Kye Turner was overlooked at national and rookie draft but the “no ceiling” fullback has been invited to train with Melbourne

But, yes, Old Haileybury senior coach Ward was pleased to take a phone call from Demons’ recruiters in the middle of the 2022 season and learn they were watching the newcomer.

It turned out Melbourne overlooked Turner, 20, in the AFL national and rookie drafts last week.

However, the Dees have invited the long-armed, 194 centimetre fullback to train with them during the “pre-season supplemental selection period’’.

Turner hit the track on Monday, dropping his part-time job as a barman at The Duke of Wellington Hotel in Flinders St to focus on his AFL trial.

“There’s no ceiling on how far he can go,’’ Ward says.

“I reckon Melbourne’s on to a good player. Hopefully for Kye’s sake it all goes well.’’

If the Demons do select him, it will continue a rise that has taken in injury, a switch of sports, Covid-19, a change of positions and even the surprise of being attached to a VFL club before a NAB League Boys team.

He seems to have jumped more hurdles than Sally Pearson.

For a few years, Turner, from the bayside suburb of Black Rock, combined soccer at Bentleigh Greens with football at Beaumaris.

He was accomplished at both, but put more time into soccer, venturing overseas with representative teams.

At 16 he developed stress fractures in the back – they were related to a growth sport – and was told to play only one sport.

He chose football.

In 2019, when he was still 17, Turner was added to VFL club Frankston’s Academy squad, where he received coaching from former Magpie and Saint Nathan Freeman.

Frankston coach Danny Ryan knows the Turner family and for a while he knew Kye as “the soccer kid’’.

Ryan was aware the youngster had started concentrating on football and was showing potential at Beaumaris.

In 2020, Turner linked with the Sandringham Dragons Under 18 squad, alongside his best mate, Luke Cleary, now with the Western Bulldogs.

Covid-19 killed off the NAB League season (he missed the Dragons’ only practice match after breaking his thumb).

Turner returned to the Sandy Dragons last year as a 19-year-old, playing only one game before the pandemic cut the season short.

At club level he won the Beaumaris Under 19s best and fairest, with the Sharks applauding a “leading forward who uses his pace and height to advantage’’.

This year brought a change of clubs and position for the business and accounting university student.

Elevated to Frankston’s senior list, he chose Old Haileybury as his local side.

The idea remained that he was a key forward who could take a turn in the ruck, which is where Old Haileybury College coach Matthew Lloyd would have started him had Turner been able to play school football in the wipe-out year of 2020.

But Ward, a 136-game Melbourne player, sent his recruit to fullback.

He stayed there.

By season’s end he was a premiership player and a Premier B team-of-the-year selection in the Victorian Amateur Football Association.

Turner also got in two VFL games with Frankston, making an encouraging debut at Port Melbourne.

By then, Melbourne scouts were tracking him.

“I’ve got a really high opinion of him, the same as Brede (club captain and former VFL star Brede Seccull),’’ Ward says.

“From the moment he walked in to our footy club, everything we’ve thrown at him, he’s accomplished.’’

Ward says he’ll happily take credit for Turner’s move to fullback, but it was done through necessity.

“He’d been playing at Beaumaris in the ruck,” he continues. “He was umming and ahhing about coming to us, and I spoke to him about how many ruckmen they had at Beaumaris and whether he’d see much opportunity there.

“We happened to have a practice match coming up against Noble Park and we needed a key back. I said to Kye, ‘I’ll play you there this week’. From the moment we threw him down there, he just looked like a natural.

“He had a great year … team of the year and a premiership in his first season of senior footy. No one got hold of him at all.’’

Ward says Turner is athletic, reads the play well and is willing to take a dash down the ground.

“I think that’s what has caught the eyes of people above, how he moves and also his massive upside,’’ he says.

“He’s a quiet kid but he’s a sponge. Everything we spoke to him about, he carried it out to the letter. I can’t speak highly enough of him, not only his ability, but the type of kid that he is.’’

Bloods skipper Seccull says he was convinced Turner could make it on to an AFL list from the time he first saw him train.

He regarded him as “next level’’.

Old Haileybury goes to the next level in 2023, making the jump to the top section of the amateurs – and may have to do it without its fast-rising fullback.