This story is not new. It’s seven years old. But after an impromptu straw poll across a variety of Sydney Swans personnel produced a resounding “I didn’t know that!” response, it is a story worth repeating. Especially this week, a milestone week for the main character.
It’s the story of how a 13-year-old rugby player from Sydney’s northern beaches joined the QBE Sydney Swans Academy via one of the great recruiting ‘assists’ of all-time from the most unlikely of sources.
The primary characters are Swans star Callum Mills, who will play his 100th AFL game this week and Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham.
The first time the story was publicly told was by AFL.com's Cal Twomey on July 7, 2014 when Callum Mills was just another ambitious up-and-comer. It was 16 months before he joined the Sydney Swans in the 2015 National Draft.
Twomey told how Mills, born in Sydney and raised on the northern beaches, had joined the local Auskick program, following a football path blazed by his grandfather Ray Mills, who played for Perth and Western Australia in the 1960s.
He was a big Swans fan. So much so that one day he asked his mother why she had chosen his first name before offering an alternative. “Why didn't you call me Tony, like Tony Lockett?" young Callum asked.
But at age seven Mills switched codes, quitting the family’s first football love to play rugby union with some mates. It was no overnight fling. For six years he played rugby, representing the Warringah Rats as a five-eighth. It was only early, but a bright future beckoned.
Not until the chance intervention of Pridham did things change.
Pridham is a close friend of Mills’ father Darren and, without knowing it at the time, laid the foundation for a massive recruiting coup when one day he asked Darren if Callum could fill in for his son’s junior team, the Mosman Swans.
He did. And, as the old saying goes, the rest is history.
Twomey quoted a 17-year-old Mills in his piece: "I put my hand up and backed up from rugby, and I really enjoyed it actually, it was good fun. I like rugby, but I don't. There's multiple things that I hate about the game. It's not really fun, it's really one-dimensional, it's just a line.
"They run into you, you tackle, they run into you, you tackle. With AFL it's much better, it's all around the ground and I get to use my endurance, which I really like."
Twomey told how the Swans had invited the then 13-year-old Mills to join club's academy after his impromptu outing with the Mosman Swans, and quickly his liking for Australian Rules football was reborn.
"The coach called us in and everyone started high-fiving each other saying 'well done', and I'd never seen that before. It was pretty foreign for me. I didn't know what was going on, but I really enjoyed it. As soon as I was in that program I loved it and I stopped union straight away," Mills told Twomey.
"The QBE Sydney Swans Academy has been great for me. There's still a lot of water to go under the bridge so I'm just making sure I play good footy every week. I want to do it, for sure. But it's still a long way away and I haven't really thought about it yet," Mills said.
Swans Recruiting & List Strategy Manager Kinnear Beatson has been at the club long enough to understand how easily Mills may have slipped through the AFL net.
He recalls travelling to New Zealand with him as a member of the AIS squad in his draft year.
It wasn’t the defining trip it might have been, with Mills ko’d in the first quarter of a match against a mature-age NZ side, but by then the club had already seen enough. They were committed to him.
Was Mills always going to be a star? “How do you know? How do you ever know,” replied a cautious Beatson. “It’s such a transition from junior football to senior football, with so many different variables, you can never be certain who will handle it.
“But what we definitely did know early with Callum was that he was a competitive individual. That’s usually a pretty good guide,” he said.
It was that and more after the Swans landed Mills with selection #3 in the 2015 Draft, when for the first time rival clubs were permitted to bid on Academy players.
After Carlton took Jacob Weitering at #1 and Brisbane claimed Josh Schache at #2 the Swans matched a bid from Melbourne for Mills at #3, thereby claiming the local youngster before Melbourne chose Clayton Oliver at #4 and Essendon nabbed Darcy Parish at #5.
Mills was given a huge honour by the Swans when allocated jumper #14 – the number worn by triple Brownlow Medallist Bob Skilton and former skipper Paul Kelly.
There was a hidden bonus for the SCG newcomer too, it was also the number worn by his first hero Lockett when he played at St Kilda before joining the Swans.
Mills debuted in Round 1 2016 with George Hewett, who had been drafted two years earlier, and Tom Papley, who was taken effectively 81 picks behind Mills at #14 in the rookie draft.
Ironically, as the 2016 season unfolded, Oliver, Melbourne’s second-choice selection at #4, was the first player nominated for the AFL Rising Star award ahead of Parish, Weitering, Caleb Daniel, drafted 12 months earlier by the Western Bulldogs, and Papley.
It wasn’t until Round 16 of his first season that Mills was nominated for the coveted award, but seven weeks later he trumped a hot field to win what is regarded as the young player’s Brownlow.
In the final voting it was Mills (49) from Daniel (41), Weitering (26) and Parish (19), followed by Collingwood’s Darcy Moore (9), St Kilda’s Jade Gresham (2), Melbourne’s Christian Petracca (2), Oliver (1) and Fremantle’s Lachie Weller (1). He also won the AFLPA Best First-Year Player Award.
On Saturday night, when Sydney meets unbeaten ladder leaders Melbourne at the MCG, Mills will be the eighth player from the draft year of 2015 to reach 100 AFL games.
Oddly, the list of players ahead of him is topped by a player drafted 89 spots behind Mills and eight spots behind Papley at #22 in the rookie draft, Essendon’s Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti.
He has played 113 games. Oliver and Papley are at 106 ahead of Richmond’s Daniel Rioli (101), Brisbane’s Eric Hipwood (101), Parish and Weitering (100).
Mills will be the Swans’ 137th 100-gamer after Hewett and Papley turned their shared debut into a shared 100-game milestone in Round 1 this year.
Aged 24 years and 36 days on Saturday, he will be the seventh-youngest among 60 Swans centurions since the move to Sydney in 1983. Mark Bayes, the club’s youngest 100-gamer all-time in 22 years 170 days in 1989, heads the list with Michael O’Loughlin (22/190), Dan Hannebery (22/202), Jason Saddington (22/228), Luke Parker (22/287) and Heeney (23/97).
