MICHAEL Barlow, James Podsiadly and Dale Morris are not only three of the best-known Werribee players ever, but three of the best mature-age recruits out of the VFL this century. Now there is a fresh generation of past and present Bees making Chirnside Park a must-visit venue for AFL recruiters.
Over the course of the past two seasons, Werribee's stunning return to the final day of the season in 2023 before claiming its first premiership since 1993 this year, has resulted in four players being drafted to the AFL from the standalone club.
And maybe another to come this summer.
Only seven of the 21 teams in the VFL aren't aligned with an AFL club – Williamstown, Port Melbourne, Southport, Coburg, Frankston and the Northern Bullants are the others – but no other state league club is having as many mature-age players drafted as Werribee right now.
Before Shaun Mannagh kicked three goals in a qualifying final for Geelong in September, he won the Norm Goss Medal after finishing with 27 touches and six goals in the 2023 VFL Grand Final loss to Gold Coast. Two months later, the Cats picked him at No.36. After waiting until the age of 26 to be drafted, Mannagh has now played 12 games and appears to have many more to come.
Sam Clohesy was selected the following day by the Suns in the rookie draft after winning the Fothergill-Round-Mitchell Medal in his second season at Werribee. Damien Hardwick picked him to debut in Gather Round and played the 21-year-old for the final 20 games of the season.
Last month, two more mature-age players – from a total of just four (Sam Davidson, Western Bulldogs and Jaren Carr, Fremantle) – were plucked out of Werribee in the 2024 Telstra AFL Draft.
Sydney selected half-back Riley Bice at pick No.41 after he played a starring role for in the Bees' first premiership in 31 years. The 24-year-old was named in the VFL team of the year after moving from the country to have one last crack at state league football in February, after dominating for Albury in the Ovens & Murray Football League.
Then Melbourne produced the biggest shock of the draft by selecting another 24-year-old from Werribee – Aidan Johnson – at pick No.68, using the fourth-last pick on the mobile forward.
Johnson had only played one VFL game before this year when he faced the Northern Bullants in 2021, spending last year with Yarraville-Seddon in the Western Football Netball League, following stints with Old Brighton in the VAFA, Lavington in the Ovens and Murray League and Bruck/Burrum in the Hume Football Netball League.
Now, Werribee captain Dom Brew has the opportunity to join his former teammates at the next level after being invited to trial for a spot on the rookie list at the Western Bulldogs during the pre-season supplemental selection period (SSP).
The 27-year-old won almost every VFL award on offer in 2024, including the J.J. Liston Trophy and Coaches' MVP, before being named captain in the VFL team of the year. The Albury boy emailed all 18 clubs ahead of the draft and SSP, pleading for a shot.
Brew suffered an ill-time quad strain last week, but will return to Bulldogs training in the new year.
The Western Bulldogs weren't the only club interested in making him the next Werribee product with a shot at graduating to the AFL. Collingwood recruited Lachie Sullivan from Footscray via the same mechanism last year and the 27-year-old played 10 games for the Magpies to earn another contract for 2025.
Werribee football manager Ash Collins, who joined the club this time last year following more than a decade as a performance and opposition analyst at Brisbane, Collingwood and Sydney, believes sound recruiting and the environment fostered at Avalon Airport Oval have been the key to the club's recent success.
"We just find people that are desperate to play at the highest level, they can. Eighty to ninety per cent of our players think they can play AFL – and want to play AFL," Collins told AFL.com.au.
"We don't put it as a goal that we want people to be drafted, it is just an outcome of the process that we go through, recruiting great people and making them feel part of it. It's not just about the footy program and the coaching, it's about the holistic approach that's been set up.
"(November's draft) was a big feeling of pride for the whole club. Riley got all the headlines, but Aidan is a great story."
Werribee has a small but fully invested group of full-time staff, led by chief executive Mark Penaluna, who started in the role in 2003 and is the longest-serving club boss in the VFL right now. Mark Stone joined the club two years later and has been recruiting players ever since, which has become increasingly difficult given the tightening of state league salary caps in the past decade.
Since 2018, Werribee has also had Kye Declase recruited to Melbourne (2021 Mid-Season Rookie Draft), Jake Riccardi to Greater Western Sydney (pick No.51 in the 2019 AFL Draft), and Sam Collins and Josh Corbett to Gold Coast via that club's special access to state league players.
Collins, who had two years at Fremantle in his first AFL stint, has become one of the premier key defenders in the League since landing a second chance at the Suns, winning a second best and fairest in 2024 after being named in the All-Australian squad for the first time.
Barlow is the poster boy of mature-age recruits. He went from Shepparton United in the Goulburn Valley League to Werribee to Fremantle over the course of three years. After 141 games in the AFL for the Dockers and Suns, Barlow returned to Werribee and coached the Tigers between 2021 and 2023 before being poached by North Melbourne as head of development, following advances from other AFL clubs.
After getting so close to a premiership in 2023 on the back of 17 consecutive wins – and launching Mannagh and Clohesy's AFL careers – the Bees needed to get Barlow's replacement right. And they did. They signed SANFL legend Jimmy Allan to continue the pursuit and the three-time Magarey medallist delivered, returning to the club he spent two years playing for in the 2000s before moving across the border to South Australia.
"They were big shoes to fill when Mick left and it was a great opportunity for Jim," Collins said.
"He was a great player in South Australia and has done a fair bit of coaching over in Adelaide with Rostrevor (College), where he was a teacher, and then as an assistant in the SANFL. He has had a massive impact on our club. He is a really great communicator, Jim. He is hard on the boys and has a style of footy that works."
Allan wasn't the only former player that returned to the club last summer. Former Adelaide and Hawthorn key defender Kyle Hartigan came back to the place that launched his AFL career. Hartigan played 135 games of top-level football after getting his chance at 21 before returning home as an assistant coach in 2024.
Hawthorn's alignment with Box Hill is the envy of almost every AFL club. Since the two clubs became partners in 2001, 37 players have graduated from Box Hill to an AFL list, dating back to current Hawks coach Sam Mitchell. And since the AFL introduced the SSP and re-introduced the Mid-Season Rookie Draft ahead of 2019, Box Hill has helped 10 players rise to the top. Max Hall was the latest at the end of May, while Jai Newcombe is now a Peter Crimmins Medallist and clearly the best player picked to date via the MSD.
Woodville-West Torrens has also produced plenty of AFL players in the SSP/MSD era, most notably All-Australian small forward Tyson Stengle, as well as Cooper Sharman, Rhyan Mansell and Jack Hayes.
Footscray's program has also reaped rewards with Caleb Poulter, Tony Scott and Ryan Gardner all graduating to the AFL program at Whitten Oval, while Jordan Boyd, Kyle Dunkley and Sullivan have all secured contracts elsewhere.
But unlike the names above, Werribee keeps having players recruited on the two nights of the year dominated by teenagers - the national draft.
Norm Goss medallist Jack Henderson, Louis Pinnuck and Hudson Garoni are all 24 and above, but have not yet given up on their AFL dreams. Podsiadly earned a third shot in the AFL at 28, made his debut months later for Geelong and ended up playing 104 games for the Cats and Crows.
Jack Riding, Jake Smith and Jaelen Pavlidis are some of the names recruiters will be following in 2025. The Bees are becoming an off-Broadway football factory and are bound to continue to attract late developing talent, as well as drawing recruiters down the highway.
