Hogan, selected through special circumstances at 17 years of age by Melbourne but unable to play AFL until 2014, has been such a star for the Scorpions that it is impossible not to think he could have made a serious impact in the AFL this year. Lyon did not dispute this but argued that Hogan will be better equipped for a long AFL career for being able to draw on the confidence gained from battling away against men for 12 months.

All that I have seen over 13 years in the system tells me that Roos and Lyon are right.

I was in Sydney when Jesse White arrived in 2007. He was a talent who didn't know it. Tall, powerful, agile and quick, Jesse trained and played the game like I suspect footballers did 100 years ago. To his new teammates it seemed as if the game to Jesse was a quaint pastime, not a profession.

Six years later, at the end of last season, he was still grappling unsuccessfully with its harsh realities. Not surprisingly, the Swans offered him up to Adelaide as a sweetener to a deal for Kurt Tippett that, fatefully, fell through.

Today, as Fremantle coach Ross Lyon has put it, White would be on the recruiting wish lists of every club in the country. He kicked four goals against Richmond last Sunday, the most recent performance in a string of games unlike anything seen from him before. What I would say about this abrupt turn of events is that Jesse White is just 25 years of age and that in 2006, when he was drafted and drawn away from the Gold Coast pleasure strip, he wasn't ready for the game.