Three good stories from the rookie draft: Connor Menadue (main), Jacob Townsend (left) and Tyson Goldsack (right).

Compared to previous years, the 2021 rookie draft was not very eventful, 11 of 40 picks devoted to players re-drafted by their clubs, while another 14 picks were passed on.

No doubt smaller list sizes and some clubs’ desire to have a look at prospects over the summer before potentially recruiting them via pre-season supplemental period picks played their part.

So with 15 “live picks”, there weren’t a lot of lifelines available to be thrown out to youngsters overlooked at the national draft or former AFL players hoping for another crack at the big time.

But despite that, there was still room for some good news stories, with Connor Menadue (North Melbourne), Tyson Goldsasck (Port Adelaide) and Jacob Townsend (Gold Coast) all finding new homes.

Menadue is perhaps the best story of the trio considering he was delisted by Richmond at the end of 2019 and wasn’t able to play a game with his new club Werribee this year due to the VFL season being cancelled as a result of the pandemic.

However, with no additional exposed form to go by, the Kangaroos took a punt on the 24-year-old, who played 39 games with Richmond over five seasons and was a member of its 2019 VFL premiership team.

Meanwhile, Goldsack has rebooted his career with the Power after spending a year captaining Port Adelaide’s SANFL team.

The key defender announced his AFL retirement at the end of 2019 after a 13-year career with Collingwood, which included 165 games and a premiership in 2010.

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But after clearly reacquiring the “itch” to play senior footy this year, such was his form during the 2020 campaign that Goldsack is set to embark on a second AFL stint with the Power, who it must be said, were found wanting late last season in the key defender department.

And Townsend is becoming one of the game’s great journeymen, having landed at his fourth club at the age of 27 and with only 60 games in nine years to his credit – including the fairytale part he played in Richmond’s drought-breaking 2017 flag.

The most-recently former Bomber joins ruckman Tom Hickey as the only two active players in the AFL to have been listed by four clubs.

Townsend struggled to have an impact for Essendon in 2020, but he does bring truckloads of hardness and grunt to the forward line, perhaps an area in which Gold Coast believes it is lacking.

A special mention must also go out to GWS veteran Sam Reid, who has broken his own record by being drafted for a fourth time.

The retired Bryce Gibbs was taken by Adelaide with pick one, but that was only done for salary cap purposes.

Earlier, in the pre-season draft, former GWS youngster Jackson Hately was taken by the Crows with the first and only pick after a trade deal fell through last month.

Meanwhile, standout youngsters such as Jack Ginnivan (Collingwood), Zane Trew (West Coast), Patrick Walker (North Melbourne) and Malachy Carruthers (Sydney) will all be breathing a big sigh of relief after being picked up on Thursday following their failure to attract a suitor on Wednesday night.

Ginnivan is a running machine/outside midfielder, Trew is a strong inside midfielder who has great hands and loves winning his own ball, Walker is a utility who is comfortable in most positions on the ground, and Carruthers is a mid-sized defender who has elite aerobic capacity.

2021 PRE-SEASON DRAFT

Round One
1. Adelaide – Jackson Hately (GWS)

2021 ROOKIE DRAFT

Round One
1. Adelaide – Bryce Gibbs (Adelaide)
2. North Melbourne – Patrick Walker (North Hobart)
3. Sydney – Malachy Carruthers (Sturt)
4. Hawthorn – Jack Saunders (Norwood)
5. Gold Coast – Jacob Townsend (Essendon)
6. Essendon – Martin Gleeson (Essendon)
7. Fremantle – Josh Treacy (Bendigo Pioneers)
8. Carlton – Luke Parks (Glenelg)
9. GWS – Sam Reid (GWS)
10. Melbourne – pass
11. Western Bulldogs – Lachlan McNeil (Woodville-West Torrens)
12. West Coast – Zane Drew (Swan Districts)
13. Collingwood – Jack Ginnivan (Bendigo Pioneers)
14. St Kilda – pass
15. Brisbane Lions – Grant Birchall (Brisbane Lions)
16. Port Adelaide – Tyson Goldsack (Port Adelaide Magpies)
17. Richmond – pass

Round Two
18. North Melbourne – Connor Menadue (Werribee)
19. Sydney – pass
20. Gold Coast – Jack Hombsch (Gold Coast)
21. Essendon – Dylan Clarke (Essendon)
22. Fremantle – Bailey Banfield (Fremantle)
23. Carlton – pass
24. GWS – Zach Sproule (GWS)
25. Melbourne – pass
26. Western Bulldogs – Roarke Smith (Western Bulldogs)
27. West Coast – Daniel Venables (West Coast)
28. Collingwood – Isaac Chugg (Launceston)
29. St Kilda – pass
30. Port Adelaide – pass
31. Richmond – pass

Round Three
32. North Melbourne – pass
33. Gold Coast – Jordan Murdoch (Gold Coast)
34. Essendon – pass
35. Collingwood – pass
36. St Kilda – pass
37. Port Adelaide – Taj Schofield (Woodville-West Torrens)
38. Gold Coast – Aiden Fyfe (Broadbeach)
39. Collingwood – pass

Round Four
40. Gold Coast – Rhys Nicholls (Labrador)