Former Geelong Falcons Talent Manager Mick Turner has revealed how recruiters don’t always get it right and testing results alone fail to show the full picture.
It's off the back of the AFL choosing to outlaw skinfold testing before the draft to protect the mental health of draftees.
Turner is credited with nurturing many AFL champions such as Luke Hodge, Patrick Dangerfield, Travis Boak and Gary Ablett, amongst plenty more.
The experienced recruiter detailed two stories of club recruiters choosing to look too closely at testing results, rather than focusing on a myriad positives.
Hawthorn best and fairest winner James Worpel was one such player Turner had a lot to do with before his AFL career.
Despite his accolades in his junior years, Worpel slipped to pick 45 in the 2017 draft.
“They’re always pushing the boundary and looking for weaknesses in players, or why they’re like this or why they’re like that,” he told Sportsday.
“I can give you a couple of examples, James Worpel when he was coming through the system, some recruiters really loved him and some recruiters didn’t love him.
“They probably viewed him as a player that was nearly fully matured, his skinfolds were very low, and even though he was captain of Vic Country and was our most valuable player and was our premiership captain.
“They were probably looking at him recording such good results and thinking can he improve that much?
“James Worpel, two years after he left us, won the best and fairest at Hawthorn, so a lot of recruiters were wrong there, and the ones that took him were right.”
Fremantle ruckman Sean Darcy is an example of the opposite occurring, where his larger skinfolds were seen by some to showcase a lazy attitude.
However, Turner says that couldn’t be further from the case.
Darcy took the next step in 2021 to become one of the premier big men of the competition, and the 23-year-old looks to have a huge future at the Dockers.
Similar to Worpel, he was a draft slider to be selected at pick 38 in 2016.
“Another big example was Sean Darcy, this year at Fremantle he won their best and fairest, so he’s turned into a very elite player,” he continued.
“But at the time he came to us he was from Cobden, he was from a country family, eating country food, he was a border at Xavier, and Xavier when you’re a border, you’ve got to eat basically what’s given to you,” he continued.
“He was making the effort to come down on a train at least once a week to train with us, he was doing everything right, but a lot of recruiters looked at him and thought his skinfolds are high, he’s got to be lazy, he’s not dedicated enough, all these sorts of things.
“It depends on how you sell it to the recruiters.
“I just said to them, ‘Look, these are his circumstances. If you draft Sean Darcy and think he’s good enough, and you think your club’s professional enough to get him to improve … you get him fit, you get his skin folds down, weight down, he’s going to become a much better player because he’s a great kid and going to work really hard’.
“That’s what happened, he went away and worked really hard and now he’s the best and fairest winner at Fremantle.”
The AFL National Draft is less than a month away on November 24 and 25.