WAFL’s six best prospects for the AFL mid-season draft, headlined by Claremont’s Jack Buller
The WAFL has one outstanding prospect who will ‘probably’ be taken in the AFL mid-season draft and five others with notable claims, writes MARK DUFFIELD.
In 2017, South Fremantle’s Tim Kelly, already a star of the WAFL, took his football to a new level so high he simply had to be drafted.
He was taken at pick 24 in the national draft by Geelong, was an instant success and while we can argue about his trade price, continues to be a very strong AFL-calibre midfielder at West Coast.
South Fremantle teammate Marlion Pickett followed Kelly’s lead and while Pickett was not drafted in 2018, he made a compelling-enough case that Richmond drafted him in the 2019 mid-season rookie draft.
Kelly and Pickett are the best two recent examples of mature-age players in the WAFL making an irresistible case to be picked up to play at the next level.
Not every club will look at older players when the mid-season draft is held at the end of May. Some clubs, like West Coast last year with Jai Culley, will take youngsters.
Youngsters will be taken on spec provided they show some AFL traits.
But to get an AFL club’s attention a mature-age player must play at a level where he convinces at least one club of two things: That he is better than they thought he was when they overlooked him in the last draft, and that he is good enough to translate into a viable AFL player.
Does the WAFL have such a player, or players, this year?
There is a strong chance that there is at least one. If he holds his form between now and the end of May, Claremont key position player and forward/ruck Jack Buller is a strong chance to be selected.
Buller, who started the season with powerful performances against West Perth and South Fremantle, is 199cm tall, strong and comes at the football with real attitude. And he is only 21, with plenty of upside.
He is the standout on our list of six mature-age WAFL prospects who will be trying to catch the attention of AFL recruiters in five weeks’ time.
Jack Buller (Claremont)
Age: 21
Height: 199cm
Weight: 99kg
Position: Key forward/forward ruck
Strengths: Contested marking, natural controlled aggression, competitiveness
Weaknesses: Kicking for goals needs some work
Draft prospects: Strong
To be taken as a mature-age player from a competition like the WAFL, a player has to do things that turn heads. Think Subiaco’s Greg Clark in 2021, following South Fremantle’s Tim Kelly (2017) and Marlion Pickett (2018).
If the WAFL has had such a player in the opening two rounds of the 2023 season, it has been Claremont’s Jack Buller.
He has taken 24 marks; 10 in the round one grand final rematch against reigning premier West Perth and 14 against South Fremantle in round two, when he kicked 4.1. He comes hard at the ball on the lead, is a great contested mark and is the perfect size to be a second marking target in attack in the AFL, while taking a turn in the ruck as back-up.
Every WAFL coach spoken to for this story believed that Buller would “probably” be drafted mid-season.
His brilliant start to this season comes on top of a very strong 2022 finals campaign. He took seven marks in both the preliminary and grand finals, and in the grand final at one point looked set to take the game by the throat as he gave the Tigers a strong target to aim at.
His former junior coach at Claremont Ross McQueen, now senior coach at East Perth, said: “He is a big strong kid and he is a competitive kid. He has got a little bit of aggro in his game. If the ball is there, he is after it. I remember as a junior, he was a young 16-year-old and the very first ball-up that we did, he was straight across to the other ruckman and put his arm across his chest.”
Ben Edwards (Claremont)
Age: 24
Height: 180cm
Weight: 81kg
Position: Midfield
Strengths: Speed, evasion
Weakness: Kicking can be hit and miss
Draft prospects: Moderate
Ben Edwards attracted attention from AFL clubs after a strong 2022 campaign and it is believed Richmond took a keen interest.
If you watched him step through traffic and break into the clear, you would swear you were looking at an AFL player. It is the next part of the process that has clubs putting a question mark on him: every now and then he breaks into the clear, takes aim at a target and misses what he should hit.
But McQueen, who also coached Edwards as a junior during his time at the Tigers, is a big fan.
“It (the step into the clear) has always been Ben’s strength, even as a kid. He was a competitive kid, but had that lateral movement and speed and acceleration through a contest. Has the ability to change direction at high speed. It is just finding that little bit of poise and balance to finish it at the end. He has the ability to change the angle of the game with his legs at good speed.”
East Fremantle senior coach Bill Monaghan believes Edwards and fellow Claremont midfielder Bailey Rogers, the 2021 Sandover Medallist, are the two WAFL midfielders who could step straight into the AFL and not look out of place. But Rogers is now 26 and may have run out of time.
“If you were looking for midfielders to step up in the short term, I think Claremont have got a few,” Monaghan said. “I wouldn’t discount Bailey Rogers or Ben Edwards. If you were wanting someone to play wing or high half-forward in the AFL this weekend and not look out of place, I would say Ben Edwards and Bailey Rogers are the two most likely.”
Angus Schumacher (East Perth)
Age: 24
Height: 194cm
Weight: 84kg
Position: Midfield
Strengths: Speed, size, penetrating left-foot kick
Weaknesses: Possibly consistency; yet to have a complete breakout season
Draft Prospects: Moderate
When you think of 194cm left-footed midfielders in the AFL, your mind immediately turns to Marcus Bontempelli. We are not suggesting for a minute that Angus Schumacher fits in that class, yet he has some traits that suggest he is capable of belonging at the next level.
