AFL draft: Charlie Banfield excited to continue family legacy after West Coast Eagles miss out on NGA prospect

St Kilda draftee Charlie Banfield has credited his father and West Coast Eagles great Drew for helping him deal with the pre-AFL draft pressure and nerves. And the younger Banfield is excited to begin life as a Saint after the Eagles found themselves without a lift spot to pick up their son of the dual premiership winner and former club champion. Banfield was the fourth Sandgroper off the board on Thursday night and the fifth overall in the draft, joining Jacob Farrow (Essendon), Sam Swadling (Collingwood), Koby Evans (Brisbane) and Tylah Williams (West Coast). Evans, Williams and Banfield were all members of the Eagles’ Next Generation Academy, as West Coast list manager Matt Clarke said they had prioritised Williams and fellow second round pick-up Sam Allen. 18 year-old Banfield told The West Australian he was delighted to land at the Saints with pick 41 after he had conversations with them during a nervy pre-draft period and said his father was as excited as he was. “He was just over the moon for me to have the opportunity to play AFL football and the work that I’ve put in,” he said. “He was super excited as a dad for that to work out for me, because that’s been a lifelong dream for myself. “It is a very nerve-wracking couple of weeks after the combine. Once you get that done, it’s out of your control. “I had the mindset, if I can just control what I can control now, it’s up to the clubs whether they want to get me on the list. I did everything I could so to get to this moment, I’m over the moon. “My dad helped me throughout that. It was definitely a process that I’ve learned from and it was definitely not easy, but I worked my way through it.” Banfield was scooped up by St Kilda just two picks after the Eagles matched a bid from Fremantle to draft another club academy product in forward Williams, which left them without spots for Evans and Banfield. “I definitely was on the Eagles radar and they had the chance to sort of pick me up but it’s each their own,” Banfield said. “They’ve watched enough footy of me and I guess if they saw better possibilities, that’s how it works out. I’m overjoyed to join the Saints, a great club and I feel like I could fit in there really well.” Evans said he was not surprised West Coast did not match Brisbane’s bid, but he was ecstatic to link up with the reigning premiers. “I had a bigger picture, because I knew West Coast were going to match Tylah’s bid wherever that was, because they had had Tylah in front of me,” he said. “I kind of already knew that they weren’t going to match it, so it was just what club was going to call my name now.” Speaking at the draft, Clarke said they did not have a list spot left for Banfield and Evans after taking Victorian midfielder Sam Allen and matching the Dockers’ bid for local forward Williams. “We obviously nominated our father-son and our NGA boys hoping we could actually add them at some point but there’s a lot of young boys out there that they’re not on an AFL list and we’re really excited that those boys got an opportunity so we wish them all the best,” he said. “I don’t know if you get disappointed. We needed to be prepared, we had a bit of intel around who might actually bid on these guys so we’d had to make some strategic decisions on who we were going to match and who we weren’t going to match so it just goes on our rankings at the end of the day. “We thought both those boys should have an opportunity to be on an AFL list but we had a certain amount of list spots that we wanted to prioritise to our 18-year-olds and it didn’t fall their way.” West Coast have one Category-A and one Category-B rookie spot left, with the club committed to adding former listed midfielders Deven Robertson, Finlay Macrae and Harry Schoenberg through the pre-season supplemental period tomorrow. Clarke would not guarantee their list NGA prospect in Subiaco forwrd Wes Walley a spot on their list as a Category B rookie. Swadling, who was the second WA and West Perth product to go in the draft after the Pies swooped to pick him up with the 37th pick, said he could not believe he had ended up at Collingwood, home of one of his idols Scott Pendlebury. “I’m just overwhelmed with so many different emotions. I’ve got so many of my lifelong friends and family with me, it’s unbelievable to celebrate with them,” he said. “It hasn’t sunk in at all, I’m literally going to work and I’m going to be surrounded by so many blokes that I’ve idolised over the years. I can’t wait to get stuck in, get to know everyone and let everyone get to know me as well.” The hard-luck story of WA’s draft cohort was Fred Rodriguez; a highly-touted potential draft pick earlier this year, the underage All-Australian did not hear his name called.