With the AFL Draft looming, pundits and analysts of every pay grade have their focus set on this year's top-end talent.
Should you spend enough time examining phantom drafts, highlights packages and anything uttered by the guru Kevin Sheehan, it becomes glaringly evident who will be taken with a first-round selection.
But what then of those names that slip? What about those that will miss out altogether?
Since 1997, the league has implemented a secondary Rookie Draft for the project players, sliders and risky names that failed to have their names called.
Although the rookie list now appears to be a haven for ageing champions instead of a home for up and comers, here's hoping that when the competition finally settles post COVID-19, that it can return to its initial purpose.
Across the 23 seasons of the Rookie Draft there have been multiple names that never made the senior grade, but for the multitude of untried delistees, there have been a handful of diamonds excavated from the rubble.
Here are the 10 biggest names that found their way onto AFL lists via the Rookie Draft.
4. Aaron Sandilands
When you top the tape at 211 centimetres, you would imagine that it would be hard for recruiters to ignore you. But for Aaron Sandilands, that wasn't the case.
Every team passed on the Western Australian leviathan before Fremantle eventually called his name with the 33rd pick of the 2001 Rookie Draft.
In a debut season that yielded 19 games and a Rising Star nomination, Sandilands dominated at stoppages, including a 41 hitouts against Essendon in the club's first finals appearance.
In his remaining 16 seasons in purple, the Mount Barker big man managed a pair of club Best and Fairests in 2009 and 2015, as well as All-Australian selections in 2008, 09, 10 and 14.
Sandilands finished his career with 271 games โ the 3rd most in Fremantle's history, life membership to the club in 2010 and a diabolic total of 8,502 career hitouts.
