Imagine your 18-year-old self being confronted with numerous questions about your character, your talents, how your life events have shaped you, by people you are desperately eager to impress.
It’s a daunting reality for all the aspiring footballers attending the 2019 NAB AFL Draft Combine this week.
For many of these hopefuls, these questions, this interview and the combine are the final hurdles in the marathon towards the AFL draft.
Five Hawthorn recruiters sit in a semi-circle around this kid, National Recruiting Manager Mark McKenzie, Mark Smart, Geoff Morris, Mitchell Cashion and Sports Psychologist Anthony Klarica.
They’ve watched a countless number of his games, potentially over the last three years. They know his strengths, they know his weaknesses, and they probably have a few light-hearted anecdotes about the person sitting in front of them that can break the tension if the need should arise.
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As intimidating as this room might be, it could be considered an inevitable necessity.
The club needs to ascertain whether this person is worth investing its time, money and resources into.
The game is, after all, a business.
Despite this, the individuals in the room do the best they can to help ease the nerves of the draft hopeful.
Greg “Bocca” Boxall is strategically placed outside Hawthorn’s corporate box at Rod Laver Arena.
Bocca has been in the recruiting game for 27 years. He has seen it all.
But it is not his incredible experience that makes him the perfect fit for this doorman job - it’s his temperament. The man is a larrikin of the highest order.
As the kids sit outside the suite awaiting their interview turn, Bocca works his magic, loosening them up and finding out a bit of the lighter side of these kids.
By the time they are called inside, they are laughing and at ease.
They walk through the door and it’s handshakes all-round. These kids have likely already had two or three interviews with the Hawks by this stage, so some familiar faces are welcomed with knowing smiles and questions such as “did your little brother end up winning his grand final?”.
The questions begin, jumping from living arrangements to parents’ sporting histories.
Tougher questions are greeted with a longer pause before the answers begin but all in all their responses are incredibly impressive – calm, composed and well-thought out.
Then there’s answers like, “biology is pretty full on”. These are the ones that slap you back into the reality, with most of these hopefuls still just 17 or 18 year-old students preparing to face their exams in the coming months.
Each interviewee battles with the difficult balancing act of promoting themselves, whilst not appearing complacent or, on the flipside, too happy with themselves.
But the recruiting group seem to warm to the flashes of personality.
Once the interview is over, the hopeful again does the rounds of handshakes before departing.
An exhale from the room and then into a quick review.
You quickly get a sense of certain recruiters’ favourites.
From the “He’s very down to earth, isn’t he?” and “he converses well”, to the “he might say what you want to hear”, “is that actually true?”, “do you think he is confident enough?”.
There is some healthy debate within the group.
The hard line of questioning moments earlier would suggest tough personalities. But, almost as soon as the door closes and the room is to themselves, the boyish banter and smiles resume.
The reality of a recruiter’s job is that no matter how much work is put into understanding these candidates, there will still be an element of guesswork and wishful thinking when they call out their chosen names in just under two months’ time.
Every one of the these kids have dominated at their various clubs, schools, or NAB league competitions, but the ultimate question is “will these traits translate into an AFL career?”.
The hunt continues.
