Matt Burgan goes behind the Melbourne Football Club scenes to provide an exclusive look at the club’s mid-season recruiting conference in the first of a two-part series

PART ONE

Tuesday, 8.50 am

IT MIGHT be more than three months out from the NAB AFL Draft, but the preparation to identify and select the next wave of Melbourne players is well and truly happening in earnest.

The NAB AFL under 18 championships have been played, the TAC Cup season and state leagues are drawing towards a close, and the pointy end of the recruiting season is ever so near.

In fact, the recruiting fraternity is just another extension of the never-ending footy cycle.

I arrive for Melbourne’s mid-year recruiting conference at Casey Fields. It’s the first of a two day discussion, focusing on roughly 50 players. Today, 25 players will be discussed, scrutinised and analysed.

The meeting is attended by the club’s six full-time recruiting staff members: Todd Viney, Jason Taylor, Kelly O’Donnell, Gary Burleigh, Tim Lamb and Darren Farrugia.

A mountain of work has gone into organising the conference from each recruiter. The six men work tirelessly behind the scenes.

According to Taylor, who chairs the meeting, the seminar is about rating a list of players, including those the club is targeting.

“We’ve put together a cumulative list from all our staff throughout the country, and we’ve got a group of players we rate nationally. Through our database, we go through key football traits that we feel are important in an AFL player, and also other facets that we believe are important in an athlete to succeed at the level,” he says.

“We go through each player and try to come out with strong, compressed focus points that, if we’re uncertain on, we need to be clear on in the latter part of the year.

“We’ve got four to eight weeks of games, and then the live viewing finishes. It’s about getting really strong preparation for the last phase, so we don’t come to the end of the year and say to ourselves ‘we’re not sure about that’.”

The four key recruiting pillars, which Viney implemented and spoke about with regularity last year, are again a key focus. Within these, the recruiters rank the players on competitiveness, physical attributes, football attributes and character.

I count 32 sub-sections under the four key pillars, including contested attributes, kicking, handballing, decision making, ball winning ability, endurance, running, agility, aggression, leadership, game understanding and character.

The detail is remarkable.

Naturally, no player can tick every box. Unless your name is G. Ablett. But even he isn’t 200 cm tall!

The recruiters produce collective rankings from one to seven on each player. Or, in words, they are poor, fair, average, good, very good, excellent and outstanding (elite).

Taylor, the club’s national recruiting manager, says, “At this phase it’s not so much about putting the players in direct order.”

“It’s to get the opinion of each person within the recruiting team on a full-time level, because they view these players numerous times all around the country in different positions, conditions and circumstances,” he says.

“It’s not always the same, so that’s what we’ve got to become clear on.”

Taylor tells his recruiting team to be careful how it judges the talent.

“Don’t be too hypercritical today,” he says.

9 am 

The first discussion of the day is underway.

It’s focused on the player universally regarded as the No. 1 player in this year’s pool: Vic Metro/Eastern key forward Tom Boyd.

All clubs would love to gain this player, who has been likened in style to Lions great Jonathan Brown.

“[Boyd] learns every week and puts it into practice,” Taylor says.

Boyd is spoken of in great detail, and it’s an example of what follows.

From here, another 24 players have been discussed. Each recruiter has varying opinions, which is why a day such as this is important.

Prominent junior names such James Aish, Jack Billings, Josh Kelly, Kade Kolodjashnij, Ben Lennon, Christian Salem, Matthew Scharenberg and Lewis Taylor – all set for an AFL list come November – are naturally discussed.

When attention turns to the second footballer, Taylor quickly reiterates that if every recruiter is prepared to dig deep, faults can be found in any player – even elite talent.

“We can look too hard,” Taylor said.

From there, some players spark universal praise and others are divided. Effectively, that’s what this day is all about. 

On occasions, the recruiters compare the youngsters to AFL talent already on show. That helps to paint a picture of the future.

Farrugia regularly brings up vision of the players. He uses Champion Data statistics, which are comprehensive, to help support or debunk theories.

The experience of the recruiting team allows them to liken some players to past juniors they have coached or seen up close in the elite junior pathways.

Players’ personalities play a bit part in the discussion.

Some aren’t ready for an AFL environment; others are spoken of in high regard.

Competitors, elite attitudes and “bankable” AFL players are traits aligned with several players.

It’s staggering to think that at least 50 reports have been done on certain players throughout the season by the recruiting team.

11 am

The recruiters take a five minute break, before they start talking about their seventh player for the day.  

At one point, several clips are shown and not a sound is made by the six recruiters. Their focus is strong. By the time 18 clips have been shown, the first sound occurs, when Taylor takes a swig from his water bottle.

He then speaks up and opens the discussion.

Some players are thought to be better prospects in an AFL environment, given the greater resources.

To becontinued ...