Pick no.14 - Heath Chapman
Pick no.27 - Nathan O'Driscoll
Pick no.50 - Brandon Walker
Pick no.54 - Joel Western
Rookie pick no.7 - Josh Treacy
Fremantle rounded out the draft period with two picks in the 2020 NAB AFL Rookie Draft, selecting key forward Josh Treacy and re-drafting forward Bailey Banfield to the rookie list.
A footballer from Cohuna in country Victoria, Treacy impressed in 2019 as a bottom ager in the NAB league for Bendigo before using the Covid shutdown to continue to work on his fitness.
Executive general manager of football Peter Bell said Fremantle were hoping to add to their tall forward stocks through the draft period and were pleased to pick up the 18-year-old as a rookie.
“Josh is 194cm and 94kg. He’s a powerful, aggressive forward,” Bell said.
“He worked hard over the off-season and over the lockdown and got his 20 metre sprint under three seconds, which is really good for a big guy like him. He’s worked hard on his running as well.
“What he brings is aggression in the air, he hits bodies and, clearly, we’ve been looking for a tall forward. There weren’t a lot available in the draft except right at the top end.
Treacy had limited opportunity to prove himself in 2020 due to the Covid shutdown but Bell said Fremantle’s recruiting team had seen enough from his 2019 performances to see Treacy’s talent.
“Although Josh didn’t play a whole lot of footy in 2020, we had a fair bit to go off. He was an underage representative for Bendigo last year in 2019 where he took a lot of contested marks and kicked plenty of goals,” Bell said.
“We watched him closely and what impressed us a lot about him was his work through the off-season. He’s a strong player naturally, but working really hard on his fitness has certainly helped his power and athleticism.”
Fremantle re-drafted Bailey Banfield at no.22 in the rookie draft after the 22-year-old was delisted from the primary list so he could be re-drafted as a rookie.
Bell said the situation was brought about due to Fremantle needing to reduce their primary listed players under the AFL’s list reductions.
While Banfield had not been able to officially train at Fremantle since pre-season commenced on Monday, Bell is looking forward to seeing the forward / midfielder return on Friday.
“We had committed to re-drafting Bailey and it’s great to rubber stamp that. We get to see him tomorrow and he can get stuck back into training,” Bell said.
“It’s not an ideal situation but it’s something that many AFL footballers have had to go through, particularly this year with the list composition changes.
“Ethan Hughes is someone who’s been through this very experience and has bounced back with two impressive years culminating with a seventh in the best and fairest this year.
“It’s not a great process but we know that professionals like Bailey can handle it. He hasn’t missed a beat and would have been training the last few days when he wasn’t able to be here at the club and it will be business as usual from tomorrow.”
