THE TASMANIA Devils have produced AFL draftees before, but Tuesday night was an early endorsement for a football club being built ahead of its AFL entry in 2028.

Two Devils were selected in the 2026 Mid-Season Rookie Draft, just nine rounds into the club's first season back in the VFL since 2008.

Jaxon Artemis was the first name off the board at pick No.1 by Essendon after the Devils' recruited the half-back from South Fremantle, where he played in the WAFL premiership in 2025 but was overlooked for a second consecutive draft cycle. 

Then with the final pick, Melbourne grabbed 20-year-old ruckman Max Mapley to help cover the retirement of Tom Campbell, after a promising start to the season 

Devils head of list management and strategy Todd Patterson said the Mid-Season Rookie Draft results showed the club has laid the right foundations. 

"We are just incredibly proud of both players and the program. There's been a lot of work to get this thing off the ground and a lot of people that put a lot of faith in us," Patterson told AFL.com.au on Wednesday.

"For Jaxon to put his trust in us and move across the country as quite a young man to chase his dream, and then for it to be able to pan out ahead of time is amazing. And then for Max – someone who's never been able to sort of really leave the state to pursue further opportunities – now for them to be there for him. We're just really proud and happy. 

"Hopefully it just gives people confidence that we're able to produce talent and build a quality football program, and that we've got a lot of time left to go to continue to build one for the next level.

"I know Derek [Hine] and myself were pretty happy that there's a number of players taken from our program, but also a number of players that we'd spoken about coming to the program that have been taken last night and through the SSP and draft period, so we feel like we're fishing in the right ponds.

"But I think probably our overall competitiveness hopefully gives the broader football public a bit of confidence that we're not completely mad, we have some idea what we're doing."

The Devils attempted to keep Artemis with the proposal of a golden ticket, but with more than 18 months between now and the club's planned entry into the AFL, Patterson said the current opportunity was simply too good to deprive him of and they never reached a point where a contract offer was put in front of the 19-year-old.

"Offer is an interesting word, I wouldn't say it got to that point. It was more a discussion with the manager around, 'is there a scenario where he would consider staying with us, and what would that scenario need to look like from a contractual perspective?'" Patterson said.

"We ultimately just reached the point, both of us, where this is too good an opportunity for him to pass up in the short-term, so let's not move to sort of the point in time where we need to put something official in writing. 

"We had discussions around. 'is there a scenario where you consider staying?' I think we have to do that, we're competitors, right? So we've got to keep everyone honest and give ourselves a chance to keep the best talent possible. So it was probably nothing more than a conceptual discussion."

Artemis has joined the Bombers on an 18-month deal, but will be out of contract at the end of 2027, meaning he will be a name to watch ahead of Tasmania's first season in the AFL. 

"We really like him as a kid, we like him as a player. I think he got an 18-month contract, so he'll be out of contract at the right time for us. You'd like to think that we probably don't need to sell to him as much as some other players, but for now we'll just let him settle into his career at Essendon and see how he goes and monitor him like any other player," Patterson said.

"But clearly the more players who can help us build cohesion, because they know our system and our environment, like Jaxon and Max, and other players we've been connected with in the past, then you know we've got to keep tabs on them as we look to be as competitive as we can as quickly as we can."

Unlike other state league clubs that lost multiple players on Tuesday night – Woodville-West Torrens had three players recruited, Williamstown and Geelong also had two each – Tasmania has a larger list and will expose more players in the second half of 2026, before another recruiting drive entering the 2027 VFL season.