With his club now holding Picks 2 and 3, North Melbourne list boss Brady Rawlings this week was asked during a club member Q&A forum what key attributes he looked for in a draftee.
Rawlings flagged, in general, he liked competitors and good characters, before reeling off several other attributes: Skill level, speed, agility and cleanliness.
Harry Sheezel – the best pure hybrid forward prospect in the draft class at 184cm who’s been in top-five draft pick calculations all year – ticks all of Rawlings’ boxes.
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The four-club mega deal during the recent AFL trade period saw the Giants pinch Pick 1 from the Kangaroos, but the latter acquired Picks 2 and 3. It’s widely expected the Giants will first bid on Brisbane father-son prospect Will Ashcroft then select GWV Rebels key forward Aaron Cadman.
The Roos are also already stacked with young on-ballers, using their past six top-13 draft picks on midfielders. After ranking 18th this year for points scored and scores per inside 50, some firepower forward of centre would be handy.
And as November’s national draft draws nearer, rival recruiters are becoming more aware of the Kangaroos’ interest in Sheezel, who’s as competitive, skilful, agile, clean and driven as any 2022 draft prospect.
“I’d like to think I’m pretty composed, a good decision-maker, have got good skills and pretty diverse. I can mark in the air, also use my agility on the ground and I‘ve got a pretty good goal sense I’d like to think,” Sheezel told foxfooty.com.au.
“I just always try to make the right play. I don‘t try to force anything. I’m not thinking about ‘I need to kick a goal now’ or ‘I need to give it off now’, I just let the game come to me.”
The Sandringham Dragons star admits he’s “obsessed with getting better and reviewing my own games”. He trawls through post-match vision and picks apart his own performances.
“The thing I love about footy is you can never be perfect and there‘s always something to work towards,” Sheezel said.
“The feeling you get when you‘re playing a game and you’re playing well, you just can’t get anywhere else.
“And I know the feeling when I don‘t play well and how much it affects me after, so that chase to play well and achieve success as a team as well is something that I strive even more towards.”
It’s not just Sheezel’s own performances he studies meticulously.
As a dangerous forward with the ability to spend bursts in the midfield, he’s followed Toby Greene and Connor Rozee closely from afar, trying to “learn as much as I can off them”.
Sheezel is his own harshest critic and, therefore, sets high personal expectations.
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He doesn’t judge his games on disposals accumulated or goals kicked. He’s an “impact per possession” guy, which usually gives him “a good indication if I‘ve impacted the game as a whole”.
Sheezel was named in the Under 18 All-Australian team after booting eight goals and averaging 15 disposals from four national championships games for Vic Metro. Yet for him, it was far from a perfect campaign.
“My champs overall I actually wasn‘t too happy with,” he said.
“My first game, I started pretty well and I was able to show what I’ve got and play a complete game. The WA game I thought I started well and showed glimpses, but didn‘t impact the game as a whole, I thought. The SA game, I had a few injuries but again didn’t really do what I wanted to. The last game, I did a few good things but didn’t play a whole, complete game, which is a bit disappointing because I’d like to think that I play well against the better players in the big games.”
It’s why Sheezel and many club recruiters were stoked to see him finish his NAB League campaign for Sandringham so emphatically.
After some massive games against lower-ranked NAB League sides like the Northern Knights and Western Jets during the year, Sheezel had a big final home and away match against the highly-rated Oakleigh Chargers, booting 4.2 from 22 disposals, seven tackles. He then booted 10 goals from four finals, including 4.0 from 13 touches against the Stingrays in the grand final to finish third in best on ground voting.
Sheezel still finished with the most goals in the NAB League this season (36), including five bags of four majors or more. But having strong performances against quality opposition when it mattered most “was a big thing”
“My consistency probably wasn‘t as good as I wanted it to be this year. In losses I probably wasn’t playing as well as I was in wins, so it was a big focus of mine in the back-half of the year to play well in those games,” he said.
Sheezel, who attends Mount Scopus College — one of the world‘s leading Jewish day schools — had never won a premiership prior to this year. But in late September he essentially won two flags in six days, helping Sandringham win the NAB League grand final before kicking two brilliant goals against Vic Country to seal a national championships triumph for Vic Metro.
Although he’d witnessed his fair share of premierships as a fan, for he was born into a mad Hawks-supporting family.
And at the recent national draft combine, Sheezel was interviewed by Hawthorn. He walked into the room and saw one of his childhood heroes – and now senior coach – Sam Mitchell sitting at the table.
“It was pretty cool. He was pretty chilled,” Sheezel said of meeting Mitchell.
“We were cracking some jokes and he‘s just a laid back guy. It was pretty surreal talking to him.”
The Hawks are one of several teams with early picks that have shown interest in Sheezel, who said it would “mean a lot” if he ended up playing for the club he’d supported passionately all his life.
But it now seems highly unlikely he’ll still be on the draft board come Hawthorn’s first selection (Pick 6), unless the Hawks trade up of course.
“They (clubs) don‘t really give too much away to be honest. I kind of just hear it all, either from the media or my manager tells me a bit,” Sheezel said at the draft combine.
“I don‘t really have that strong of an indication as yet, but some teams around there like Essendon, Hawthorn, GWS, maybe North Melbourne as well – they’re showing the most.”
Sheezel said he’s prepared to move interstate to a club like the Giants or Suns, but was happy to declare it’s not his No. 1 preference.
“There‘s a lot of unknowns. I kind of know what would happen if I stay in Melbourne, but if I go interstate I don’t know how I’ll cope,” he said.
“I think I would prefer to stay here in Melbourne, but I think I‘m willing to give it a big crack if I was to go interstate, like to the Giants, and try and stay loyal and become the best player I can and devoted to that organisation.”
Sheezel, as it stands, probably won’t have to look for a place to live interstate this season. Should he not land at North Melbourne, the Bombers or Hawks would surely pounce.
No matter where he ends up, though, Sheezel is determined to make an immediate impact at the elite level.
“A lot of the younger players I‘ve been watching this year just to see how they transition into AFL,” he said.
“A lot of them have done an amazing job, so that‘s something I aspire to do hopefully next year.”