Schumacher came through the Victorian system with Bendigo Pioneers and spent time on Carlton’s list. He started 2022 strongly but carried a knee complaint through the back half of the season, which required clean-up surgery over summer.
McQueen, who coaches him, said he would not look out of place on an AFL list.
“He is definitely a good shape and size and he has started the season well again. He has strong attributes. He is six-foot-three, he kicks with good penetration. It depends on what clubs look at him, which comes back to points of need. He was a Covid top-up player last year for West Coast and he travelled two or three times with the team and didn’t get to play.
“But I can see why a club would be interested in a mature-aged bloke like him. I have only known him for the past two or three years but I think he is starting to feel a bit more balanced about everything. His footy has settled down. When he was at Carlton, he would have only been 18-19 years old. He is good around clearances, he has decent speed and he is kicking it really well.”
Schumacher put a flag in the ground in round two with a 33 disposal, two goal, seven mark four tackle midfield blinder against Subiaco.
“He has kicked a couple of great goals for us when we have needed them at different times – just found a way to hit the scoreboard,” McQueen said. “I think it is just that consistency of football and just staying at that higher level for longer.
“When Greg Clark got picked up by West Coast, he probably didn’t have a bad game for that whole year. Schuey probably needs a year like that. He is not that old. It is probably the right age to be grabbing players, 22 to 25, when they have matured into their bodies. You get exceptions, but he is still young and if can maintain top-end performance and consistency, he might be able to find his way onto a list.”
Aidan Clarke (Swan Districts)
Age: 24
Height: 179cm
Weight: 81kg
Position: Midfield/forward
Strengths: Natural footballer, toughness
Weaknesses: Has been a slow developer, so clubs are still getting their heads around what he might amount to
Draft prospects: Possible
One of the biggest problems that Aidan Clarke faces in grabbing the attention of an AFL club between now and the May 31 draft is that he is now injured (calf) and may struggle to play many more games to catch the recruiters’ attention.
He would have turned a few heads with his round one effort against East Perth, which was a 38 disposal, one goal game which almost got the Swans over the line against a very strong East Perth midfield; which is shaping up as an engine room to match it with Claremont’s.
Swans coach Andrew Pruyn said Clarke took a while to take his footy seriously and might be on an AFL list by now otherwise. “He is a Bunbury boy and he has sort of been a slow burn,” he said.
Pruyn said Clarke had arrived at the club as a forward. Unfortunately, the injury may dent his draft prospects.
“Last year, we started to move him towards the midfield and his ability to accumulate was pretty good. He has got great vision and awareness. He has got a hard edge. He is more an older school sort of footballer. He is a painter. He works bloody hard and he doesn’t take any shit. He doesn’t complain. He pushes through. Think this is the first soft tissue issue that he has had.
“He is a beauty. He is quick and his awareness – his ability to hit targets by footy are his biggest strengths and I think that natural competitive edge that he has got in him gets him through. He is unique at our club. We don’t have anyone else like him. Had he been playing the footy he is playing now three or four years ago, we probably wouldn’t still have him. He was probably a different kid back then, not as committed as he needed to be.”
Milan Murdock (East Fremantle)
Age: 22
Height: 180cm
Weight: 81kg
Position: Midfield
Strengths: Toughness, competitiveness, stamina
Weaknesses: Size for an AFL inside mid. Has stamina but not explosive speed
Draft prospects: Slight
AFL recruiters will look for “traits” when they assess midfield prospects. And if they stick hard and fast to those traits, then it will be tough for Milan Murdock to grab their attention.
But what Murdock does is put great numbers on the board almost every time he steps out onto the field. He is ultra competitive, he is left-footed and it is hard to check his speed because he has the capacity, a little like Scott Pendlebury, to step and find the space around him.
East Fremantle coach Bill Monaghan said question marks like size might count against him but his attitude could not be questioned.
“He is probably the most competitive person I have ever coached,” he said. “When they did Covid top-up lists last year, a couple of clubs nearly put him on their lists but he was coming off a broken leg, so he didn’t get added to the lists. So far, he has been one where recruiters have sat down and talked about him and asked themselves, ‘Do we think he can play AFL?’ So far, they haven’t thought so.”
Sam Stubbs (Perth)
Age: 26
Height: 186cm
Weight: 88kg
Position: Small mid/forward
Strengths: Size and smarts, pressure
Weaknesses: Has had a slow start to the season and is now injured
Draft prospects: May be fading
It is understood that Sam Stubbs now has a calf injury and is set to miss the next three weeks, which makes it tough for him to make an impact before the May 31 draft. But you only have to go back a handful of months and Stubbs was right in the frame to be a summer pick-up at Fremantle, where he spent much of the off-season training.
The Dockers liked Stubbs’ work in match simulation for much of the summer period and thought seriously about picking him up, but in the end, opted to retain a pick for the mid-season draft.
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Stubbs arrived back at Perth nursing a minor injury and has had a moderate start to the season, kicking single goals in the opening two rounds and then picking up a calf strain last weekend.
He has come through footy’s school of hard knocks, from Mt Gravatt in Queensland arriving in Perth via Kalgoorlie. He is tough and has footy smarts, but may not get many opportunities to strut his stuff between now and the draft.
Dockers footy manager Peter Bell described him as a “powerful mid-sized forward who acquitted himself pretty well in match sims” during AFL summer training.
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