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NGA product Roy Benning already had one foot in the door at Fremantle before the NAB AFL Draft had started.

The forward/ruck had been on Fremantle’s radar for three years, and since moving to Perth from Kununurra in February, he had enjoyed a meteoritic rise through the colts for Claremont and in three games representing WA.

But there was one new twist in the draft rules that could catch Fremantle out, and it meant that every time Essendon had a selection on the second day of the NAB AFL Draft, Freo’s recruiters paid close attention.

Head of Player Personnel David Walls knew the Bombers had also been meeting with Benning.

If they bid early, it would mean Fremantle would have to pay a high price to match.

If it came late in the draft, Freo could match easily with their next selection at no.54.

But the worst-case scenario could happen if Freo tried to walk Benning through as a Category B rookie.

In previous years, as what occurred with the likes of Leno Thomas and Isaiah Butters, Fremantle’s NGA nominees would automatically become Category B rookies if they went unselected at the National Draft.

But under these new rules, clubs with selections in the pre-season draft could take these players and there would be no opportunity for Freo to match with a bid.

“Essendon had a pick in the pre-season draft and had interviewed Roy twice, had they picked him in that pre-season draft, we would have had no ability to match,” Walls said.

 “We just wanted to take any risk out of him going to another club and just pick him ourselves.

“We were desperate to have a developing ruck/forward and we think he's going to be a really important player.”

There was another good reason to pay the full price for Benning.

A player taken in the National Draft is given a two-year contract, while a Cat B rookie only gets one year to prove themselves, which can put a lot of pressure on a raw talent like Benning who is likely to be a longer-term prospect.

“He was our highest ranked player left at 54, so we wanted to commit to him,” Walls said.

“If we drafted someone else at 54, they get the two-year contract and we wouldn't have been comfortable giving another player two years and walking Roy to a Cat B rookie spot, where he only gets one year, especially because we rated Roy as the best player available at that time.”

In 2004, the Claremont Football Club applied to have access for the previously unzoned Kimberley region.

It was an ambitious plan that opened the pathway for Indigenous footballers to make the transition to Perth and set up a life some 3000km from home.

This helped the likes of Casey Sibosado make his way to Fremantle while Broome product Josh Hill was the most significant player to emerge from the region, playing 173 AFL games for the Bulldogs and West Coast.

As a part of this plan, Claremont established Kimberley House to provide a residence for these players in Perth, which is where Benning was living to pursue his football career and study Sports Science at UWA.

Following Benning’s selection, it is where Justin Longmuir arrived to welcome him to the Club.

After we park and walk towards the boarding house, a Freo fan stops to chat to Longmuir on the footpath.

I start playing with the settings on my camera to get set up for when we meet Benning inside, only to realise that 'fan' was Benning and they had been chatting for the past 10 seconds.

And it was on this footpath in Crawley that we officially welcomed Benning to the Club.

Longmuir asks Benning if he’s had any calls from home.

“Yeah, my phone’s blowing up right now. It’s still going,” Benning said.

“I just got off the phone, I had Mum and Dad crying, they were pretty emotional.”

Longmuir replied, “that’s great mate, well done, you’ve made them all proud, but the journey’s only just starting!”

As a pair of forward/rucks, Longmuir gets down to the important topic.

“How tall are you?”

“196 I think”

“Nah mate,” says the 196cm Longmuir, “I reckon you’ve got me by a couple centimetres.”

At very much the same height, they stand side by side for a pic with the same beaming smile.

I conduct my interview with Benning on the footpath, hoping that any pedestrians that walk past will simply go around us.

In the corner of my eye, I see three people walking towards us, they stop, say hello to Longmuir and watch on. I could tell this made Benning a bit nervous because he’s now speaking to a crowd.

It turns out they’re Freo fans, who happen to be from the country and know exactly who Benning is after seeing him profiled on GWN7 news.

So for a brief moment, a group of country people; Benning from Kununurra, Longmuir from Koorda and this trio from Collie have a chat about footy and Fremantle before Benning heads back inside and Longmuir heads north to Karrinyup to meet with Matthew Johnson and his family.

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