Draft puts Graham in big league
JORDAN GERRANS FOR AFL draftees turning up for their first day of training on Monday, it is like being the new kid in primary school.
But for Cairns’s Caleb Graham, training at Metricon Stadium this Monday will be second nature.
Selected with Pick 71 in Friday’s AFL draft, the Suns academy product joins three other Far North juniors on the club’s list, Jack Bowes, Jarrod Harbrow and Jacob Heron.
Graham steps on to the Suns senior list that he has played with for the last two seasons in the NEAFL, and the key defender understands the real work starts now if he is going to establish himself as an AFL footballer.
“It is going to be another step up,” an excited Graham said from his Gold Coast home yesterday afternoon.
“I have watched AFL training closely the last couple of years, I know it is going to be tough, but I am looking forward to the opportunity.
“I have played with these guys in the NEAFL and the Academy Series, it is going to be much easier for me to transition into the senior squad being down here the last two years.
“I will still have nerves going in, though.”
Once touted as a top 25 pick for the 2018 AFL draft, Graham was over the moon when taken at 71 instead of waiting to be picked in the rookie draft.
The Cairns Saints junior watched the draft at home with his proud family, who relocated from the Far North so the teenager could follow his footy dreams.
“I sat up on the couch because I knew the Suns were picking around 70,” Graham said.
“I was watching on the stream, which I think was a little delayed, and my phone started flashing.
“They did not even say my full name on the stream and my Mum was already screaming.”
Talent expert Mick Ablett likened the Saints junior to emerging Brisbane Lions forward Eric Hipwood.
“He may take a little while to develop,” Ablett said.
AFL National and International Talent manager Kevin Sheehan described Graham as an exciting prospect.
“He is still learning the game but it is great to see the Suns putting an academy kid on their primary list instead of their rookie list,” Sheehan said.
“He is an emerging talent that we have seen come through over the last few years.”
The 18-year-old’s draft se- lection yesterday adds to the incredible record AFL Cairns club Cairns Saints is building as a talent hot bed.
For the third straight year, the Griffiths Park-based club has had a local junior selected in the elite system, with Bowes taken in 2016, before Heron followed him just 12 months later.
“As soon as I saw Caleb play as a 16-year-old at senior level, I was confident he would make it down south,” Cairns Saints president Stephen McIntosh said earlier this year.
Saints will not be counting their chickens before they hatch for another draftee over the next couple of years but there is plenty of optimism around teenager Austin Harris, who is set to relocate to the Gold Coast in the coming months to be a permanent part of the Suns academy.