Geelong champion Jimmy Bartel has revealed that West Coast were extremely keen on drafting him.
After selecting Chris Judd with pick No.3, the Eagles were mulling over whether to select either Bartel or Ashley Sampi with pick No.6 in the 2001 AFL Draft.
In the end West Coast opted for Sampi with the Cats snapping Bartel up, a product out of Geelong Falcons, with pick No.8.
“The West Coast Eagles did a couple of visits to my house even the year before when I was ineligible to be drafted because of the age,” Bartel told This Is Your Sporting Life - For Tobin Brothers Funerals, celebrating lives.
“I had a lot of chats with the West Coast Eagles. They had pick No.3 … but they also had pick No.6 which ended up being Ashley Sampi; the local kid over there in Perth.
“They were tossing up whether to go with Sampi, who had a really good carnival … or do we go Jimmy Bartel? They went with Sampi.
“I got told the night before when Stephen Wells (Geelong list boss) came around to my house … he said: ‘If you’re there at pick No.8, you’re coming to the Cats’.”
Bartel went on to win two premierships, a Norm Smith Medal and a Brownlow Medal in a stellar 305-game career with Geelong.
Sampi played 78 games for West Coast before he was delisted the end of 2007.
Listen to Jimmy Bartel’s chat on This Is Your Sporting Life with Peter Donegan in the player below