As seen in Docker Mag

At the end of the 2008 season, the Fremantle Dockers set about climbing back up the AFL ladder. The drafts were a good place to start.

Fremantle’s 2013 AFL Grand Final team included six players who were drafted to the club in the same year – 2008.

Almost one-third of the club’s line-up in the biggest game of its existence arrived in the same draft year, highlighting the importance of that period in Freo’s history.

General manager of player management Brad Lloyd recalled how the club decided during a fateful list management meeting at the end of the 2008 season that it had to be “ruthless”.

Through retirements, trades and delistings, Fremantle shipped out 14 players.

“It was pretty clear to the list management committee that we had a mature list and we were down at the bottom end of the ladder, so we decided it was important to refresh the list,” Lloyd said.

“We were also mindful that there were two new teams, Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney, approaching in the coming years.

“We decided to get moving.”

Freo went into the 2008 National Draft armed with multiple picks from which to begin the club’s rebuild.

There was no particular focus for the recruiting team.

“With so many players set to arrive at the club it was important that we aimed at getting the best available players,” Lloyd said.

“We mainly focused on quality.”

The club’s first pick came at number three. Melbourne and West Coast had already nabbed Jack Watts and Nic Naitanui.

Freo took West Perth midfielder Stephen Hill.

“We were in the fortunate position that we had so many picks and we had established that it was a quality draft,” Lloyd said.

“At the top end there were some really good players to choose from, including Nic Naitanui, Hamish Hartlett, Michael Hurley, Chris Yarran, Daniel Rich, Ty Vickery, Jack Ziebell and Steele Sidebottom. It was a really strong group.

“Stephen Hill was a player that our WA recruiting arm, led by Phil Smart and John Nykyforak, had watched closely, and he’d really grown as a player throughout the course of the year.

“We thought his speed, both offensively and defensively, would be a good compliment to our list. There was a real strong push from our WA recruiting arm to draft Stephen.”

The club’s next pick came at number 21, and it was used on a 21-year-old who in previous drafts had been considered too small to make it at AFL level.

“Hayden Ballantyne had played State junior footy but he’d really come on in that 2008 season as a small forward, kicking a number of goals for Peel,” Lloyd said.

“He was a player we wanted to get into the club.

“As the draft approached nearer, the information from our WA recruiters was to ensure we secured him on our list, and the recommendation was to take him early and make sure another club didn’t snap him up.

“We pushed him up to take him at pick 21.”

After picking two West Australians, the club looked to Victoria next and selected Vic Country Under 18 captain Nick Suban at number 24.

“We really prioritised kicking in the draft and Nick was someone who was a quality player at North Ballarat with beautiful foot skills, good smarts and game sense,” Lloyd said.

“We had a tough selection through that middle range of the draft but we thought Nick would really compliment the list with his kicking.”

While the focus was to take the best available talent, the club identified the need to bring a ruckman into the fold and selected Victorian tall Zac Clarke with pick 37. “Zac was a bit of a development player,” Lloyd said.

“We saw him in a game at Preston playing for Oakleigh where he really showed his athleticism on the wing. He also went forward and took a strong pack mark.

“He showed glimpses of what he could be capable of in the future so we wanted to make sure we got a tall ruckman into the group and Zac was someone we pushed up to secure.

“He came in from day one as a really good athletic ruckman.”

The club’s next pick came at number 53, where it snared a player the recruiters knew had tremendous potential.

“Michael Walters was arguably the best player in Australia at 16, with his under 16’s carnival,” Lloyd said.

“The recruiting staff rated him really highly. Sometimes you have a bit of luck in drafts and we were fortunate that he was still sitting there with our pick in the 50s.

“The story has been well documented that he took a long time to come on, but he’s probably doing at AFL level now what he did at 16 in the National Championships.

“It’s great to see that he’s got himself super fit and is realising his potential, because he always had it.”

A few weeks later Fremantle selected two young West Australians in the Rookie Draft who could have considered themselves unlucky not to have been picked up in the National Draft – Matt de Boer and Clancee Pearce.

“Both Matt and Clancee were All Australians in the 2008 Under 18 Championships,” Lloyd said.

“They’d had strong campaigns and we thought they’d be strong rookies and deserved opportunities.

“Both came in and quickly established themselves at the club, Matt in particular.

“Clancee, over the past two years, has got himself really fit and grown into his role at the club.”

Pearce could have very well been the seventh player from the class of 2008 to represent Fremantle in the 2013 Grand Final, but an achilles injury sustained in the last game of the home and away season cost him his place.

Lloyd recognised the contribution of 2008 rookie draftee Greg Broughton, who played 68 games for the club from 2009 to 2012 before being traded to Gold Coast.

“We realised that getting so many 18-year-olds in the one year was a little bit of a stretch,” Lloyd said.

“We looked at a couple of mature- agers, and one of those was Greg Broughton. He had a number of good years at the club.”

Other 2008 draftees Tim Ruffles and Jay van Berlo, who are no longer in the AFL, also debuted in 2009, which made it 11 first-gamers for Freo in that season.

Lloyd agreed that the 2008 draft campaign would go down as one of the most important in the club’s history.

“It started with the list management committee’s commitment to be ruthless with the playing list,” he said.

“It’s never a good time to see so many players leave the club, but 14 new players came in and we were fortunate that it was a strong draft year.

“You’ll find it was one of the strongest drafts ever across the board in the AFL.”

Lloyd admitted he and every recruiter associated with the club in 2008 felt a sense of great pride on Grand Final day last year.

“There’s always a number of stories that go on behind the scenes and a lot of hard work is done,” he said.

“I think Phil Smart, John Nykyforak, Adam Jones, David Walls and Dave McMullin, along with the remainder of our recruiting network made really strong contributions to the club in that year.

“There’s no doubt they’d have sat back on Grand Final day and enjoyed seeing some of the guys that they’d watched as young players come through and play on the biggest stage of all.”