Mark Robinson goes inside the draft that made Joel Selwood a Cat and the game’s longest-serving captain

As the game prepares to celebrate Joel Selwood as the longest-serving captain, Mark Robinson reveals one of the biggest sliding doors moments in draft history.

Mark Thompson remembers the moment when Hawthorn selected Mitch Thorp in the 2006 national draft.

It had nothing to do with the kid out of Tasmania, it all had to do with the kid out of Bendigo.

His name was Joel Selwood.

The Hawks had pick No.6 and Geelong had pick No.7.

The Hawks chose Tasmanian Thorp and the Cats licked their lips.

On Friday night, Joel Selwood becomes the sport’s longest serving captain alongside Carlton legend Stephen Kernahan and does so wearing the hoops — when he could easily have been wearing the brown and gold

A sliding doors moment?

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Joel Selwood leads his team out onto the MCG for Round 1 of the 2022 season.

Bloody hell, imagine if the Hawks had Selwood in their team all the way through —

Sam Mitchell, Jordan Lewis, Luke Hodge, Joel Selwood, Shane Crawford early days, Shaun Burgoyne and Brad Sewell … the mind boggles at the midfield arsenal.

The biggest and nicest problem Hawthorn would have had at the time would have been who to make captain — Hodge or Selwood?

Anyway, Thompson remembers back to the 2006 draft day.

“On the morning of the draft we had a meeting at a café over at Docklands and Wellsy said ‘I think both Joel and the other guy who went to Port Adelaide, Travis Boak, might both be there’,” Thompson said.

“So Port took Boak and we were hoping Hawthorn didn’t take Joel.

“I remember Wellsy going ‘pfffffffthew … yes’,’’ Thompson said with a belly laugh, “He doesn’t get excited Wellsy on draft day and I remembering him being pretty pumped up for that one.’’

‘‘Wellsy’’ is long-time Geelong recruiting guru Stephen Wells, who is one of the leading authorities on youth identification.

His recollection is not too dissimilar to Thompson’s.

“Well, we jumped in pretty quick and called out Joel’s name,” Wells said of the moment Hawthorn passed on the Cats great.

He never pats himself on the back, Wells, but he likes the Selwood story.

If this story needed a movie preamble, it would go something like this: The kid from Bendigo with the supposed bung knee who would became an all-time great. And — this is a fave — he looks like Paul Newman and plays like Cool Hand Luke.

Selwood plays for Geelong in his first year at the club in 2007.

“He’d only played three games of (under-18) footy that year,” Wells said.

“He had a sore knee and there would’ve been clubs who said, 'we’re not going to take a risk with that knee’.

“Who knows, if we had an earlier pick maybe we wouldn’t have taken a risk. But he had a sore knee. We drafted him on his performances as a 16 and 17-year-old playing mainly at the Bendigo Pioneers.’’

Wells first met the whole Selwood family in the week leading up to the draft.

Wells drove to Bendigo to meet Joel and his mum and dad. The meeting only went for 10 or 15 minutes because Joel and his brothers were off to Brisbane to see their other brother, Troy, at the Lions.

“I caught them just before they went down to the airport if I can remember,’’ Wells said.

“I can’t remember if I had met Bryce and Maree (the parents), but it was just to say, ‘if we draft your son next week, we’ll look after him’. That was virtually it.

“But I do remember walking out of my house that morning (of the draft) and saying to my wife, ‘if you hear we have got Joel Selwood you’ll know we’ve had a good draft’.’’

Wells won’t rate his best picks, like Selwood at No.7, or Corey Enright at No.47, or Steve Johnson at No.24, or Cameron Ling at No.38, but he says Selwood was an AFL footballer the day he walked into the club.

“I’ve never seen anybody with Joel’s influence from day one. He has driven standards from the day he arrived,’’ Wells said.

“Apart from all of that, being the competitor, his leadership and toughness and durability, he’s a brilliant footy brain and a brilliantly skilled player as well.’’

Mitch Thorp in Tasmania with his father after being picked by the Hawks in the draft.

The Selwood family after the Cats took Joel at pick 7.

Back to draft day, and Wells and the Cats were told the night before that Port Adelaide was taking Boak.

“It was only early that draft week that it started to become a bit more real that Joel might get through to us,” Wells said.

“On the night before the draft, we did hear Travis Boak was going to Port Adelaide, but we still didn’t know who was going to go at pick six.

“The first five picks most clubs would say were pretty much locked in.

“Our dream result was one of Joel or Travis Boak to get through to us and as it turned out, it was Joel.

“If neither of them got thorough, we would’ve had a different scenario ourselves.’’

Wells said the Cats would have taken either Ben Reid (No.8) or Jack Riewoldt (No.13).

Thompson was this week stunned when told Selwood was set to equal Kernahan’s 226-game captaincy record — a number that the Carlton skipper took off Hall of Fame legend Dick Reynolds who held the record for close to 50 years.

Selwood, Cameron Mooney and coach Mark Thompson after Geelong’s 2007 grand final triumph.

“Really? You’re joking. Isn’t that amazing,” Thompson said.

“Blokes like Kernahan and Whitten, you just remember that they were captains forever, like that’s all they did, be captain. I just didn’t know Joel had that long with the captaincy.

“He’s an amazing player. Straight from the get-go he was a good footballer.”

Thompson was among a group of a dozen Cats’ greats who were asked to describe Selwood in one word.

“When you sent that text last night, I thought about it, I thought about how polite he is, how respectful he is, how skilful he is, how determined he is and there’s not one word that sums him up,’’ Thompson said.

The Geelong premiership coach settled on “unrelenting’’.

Then on Friday morning he sent a screenshot of the definition of unrelenting.

It read: “Having or exhibiting uncompromising determination; unyielding.”

The other Cats greats asked to sum up Selwood listed words such as caring, respectful, willpower, genuine and committed.

Thompson understands why there is widespread tribute for Selwood the footballer, but he and all of the Geelong Football Club know Selwood the person.

Thompson was at the funeral of Vic Fuller last year. He was a 50-year clubman at the Cats and was one of those football club people who make football clubs what they are.

Selwood spoke at Vic’s funeral.

“His speech was amazing,’’ Thompson said.

“How he spoke and how he put it together and how he delivered it was just incredible.

“He said, ‘my mother told me you can’t help who you fall in love with, it just so happens I fell in love with a man’. That’s what he said. It says a lot about Joel.’’

Thorp holding a shotgun at a pre-season camp in the Northern Territory in 2008.

The footy world didn’t get to know Thorp that well. He played just two games before he returned to Tassie where he became a premiership player and coach.

Still, footy people wonder if the Hawks took Thorp because it was the same year, and the first year, the club began its long-time partnership with Tasmania.

Who knows if it’s true, but one of the few headlines he made in Victoria was when the Herald Sun’s Michael Klein took a photo of Thorp holding a shotgun at a pre-season camp in the Northern Territory in 2008.

The Hawks hated it. A bad look, they said. We agree, but not as bad as passing on Joel Selwood.

Originally published as Mark Robinson goes inside the draft that made Joel Selwood a Cat and the game’s longest-serving captain