Sean Lemmens’ retirement means there are no longer any Port Adelaide juniors in the AFL.

NEVER say never. Although, it would seem safe to say, never again will Port Adelaide develop an AFL draftee through city and country recruiting zones and junior grades.

Gold Coast defender Sean Lemmens – an original Port Adelaide product via Salisbury and the once-powerful under-age system at Alberton – this month is closing the book on AFL draftees from what Brian Taylor would dub the “football factory” of LeFevre Peninsula.

Lemmen, now 30, was called away from Alberton by Gold Coast as the No.27 pick in the AFL national draft on November 21, 2013. Six days later – at the rookie draft – Port Adelaide put a full stop on the rich storyline from the Eyre Peninsula recruiting zone by elevating Sam Gray from SANFL ranks to the AFL list at Alberton with pick No.29.

Lemmens’ impending exit from the AFL leaves the national league without any original Port Adelaide junior. It is another milestone event in the transformation of the Port Adelaide Football Club from suburbia to the national stage.

It is the only non-Victorian club called to the AFL. It is the only AFL club that was once stripped of homegrown talent for the national draft AND had gained from the annual lottery in national recruiting, sometimes doing both in the same national draft.

Lemmens started his football journey from Salisbury to Alberton in 2007 with the under-13 squads at Port Adelaide. By 2013 he was a State junior – drawing the attention of Gold Coast defence coach Dean Solomon at the under-18 national carnival – and rising from SANFL reserves ranks to a place in football history at Port Adelaide.

The Magpies face Glenelg during the 2013 SANFL season.

“It was an interesting year,” reflects Lemmens of 2013 with reference to Port Adelaide finally winning the right to keep all its AFL-listed players in the same program at Alberton. 

“I was lucky to play (my only SANFL senior match) in that last ‘stand-alone’ game in the league in 2013 … it was quite incredible.”

That last game for Port Adelaide in the SANFL – with the club holding State league recruiting zones in the city and the bush and junior-grade teams at Alberton – was on September 7, 2013 at Glenelg Oval with a 16-point win.

With the final rendition in victory of “Cheer, cheer the black and the white” the ultra-successful Port Adelaide model with junior teams and recruiting zones – that had  served so well in building a distinctive culture at Alberton for eight decades – was gone.

Port Adelaide was fully AFL (albeit in a league with varying conditions for its 18 teams at the second tier, be it SANFL, VFL, WAFL or the now extinct NEAFL in Sydney and Queensland).

Port Adelaide was – like its 17 national rivals – totally reliant on the AFL draft system for recruiting, either at the draft table or at the annual trade talks in October.

Port Adelaide delivered almost 100 players through its city and regional recruiting zones and junior grades at Alberton to now rival AFL clubs through the national draft – ending that chapter with Lemmens and Gray in 2013.

Peter Hofner was the first ever Port Adelaide player taken in the draft.

It began – even if some have tried to airbrush the AFL records on the controversial start to the draft system – on October 8, 1981 (and not 1986, as many will try to assert today).

The then-VFL gave each of its 12 clubs two picks for talent outside Victoria.

The first called from Port Adelaide was premiership defender Peter Hofner by Richmond at pick No.6. The second was Danny Hughes by Melbourne at pick No.13.

Hughes ultimately went to Melbourne, in 1984, to establish himself as an outstanding player at Australia’s oldest football club before finishing his senior career at Port Adelaide.

Hofner went to Punt Road for pre-season training … and quickly returned to Alberton. He was bemused on arriving at the Richmond Football Club to find his new team-mates were absent – they were at a training camp at an interstate location. When they returned, the three-time premiership half-back noted the Tom Hafey method of training for long hours to establish strength and endurance from the 1960s lingered at Richmond – and starkly contrasted with John Cahill’s sharp, skill-based sessions at Port Adelaide. So Hofner returned to what he knew best at Port Adelaide before testing his luck in the WAFL in 1983 with East Fremantle and then East Perth.

The 1982 VFL draft – the last of the original drafts – was more controversial with Sydney claiming teenager Greg Anderson, then just 16, from Port Adelaide at pick No.18. The future Magarey Medallist had still not made his SANFL league debut when he became an instant headline as a VFL draftee. His move to VFL ranks came in 1988 – at Essendon.

Peter Hofner marks the ball during his time at the Magpies.

The draft system did not find its third rendition until November 26, 1986 on the eve of national expansion with West Coast in Perth and Brisbane.

The first player called from Alberton? Brisbane claimed Ben Harris as a pre-draft pick – and then made team-mate Martin Leslie the No.1 pick in the national draft.

Wayne Mahney followed at No.32 with Footscray (but did not take up the invitation to Whitten Oval).

Stephen Williams was at No.40 with Brisbane where his older brother Mark had been conceded by Collingwood.

In 1987, Port Adelaide had Andrew Obst called to Melbourne at pick No.37 and Simon Tregenza to Footscray at No.59; in 1988, David Hynes to West Coast at pick No.24; in 1989, Darren Smith and Gavin Wanganeen to Essendon at Nos. 11 and 12 respectively, Roger Delaney by Fitzroy at No.23, Rohan Smith by Sydney at No.36, David Brown by Brisbane at No.79 … and the alarm bell sounded in the board room at Alberton while South Australia’s football leaders kept delaying the move to set up a national league team in Adelaide.

Seven years later – on the eve of entering the national competition – Port Adelaide had reversed roles in becoming a club relying on the national draft rather than being plundered. 

Gavin Wanganeen was drafted to Essendon out of the Port Adelaide Magpies before making his return. Image: The Advertiser.

Peter Hofner was the first draftee at Port Adelaide – to go out.

John Rombotis was the first draftee to Port Adelaide, from Fitzroy’s leftovers (after merger with Brisbane) with pick No.6, followed by Bowen Lockwood from the Geelong under-18 squad at No.7.

While one hand was for the first time taking for AFL needs, the other was still being stripped in the SANFL – notably with Byron Pickett from Port Adelaide to North Melbourne at No.67. This hand was closed in 2013 with Sean Lemmens … and never again will the AFL have a Port Adelaide player who was nurtured in a recruiting zone and under-age programs filling out a draft form at Alberton. Or will the clock wind back one day?

The 2025 AFL national draft will be across two nights, November 19 and 20. Port Adelaide’s selections will be confirmed during the trade period in October.