Before Seb Ross established himself as one of the most improved young midfielders in the competition in 2016, he made his mark with the North Ballarat Rebels in the TAC Cup.

It was in that competition where St Kilda’s recruiting department took notice of the tenacious onballer, who did his best work in tight, accumulating plenty of leather around the ball.

Saints recruiter Chris Liberatore recalls a performance on a cold, winter’s day in north-west Victoria in 2011, where Ross led a depleted Rebels midfield against a high quality Calder Cannons side, leaving Liberatore with no doubt Ross had the potential to make it at the highest level.

“There was a game late in the year down at Horsham where North Ballarat was playing against Calder and a lot of the better North Ballarat players were out playing in a Herald Sun Shield game for their school at St Pat’s,” Liberatore told saints.com.au ahead of the National Draft on Friday.

“Seb was one of the only better players left and he just stood up in a game against a side that had half a dozen players who would go on to be drafted a few months later.

“The Cannons were all over them and won by about 10 goals, but Seb just dug in and was the real standout on the ground.

“He found plenty of the ball with 34 possessions; he took three contested marks and won nine clearances. It was a complete performance.

“He just ran really hard that day and it was at that late point in the year where you thought he put a lot of questions to bed that day and you left the ground really confident that he was going to make it AFL level.”

While Ross had been on the Saints’ radar prior to that standout effort, the club who would eventually end up calling out his name with selection No. 25, didn’t meet with Ross until the conclusion of the season. By then, the Saints had compiled a dossier of research on the talented country boy.

“That game was before we’d met with Seb or done any interviews with him, but we’d spoken to a lot of people about him and they’d vouched for his character, his work ethic and his drive,” Liberatore.

“Then later in the year we went and met him and his family and had a couple more conversations with him along the way and all those things started to marry up.

“Between his footy and what people said about him and the way he presented himself, it all married up into the person and the player we hoped he would become.”

After several injury interrupted seasons, Ross thrived in 2016, playing every game and establishing himself as a critical component of the Saints’ engine room. He finished sixth in the Trevor Barker Award, emerging as a reliable force between the arcs.