WA draft prospects including Koby LeCras head to Melbourne for AFL national draft combine

After his draft year was brought to a halt by an untimely injury, Koby LeCras is approaching full fitness at the perfect time.

LeCras, one of WA’s premier 2026 prospects and the nephew of West Coast legend Mark and the son of West Perth champion Brent, partially tore his ACL on his WAFL league debut for the Falcons in April and missed the remainder of the season.

With his recovery now nearing completion, the 18-year-old joined four of his fellow AFL hopefuls from the State in heading to Melbourne on Wednesday for the national draft combine, which will run through until Saturday.

Leo Steed, George Gale, Harvey Spawton-Guy and Cameron Maynard also made the trip to complete physical testing and interviews with clubs, while Heath Mellody — who is widely tipped to be the the first WA player off the board — and Benji van Rooyen are already in Victoria.

LeCras said he had lent on his uncle, who tore his own ACL when at the peak of his powers in 2012, for advice and support throughout his rehabilitation process.

“He just said ‘do all your rehab, make sure you get everything done you can, and also, just try and learn as much as you can, soak it all up, because it only happens once, your draft year’,” LeCras said.

“Mark and Dad have been really good for me. They’ve given me lots of advice over the journey, but they’ve also tried to stay out of it a little bit.

“I’ve learnt some things that I probably wouldn’t have learnt if I was playing. It’s made me look at football in a little bit of a different way.

“It hasn’t been the perfect year, but I’m really grateful for the people I’ve got around me.”

LeCras will not complete the full suite of physical testing at the combine, and will instead focus his attention solely on the 2km time trial and the 20m sprint.

“I haven’t had enough change of direction yet, so we’ll just do those two things and hopefully go well,” he said.

When asked if he was expected to be a full participant on the first day of pre-season if he achieves his dream of being drafted by an AFL club, LeCras replied: “That’s the plan.”

“When I did it, we gathered together as a group and spoke about what this year’s going to look like. The ultimate plan was just to get back for pre-season . . . it’s all on track so far,” he said.

Players require expressions of interest from at least five AFL clubs in order to earn an invite to the national combine.

Another nine WA draft hopefuls, including AFL-linked prospects Lucas Robinson, Fin Yeo (both Fremantle), Harper Banfield and Lachlan McGlade (both West Coast), will have their chance to impress clubs at next week’s State combine.