In early May 2019 John Noble was an everyday 22-year-old growing up in Adelaide.  He worked stacking shelves at the local Foodland store during the week and on weekends played football in front of maybe 1000 people with West Adelaide in the SANFL.

He hadn’t given a moment’s thought to the AFL Mid-Season Rookie Draft coming up on 27 May. And why would he? He hadn’t spoken to any of the 18 AFL clubs.

But unlike his peers, with whom he shared the dream of playing in the AFL, Noble had grown up around the elite competition as father David following his own football dream. He’d enjoyed a privileged view albeit from the outside.

Originally from Tasmania, Noble Snr had been a dual premiership player and club vice-captain at North Hobart in the Tasmanian Football League before he was drafted by Fitzroy with pick #111 in the fourth AFL Draft in 1989.

It was the beginning of a markable family story that typifies a football world in which everyone is connected to someone, or knows someone who is.

Drafted by Sydney with the pick immediately before David Noble went to Fitzroy was a Glenelg youngster named Craig Budarick, whose son Connor is now a teammate of John Noble after Noble Jnr joined the SUNS from Collingwood via a trade on Tuesday.

The coincidences didn’t end there. Drafted at #29 in 1989 was a Golden Square lad named Wayne Campbell, who played 297 games at Richmond and now heads the football operation at the SUNS.

And at #33 the fledging Brisbane Bears, at the time based at Carrara, took an undersized Shepparton lad who also forged a wonderful career which included time in the coaching and welfare departments at the SUNS, and still lives not far from People First Stadium - Shaun Hart.

Noble’s on-field stint in the AFL didn’t quite measure up to his extensive off-field career that would follow, and earn him inclusion in the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame. He played mostly in the Reserves, and debuted at 23 in the first AFL game played in Tasmania in Round 6 1991, when Fitzroy hosted Hawthorn at North Hobart Oval.

Among his teammates were Fitzroy favorites Paul Roos, Richard Osborne, Alastair Lynch, John Blakey, Matt Rendell and Brett Stephens. He collected 18 possessions in a side in which Blakey’s 22 was team-high, but Fitzroy were hammered 11-8 (74) to 36-15 (231).

It was the club’s biggest loss in 1928 games and 33 years the Hawthorn score that day, dominated by seven goals from Ben Allan and Darren Jarman, six goals from Jason Dunstall and five goals from Paul Hudson, remains the club’s highest all-time.

Noble, wearing jumper #38, played the following week against North Melbourne at the MCG. He had 12 possessions in a 44-point loss but that was the end of his AFL playing days.

He joined Prahran in the VFA in 1992, was premiership captain-coach at Upway-Tecoma in the Yarra Valley League in 1993-94 before time as assistant-coach of the Oakleigh Chargers in the first year of the VFL U18 competition in 1995, and coach of the NSW/ACT Rams.

In 1997 Noble became a father not once but twice when wife Sarah gave birth to John and twin brother Mark on 25 March 1997.

Born prematurely, John was required to take medication during childhood which delayed his physical development as, from an infant, he followed his father around the football traps.

From 1998-2002 he was back in the AFL with the Western Bulldogs, coaching the Reserves to a flag and serving as an assistant-coach under Terry Wallace, before coaching Glenelg in the SANFL in 2003-04.

In 2005, when young John was going on eight, Noble Snr joined the Adelaide Crows. He was assistant-coach from 2005-10, list manager from 2011-13 and head of football from 2014-16 before he was lured to Brisbane to join Chris Fagan in rebuilding the Lions football operation.

David Noble’s last year at the Crows was John Noble’s first season with West Adelaide in the SANFL. He played 43 games and in 2019 represented SA against WA while getting his AFL ‘fix’ following his father’s fortunes in Brisbane.

The desire to play at the highest level was always there, but the more he played in the SANFL the stronger it became. “I always knew I wanted to play AFL but it didn’t sort of sink in that I could get there until mid-teens when I really chased it and went for it,” he said.

“Missing squads was hard to take because I always knew I had the ability, I just knew it was always going to take longer. But it was just a matter of pursuing for long enough.”

He did just that, and found an unlikely ally in the AFL when, for the first time since the introduction of the draft in 1986, the League added a mid-season version to provide a second-chance opportunity for players previously overlooked.

Noble, a consistent standout with West Adelaide under Mark Stone, who was later to serve as an assistant-coach at four AFL clubs, had had talks with Collingwood and Essendon. There were plenty of good wishes but no guarantees. And so, as the AFL community united via phone hook-up Noble was among the interested onlookers.

Carlton took Fremantle four-gamer Josh Deluca at #1 before Gold Coast took Mitch O’Riordan from the Dandenong Stingrays at #2 and Melbourne went with Kyle Dunkley, brother of now Brisbane star Josh Dunkley, at #3. 

One-time US college basketballer Michael Knoll went from Box Hill to Sydney, Lachlan Hosie from Glenelg to North, one-time Geelong draftee Ryan Gardner to the Dogs at #6, and at #7 Essendon took one-game Port Adelaide cast-off Will Snelling. Still Noble waited.

St.Kilda took Subiaco’s Jack Mayo at #8 and at #9 Port took Fremantle’s 104-game Cam Sutcliffe. Hawthorn passed at #10 and at #11 Fremantle chose East Fremantle’s Dillion O’Reilly.

