AFL DRAFT combines have wrapped up around the nation, giving an insight into how each elite level hopeful stacks up athletically. For most prospects, it was a chance to showcase just how much they had improved since preseason, especially after a full season of football – albeit compromised. For the Victorians in action, they finally got to show their wares after a substantial amount of time away from the field, with a number of them registering results indicative of remarkably hard work in the meantime.
Having taken a look at the top 10 results from each test, we now look back at the combines as a whole to further put under the microscope those who performed well across the board. Needless to say, these athletes can certainly play too, with plenty of first round prospects scattered across the pointy end of each leaderboard. Furthermore, these are the players who have earned National Combine invites; meaning they have done so at the request of at least three-four AFL clubs, or by having previously earned passage into their respective academy hubs.
>> SCROLL for all the top 10 results
Among the top overall performers, three West Australians managed top 10 results across four different tests. Peel Thunder’s Isiah Winder is arguably the best draft prospect of the lot, a classy small midfielder who achieved top two results in the standing vertical jump and running vertical jump (right). To top it off, he also came fifth in the 20m sprint and sixth in the agility test. He uses all those traits on-field too, and looms as a potential second round pick. West Perth defender Kellen Johnson and Fremantle Next Generation Academy (NGA) member Chris Walker were the other two WA products to complete the feat, doing so in all three jumps and the agility test.
Godfrey Okerenyang, who took out the 2018 AFL Grand Final sprint and comes from a strong athletics background, was the only other player to manage top 10 results in four different tests. The GWS Academy hopeful leapt for the biggest standing vertical jump (84cm) and running vertical jump (right, 92cm), while also placing third in the 20m sprint. His podium finish in the running vertical jump (left) rounded out the four-peat. He looms as a more prospective pick at this year’s draft, having only recently committed to pursuing a footballing career.
Another two high-upside late chances who are already tied to clubs in Josh Eyre (Essendon, NGA) and Aiden Fyfe (Gold Coast, Academy) each racked up hat-tricks of top 10 features. Like most of the others, they were prominent in the jumping tests, while also respectively running the eight and ninth-best 20m times. In the most compromised draft crop ever, the likes of Reef McInnes (Collingwood NGA) took out first place in the speed test with a searing time of 2.78 seconds, while Sydney Academy member Braeden Campbell and Bulldogs NGA gun Jamarra Ugle-Hagan were also among that top 10 with equal times of 2.90 seconds. The latter two are expected to attract bids within the top 10.
There were plenty of other first round prospects to light up the track, too. WA key defenders Denver Grainger-Barras and Heath Chapman showed their wares in the agility and endurance departments respectively, while fellow sandgroper Jack Carroll was a standout jumper – even while sporting a cast on his broken wrist. Archie Perkins was another to impress in multiple categories, with Vic Metro hub teammates Finlay Macrae and Nikolas Cox acing the 2km time trial. Others to excel across the board included Nathan O’Driscoll, a second round candidate, and Brodie Lake, who hails from the Northern Territory but made the move to South Australia this year. He is eligible to be pre-listed by the Gold Coast Suns via their access to the Darwin zone.
NATIONWIDE AFL DRAFT COMBINE TOP 10s
Standing Vertical Jump:
1. Godfrey Okerenyang (GWS Academy) – 84cm
=2. Isiah Winder (Peel Thunder) – 76cm
=2. Pierce Roseby (Sydney Academy) – 76cm
=4. Jack Carroll (East Fremantle) – 74cm
=4. Chris Walker (East Fremantle) – 74cm
=6. Kellen Johnson (West Perth) – 73cm
=6. Shannon Neale (South Fremantle) – 73cm
8. Harry Grant (GWS Academy) – 70cm
=9. Jaiden Hunter (Perth) – 69cm
=9. Sam Frost (GWS Academy) – 69cm
GOLD Coast AFL Women’s coach Rhyce Shaw has no intentions of “throwing the magnets around” in a bid to snatch four points off the 16th placed Tigers in the last round of the AFLW season. The Suns have just one win to their name to-date and are coming up against the two-win Tigers, but Shaw […]
COLLINGWOOD leapt over three AFLW sides in a penultimate round come-from-behind victory over Gold Coast, with last year’s wooden spooners ensuring they would not meet the same fate in 2025. The Magpies won by 15 points over the Suns, 5.9 (39) to 3.6 (24), thanks to kicking the only two goals of the final term. […]
FINALS spots were earned and others dashed in an intriguing weekend of action. Here’s what the 18 AFL Women’s coaches had to say following their respective Round 11 matches.
AN INACCURATE first term did not sway a desperate Fremantle from keeping its finals hopes intact, running out 44-point victors over Richmond in the west. The Dockers had far more on the line given a loss would all but end any hopes of a post-season appearance, and after kicking 1.5 in the first 20 minutes, […]
BRISBANE gained valuable bragging rights over Melbourne in a Round 11 clash of heavyweights in what could very well end up one of the qualifying finals in under a fortnight’s time. The Lions made it half a dozen wins on the trot, but it was really the litmus test for the reigning grand finalists who […]
AFTER a somewhat sluggish start, Hawthorn booked its top four spot with an impressive five-goal win over Essendon at Windy Hill on the weekend. The brown and gold were technically in front at half-time by four points after being level at quarter time, but the general feeling was that Essendon had the upper hand in […]
SYDNEY showed it has the depth to get the job done without Chloe Molloy after overcoming a West Coast outfit battling with its own gun midfielder/forward Ella Roberts being a late out. As the two sides duked it out in what could be a finals-shaping match, the Swans took away the four points with a […]
PORT Adelaide has broken the Showdown shackles in the AFL Women’s competition after downing Adelaide by seven points in a “spicy” contest at Norwood Oval on Friday night. Needing to win to give themselves the slimmest of chances for finals, Port Adelaide held off a determined Crows outfit to get up , 7.10 (52) to […]
NEXT Monday our road to the AFL Women’s Draft commences with the first of our AFL Women’s Draft Profiles to kick off. Each day throughout the week there will be two National Draft Combine, and one State Draft Combine profile that will be completed over the next month running until the end of November. In […]
Stay informed
If you like the content that Draft Central provides and don’t want to miss any of it, then sign up to our subscriber list where you can be emailed out the latest AFL Draft Guide or sport-specific magazines, as well as the option to sign up to a monthly newsletter.