Geelong are renowned for their ability to identify and recruit local talent, but Lucy McEvoy is the one that got away from the Cats.
The Geelong Falcons captain was snapped up by Carlton with the second pick overall at Tuesday’s AFLW draft.
The Blues courted the versatile midfielder from a long way out and ultimately helped convince her to bypass her hometown club when she nominated for the draft.
In Victoria, players can nominate for all eight Victorian clubs, including Geelong, for Geelong specifically or the Melbourne metropolitan region – which excludes the Cats – due to the part-time nature of the competition.
“They were pretty keen since I first met them, they even did a photoshop of me in a Carlton jumper and I thought ‘Oh, that looks pretty good’,” McEvoy said.
“That was before I’d made my (draft) decision as well, it was unreal.
“I was really impressed by Carlton from the beginning, they made me feel really welcome.”
McEvoy could easily have gone to the Western Bulldogs at No.1 given her ability to impact games across the field – she holds the rare distinction of being named All-Australian as a midfielder, a defender and as a forward.
To be fair to the Cats, her decision to follow her AFLW dream with a Melbourne club was in no way a slight on them.
“At the star of the year I probably would’ve picked Geelong,” she told RSN.
“But through the year I started to think of it more as a 12 months of the year thing rather than just the AFLW season.
“I started to think about uni and what I was going to do outside of footy.”
McEvoy, a cousin of Hawthorn’s Ben McEvoy, will study paramedicine at university.
Her father Phil played reserves football for Carlton between 1979 and 1981.