20 to November 28 in 2016, Wells managed to secure almost a third of Geelong’s 2020 Grand Final team.
Irishman Zach Tuohy was signed on the final day of the trade period from Carlton in exchange for the underperforming Billie Smedts and a future first-round draft pick.
On October 31 the Cats announced they’d won the race to sign another Irishman Mark O’Connor who was touted as a future star of the Gaelic game.
Then at the national draft in Sydney Wells called out Brandon Parfitt’s name at No. 26, a talented kid from the Northern Territory who’d slipped down the rankings of some clubs after a so-so year.
At No. 40 he went with the local boy Tom Stewart who had been coached by Cats great Matthew Scarlett at South Barwon and encouraged to try out for Geelong’s VFL team where he’d flourished.
Three days later Wells went for two former Geelong Falcons in the rookie list, snaring Jack Henry at No. 16 and then father/son pick Sam Simpson at No. 53.

Over the previous 12 months the Cats list boss had quietly turned over 25 players which included the retirement of several legends and the trading out of some middle tier players.
That’s a big turnover but as former Adelaide and Collingwood recruiter Matt Rendell points out, nailing one draft period can quickly spike a club’s fortunes.
“Sometimes that’s all it takes, you hit one year of drafting and trading and you’re back in a Grand Final,” he says.
“The key is to be able to do it while your older players are still playing good footy. Geelong has got five really good players and then around them are a lot of great role players.
“What Wellsy has done really well is recruit players to fill a spot.
“Remember back in 2007 they lost Mathew Egan, the All-Australian centre half-back, with the foot problem and the next year they recruited Harry Taylor to fill the spot.
“The other thing is he picks solid citizens who don’t let you down. There’s no flightiness about them, there’s no off-field s--- about them. He picks good people and if you keep picking good people they don’t let you down.”

The final important tweak in the Cats puzzle came at the end of 2018 after an inglorious elimination final defeat by Melbourne.
They looked slow and out-of-date in terms of the way the rest of the competition was playing that night at the MCG.
Pressure became the buzz word at Kardinia Park so players who couldn’t do it, even if it was because of injury, were shown the door.
Many were regular senior types including Daniel Menzel, Lincoln McCarthy, Cory Gregson, Jackson Thurlow, Jordan Murdoch and George Horlin-Smith.
Wells had already drafted Gryan Miers, a goalsneak from the Falcons, in the 2017 national draft and then in the 2018 trade period targeted two experienced players (and former locals) with leg speed in Luke Dahlhaus and Gary Rohan.
Mature-age tackling machine Tom Atkins was promoted to the rookie list after years in the VFL system with another pressure forward in Brad Close taken in the 2019 rookie draft.

All of them have played their part at various stages this season alongside another relatively recent addition with a familiar tale — a former Geelong Falcon who went away for a while but then returned to the nest to finish his career.

He goes by the name of Gary Ablett.

Originally published as The Architects: How Geelong tapped into a junior footy team to build a premiership-contending list