“The picks were going, I was getting more worried, and when my name came up I was so happy. So too my Mum, who’s expecting any time know, and thankfully she didn’t get too excited,” McInnes said.

 

For McInnes, validation of his status as a senior-listed AFL footballer is fitting reward for his toil as a junior with the Dandenong Stingrays, first as a midfielder, then as a forward, and finally as a defender.

 

“Maybe it (being drafted) is a reward for the hard work I’ve put in since I started playing footy,” he said. “It’s paid off, Carlton has shown a lot of faith in me, and hopefully I can reward them,” he said.

 

Luke Mitchell, meanwhile, shared text messages with his Calder Cannons contemporary Matthew Watson, as they learned that football would keep them together at Visy Park.

 

“I’m obviously pretty good mates with him,” Mitchell said of Watson. “We’ve played a lot of team footy together going back to under 14s, so it’s nice to again be able to share the experiences. I reckon we’ll both be going out for a couple of lemon squashes to celebrate.

 

“I’m very, very happy to be at Carlton. For me it was a bit of a priority to stay in Melbourne, not that it was going to be the end of the world if I didn’t, but I’m really happy with the way it’s worked out.”

 

The youngest of five boys in the Mitchell clan, Luke readies for the next phase of his football life having successfully overcome a shoulder injury, which put paid to most of his 2010 season.

 

“In the first ‘praccy’ match I did the shoulder and was out for 20 weeks,” Mitchell said. “At the time of the injury I was given the option to play on with a 90 per cent chance it could come out again, or I could get the surgery done and it was a 100 per cent chance of not coming out. So I got the shoulder done, came back at the end and it was good to come back.”

 

For Norwood’s Nick Duigan (pronounced Dyegan), the smoky at selection 70, and as fate would have it, the 2000^th player named at the draft, recruitment to Carlton represents reward for eight years of sheer grind in the SANFL.

 

“At 18 or 19 I probably believed that it (draft selection) was probably not going to happen,” Duigan said. “At the same time I loved Norwood, had a passion for Norwood, and really liked what I was doing.

 

“I never really considered playing AFL footy for a number of years, then all of a sudden it’s come up. Perhaps I’m living proof that it’s never too late,” Duigan said from Adelaide.

 

And yet for the 26 year-old Duigan, the actual draft process happened relatively quickly, given that he first met with the club’s Assistant National Recruiting Manager Shane Rogers with just three rounds to play in the 2010 SANFL home and aways.

 

“I didn’t hear from Carlton again until the season and four weeks of finals was over, and not long after happened to be in Melbourne to see some friends during which time I was asked to come in and have a look around the club.

 

“I then had a quick meeting with Wayne Hughes and was left thinking I might be a chance, although how much of a chance I didn’t know.”

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