At #13 Richmond gave birth to one of the great football stories when they chose 2018 South Fremantle B&F winner Marlion Pickett, before at #14, with what would be the second-last pick of the draft, Collingwood took Noble.

Suddenly, Snelling, his pre-draft rival, was his first Melbourne flatmate as he began a stint at the Bombers which would stretch to 64 games before he won the SANFL’s Magarey Medal in 2024.

After three games in the VFL – the third in Round 16 when he was an AFL emergency as the second-placed Pies lost to 15^th-placed Hawthorn - Noble made his AFL debut in Round 17. He was just the seventh player in Collingwood history to wear jumper #49.

Included as coach Nathan Buckley dropped Josh Daicos among three changes, Noble got his long-awaited introduction to the big-time at Perth Stadium in a replay of the 2018 grand final against West Coast.

In front of 56,251 on a Friday night he had 17 possessions to help his side to a one-point win spoiled only by a late calf injury which sidelined him for two weeks and meant he had to play twice more in the reserves before his second AFL game.

It was a far cry from his father’s AFL debut in Hobart, but it was only the beginning. His second game in Round 22 was in front of 48,175 at Adelaide Oval, and then it was 85,405 on a Friday night at the MCG against Essendon.

The days of paltry crowds at the SANFL and packing stores at Foodland were long forgotten as he played his fourth game in Scott Pendlebury’s 300^th in the qualifying final against Geelong at the MCG in front of 93,436. They won by 10 points and Noble was 4-0 before a preliminary final loss to GWS at the MCG in front of ‘only’ 77,728 ended his first season in the big time.

These days interested in a career in real estate post-football, he was the poster boy for the Mid-Season Draft … until Grand Final Day, when 27-year-old Pickett debuted in Richmond’s 89-point win over GWS.

But five years on Noble’s 112 games at Collingwood is a League record for mid-season rookie pick-ups. Pickett played 90 games before his retirement this year, while Hawthorn 2024 B&F winner Jai Newcombe, picked up in 2021 after the 2020 MSRD was wiped due to Covid, has played 76 games.

Other valuable pick-ups have been Essendon’s Sam Durham (71 games), St.Kilda’s Cooper Sharman (49), Port’s Jed McEntee (46), want-away GWS midfielder James Peatling (45), and Essendon/Hawthorn wingman Massimo D’Ambrosio (40), Carlton’s Jordan Boyd (35) and Melbourne’s Daniel Turner (18). And SUNS ruckman Ned Moyle, a 2021 choice who has shown plenty of promise in six AFL games.

In 2020, having inherited the #9 Pies jumper worn by Brian Taylor, Phil Carman, Craig Stewart and ex-Southport junior Jesse White, he played 17 of a possible 19 games in the Covid season of 2020, including two finals and established something of a connection with the SUNS and reaffirmed his liking for the big occasion.

His first Brownlow Medal vote came in his first game against the Gold Coast at the Gabba in 2020 before in 2021 he found himself in the extraordinary position of sharing a flat in Melbourne with an opposition senior coach after his father had taken charge at North Melbourne.

David, who put his family life on hold to join the Kangaroos, leaving Sarah and daughter Jess to run the family home on the coast, has always been extra careful to support his son without interfering, and is reluctant even to talk about John’s football journey,

Regardless, their unusual living arrangement not far from North’s Arden Street headquarters didn’t worry the dashing blonde half back flanker – in his first game against his father’s side he had a career-best 31 possessions in a three-goal win.

His second Brownlow vote came against the Gold Coast at Carrara in 2023, when he had 30 possessions and kicked a goal, in his 100^th game in Round 10 this year he polled in the medal for a third time, and in front of 84,659 in the King’s Birthday game against Melbourne in his 103^rd game, he picked up two more medal votes.

But the individual highlights of 2024 were mere camouflage to the heart-breaking experience of September 2023 when, having played 80 games in a row, he was dropped by coach Craig McRae for a finals campaign in which his side went on to beat Brisbane by four points in the grand final.

In his place was journeyman Oleg Markov, who 12 months earlier was delisted by the SUNS.

Despite the fact that Noble won back his spot and enjoyed an excellent 2024 campaign it was an experience that few can fully comprehend. And, as Noble’s manager Scott Lucas, the former Essendon star, revealed this week, it was the beginning of the end of his time at the Pies.

Speaking on AFL’s ‘Trade Radio’, Lucas told how the roots of a decision not made until late in the 2024 season had been planted 12 months earlier.

On 27 August, 11 days before the start of the 2024 AFL trade period and despite being contracted until the end of 2026, Noble fronted coach McRae, acting football boss Brendan Bolton and new list manager Justin Leppitsch and asked for a trade to the SUNS for family reasons.

And on Tuesday, in a three-way trade that sent SUNS pair Jack Lukosius and Rory Atkins to Port Adelaide, he made his way to south-east Queensland, which has been home to his parents since his father, who split with North in July 2022, moved into his second sporting love of motorsport and took over as CEO of the Dick Johnson Racing on 1 December 2022.

It’s also still home to sister Jess, who moved north with her parents when Noble Snr joined the Lions and is now married with two young boys. And to twin brother Mark, himself a handy footballer who recently followed with wife Jas and is now a quoting specialist with a scratch and dent repairer.

And so Noble Jnr will play alongside Budarick Jnr. And if the prize off-season recruit was so inclined he could wear the vacant #36 jumper and have the locker immediately next to Budarick’s #35 … just as their fathers were drafted with consecutive picks 35 years ago.