The evolution of the rookie draft in recent years shows that AFL coaches and military commanders understand one universal truth when it comes to combat, be it of the shooting or non shooting variety: nothing counts more than experience.
That’s why the rookie draft is now as much about selecting players with plenty of AFL experience as it is kids who didn’t make the cut in the national draft. As Alistair Clarkson says, when one soldier goes down, you send another soldier in and any military commander, given the same situation, would prefer, by a factor of infinity, an experienced soldier in preference to a greenhorn.
Have you ever had a gun pointed in your face by a kid with what one journalist, who covered the Khmer Rouge entry into Phnomh Penh, called “the killing glaze” in his eyes?
Do you honestly know what a bullet a sounds like when it zipcracks (the closest I can come to describing the noise) past your head? Did you know that a fire-fight in the middle distance doesn’t sound at all like a movie, more a series of tak tak tak sounds? And it usually ends with an almighty thud as one side or the other brings their heavy weapons or airpower to bear.
That’s without going into the horror of seeing what modern ordinance actually does to people when it hits them, or detonates close by. It is a cliché but one that holds true: if people in the West really knew what war looked like, they’d never allow it again. An ISIS beheading video is vile because of the very carefully constructed intimacy but the results of a 500lb bomb hitting a crowded apartment block are far worse.
There’s only one way to experience the true sensation of combat, and that is to be in it.
You can do all the training you want, but it can never truly prepare anyone for that first moment when the rounds start firing and the thought flashes through an adrenalin pumped brain: “Shit, I could actually for real no jokes no coming back die here. And now. In this place.”
In its own way, footy is the same. Back to cliche-land, but how many times have you heard players talk about the difference between senior AFL football and any other grade they’ve played. It’s different. Its faster, more complex, less forgiving, the hits are harder, your team mates expect more of you. It’s the real deal and it is, again, so far from training, or any match simulation, that to compare them is verging on ludicrous.
The best prepared young footballers, high draft picks who have spent years “in the system” routinely talk about the difficulties of adjusting to senior footy. They talk about the shock of their first real game. “Nothing can prepare for you it,” say young men who have spent the previous six or seven years of their life, umm, preparing for it.
What makes a good soldier, or fighter, is not size or brawn. Anthony Beevor notes in his magisterial D-Day that the US soldiers who survived the bloody opening months of the Normandy landings and fighting to break through the German lines tended to be smaller, “rattier” guys. Cunning, able to hide, pick their fight. The big and brave don’t survive long in combat. The smart do.
While sharing plenty of social and personal characteristics, footy is obviously not war, though as the horrific incident with Phil Hughes showed, sport can be fatal. The AFL knows that bigger players going harder and faster than ever before is leading to a situation where a death onfield is a genuine possibility. Hence the head is now sacrosanct, even at the cost of alientating those who live vicariously through the efforts of others. And in this regard, experience on the footy field is vital. Glenn Archer famously ran through Lenny Hayes in the great gentleman of the game’s first outing. Lenny never left himself that open again. In that regard experienced players are also safer onfield.
List management is now a complex beast. It is accepted that you need a squad of at least 30 players ready to play senior footy every week. That leaves little room for young players who might take a while to develop
In many regards the “rookie list” operates more and more like the Army Reserve, or the way that nations like Israel and Switzerland train all male citizens to be able to fight effectively at a moments notice if called upon.
That’s why coaches know, and the transformation of the rookie draft to a semi “experienced players top up draft” proves this, that nothing can mimic the real thing.
Experience is hard won, but truly invaluable.
