It has been a successful start to AFL season 2019 for a number of competition draftees.
Last week Geelong’s Charlie Constable was announced as the Round 2 NAB AFL Rising Star following North Melbourne’s Bailey Scott, who was the first nomination in Round 1 as a NAB AFL Rising Star for 2019.
Both are graduates from NAB League clubs, with Scott from the Gold Coast Suns Academy, who exercised his option under the father/son rule to follow in his father Robert’s footsteps to the Kangaroos and Constable from the Sandringham Dragons, a long time producer of AFL talent for decades.
So how does the Rising Star nomination process unfold and become one of the AFL’s most sort after awards and who are some of the other contenders?
There are 212 players eligible for the 2019 NAB AFL Rising Star, one of the more prestigious awards which recognises and encourages young players in the AFL.
Players from the recently launched NAB League are certain to continue to feature regularly amongst this year’s nominees.
Nathan Buckley was inaugural winner in 1993 and the list of those afforded the honour include 12 graduates of the NAB League including last year’s winner Jaidyn Stephenson, a product of the Eastern Ranges, who had a startling debut year with the Magpies.
Other NAB League graduates to win the award include the likes of former GWV Rebels and Sydney Swans Champion Adam Goodes in 1999, former Eastern Ranges duel best and fairest winner who became a Hawthorn champion in Sam Mitchell won in 2003 and current Geelong champion and captain Joel Selwood, a graduate of the Bendigo Pioneers, won the award in 2007.
Im 2018 15 NAB League club graduates were nominated including the Adelaide Crows’ Tom Doedee (Geelong Falcons), the Sydney Swans’ Oliver Florent (Sandringham Dragons), Fremantle’s Adam Cerra (Eastern Ranges), and Richmond’s Jack Higgins (Oakleigh Chargers) all having eye catching seasons as well as the ultimate award winner in speedster and goalkicker in Magpies’ Jaidyn Stephenson.
Who will emerge in 2019 a win one of the remaining 21 nominations from the eligible players across the competition after Bailey Scott and Charlie Constable secured that first nominations ?
Already the likes of NAB Leagues graduates Zak Butters (Western Jets to Port Adelaide), Sam Walsh (Geelong Falcons to Carlton), Xavier Duursma (Gippsland Power to Port Adelaide) and Bailey Smith (Sandringham Dragons to Western Bulldogs) have been prominent in the JLT Community Series and in the first AFL rounds of matches.
Three others from new NAB League clubs in the Tasmanian Devils pair Chayce Jones (Adelaide Crows) and Tarryn Thomas (North Melbourne) along with Sydney Swan Nic Blakey from the Swans Academy have also shown enough to suggest they will be contenders for a Rising Star nomination at some point in the season.
But we shouldn’t forget that players are eligible if under 21 years at the start of the year and they have played 10 or less games at AFL level bringing into play the likes of Will Setterfield (Sandringham Dragons to GWS Giants to Carlton) Willem Drew ( GWV Rebels to Port Adelaide ) and Luke Davies-Uniacke (Dandenong Stingrays to North Melbourne) who have had a taste of AFL but still qualify for the award.
The AFL is often asked about how is the weekly nomination is selected.
I can confirm that two graduates of the NAB League from the early years who became champions of the game in Brad Johnson (former Western Jet and Western Bulldogs Legend) and Chris Johnson (former Northern Knights and Brisbane Lions champion) are part of a panel of four that access performances each week. AFL’s Head of Talent Pathways and States Leagues Tristan Salter is the third member of the panel and I’m the other member.
We seek to select the best eligible performer of the round of matches with often the selection unanimous. On other occasions it will be by consensus and occasionally it will come down to a vote. It’s a rigorous process.
Late in the year a greater weighting is given to year to date performances as we aim to get the 23 best performed players for the year into the mix to win the award.
The All-Australian selectors; Gillon Mc Lachlan (chairman) Kevin Bartlett, Luke Darcy, Danny Frawley, Steve Hocking, Glen Jakovich, Cameron Ling, Matthew Richardson, Warren Tredrea and Chris Johnson and myself (Rising Star award only) vote five down to one on the players they felt were the best performers from the nominations for the year.
Each week the NAB League App will continue to feature the NAB AFL Rising Star nomination and mention a few others on the radar of selectors.
Kevin Sheehan OAM- AFL Talent Ambassador
