What do AFL recruiters actually look for in potential draftees?

With the Australian Football League (AFL) season and trade period over, attention turns to the AFL draft^[1].

The annual draft is the moment when many young hopefuls’ dreams become reality: they are selected by one of the league’s 18 clubs.

In the AFL, as with many other sports, the first draft pick is allocated to the team that finishes last, with the second-worst team gaining the second pick, and so on. These picks may be traded between teams after being allocated.

Every year debates spark about who should be picked first, who will slide down the order and who could be the steal of the night.

But how do AFL recruiters actually decide which player’s name to call out on the night?

A key event before the draft

Ahead of the draft, prospects are put through their paces at the annual AFL draft combine^[2]: a three-day event where potential draftees complete physical tests such as sprints, vertical jumps and endurance runs, as well as psychological assessments and skill-based drills in front of club scouts.

But the identification of future AFL talent starts long before the combine, often years earlier, and involves a highly detailed process that goes far beyond athletic testing.

By the time a player’s name is read out on draft night, clubs have already completed years of background work to assess not just the athlete’s physical abilities but also their skills, mindset and character.

Recruiters’ secrets

In two studies in this area^[3], I asked national recruitment mangers of AFL clubs about their approach with monitoring and assessing potential talent.

They told me^[4] the scouting process begins as early as the under-16 national championships.

One recruiter said:

The under-16 national championships is the first main competition where you just see the best (players compete against each other). It is our first real look at a lot of the talent.

Following this, players return to state-based youth competitions and recruiters develop a talent board: a list of standout players identified at the championships.

The recruiters continue to track the potential draftees closely through the next two to three years.

Over time, recruiters apply increasing levels of scrutiny.

The process becomes a form of data gathering, combining on-field performance with off-field assessments. One recruiter said:

We have a database of player strengths and weaknesses, then start to crunch the list and identify players. We then interview players, (conduct) home interviews, psychological profiles, medicals, (and assess their) character and background.

This profile building and refining occurs throughout the players’ development, with recruiters increasingly focusing on in-game performance as they build their athlete profile:

As the year goes on, you just assess their talents and their performances … in different grades and national championships. Their testing data, their GPS metrics and their statistics. You pull all that information together, and then come up with a bit of a list of who you liked – (in terms of players ranked) one to 50, just in pure rankings, and then also by position.

These examples demonstrate how the recruiters develop an initial list of players and refine this list as they monitor their development.

Delving deeper

Beyond in-game performance and athletic ability, recruiters also place great importance on player interviews and reference checks to understand who the athlete is as a person.

One recruiter told me:

Interviews probably take up 50% of our time. We would do between 80-100 home interviews over the course of a year and interview some players up to six or seven times.

Generally, these interviews are conducted in the players’ homes, with the athlete and their immediate family. But recruiters also speak to a wide range of people who know the player well, from coaches and teachers to teammates and even employers:

We’d be talking to his coach, his teachers, talent manager, and employer. We get generally on average, 10-12 references per player. Might be a previous teammate and junior coaches. Right through various different school teachers.

The goal is to build a complete picture of the person, not just the player, as one recruiter explained:

If they’re at the footy club and they’re a good player, the coaches are going to talk highly of them just because they’re a good player. But the team manager will see some things that the coach mightn’t see. Like, he might see that he doesn’t treat his teammates well. Or when no one’s around, he’s picking up and tidying up the changerooms.

Through these conversations, recruiters gain insight into a player’s character, work ethic and attitude – factors that often prove just as, or if not more, important as their physical abilities.

Years of work goes into each pick

Each draft pick represents years of careful monitoring, evaluation and discussion from under-16s through to their final interview.

Becoming an AFL player is not simply about physical performance – it’s about holistic development, the combination of talent, consistency and character that gives clubs confidence to call a player’s name on draft night.

References

1. ^{^} the AFL draft (www.aflq.com.au)
2. ^{^} AFL draft combine (www.afl.com.au)
3. ^{^} two studies in this area (doi.org)
4. ^{^} They told me (www.journalofexpertise.org)