Perception can be such an interesting thing in the AFL. Just ask Mac Andrew.
If you’ve only followed his football progress through a television lens or a radio microphone, you would likely land at a different perspective to the hard-working young talent his teammates and staff see walk through the doors of the Austworld Centre every morning.
The kind of perspective that General Manager of Football Craig Cameron has of the 22-year-old 88-gamer who finished third in the 2026 SUNS Club Champion.
“He’s a really nice human being, very cheeky. Yes, he’s got some things to learn and improve, but he’s come a long way in a short period of time, and he’s really invested in the club,” Cameron said.
“He’s had a really good season and is a special talent. He can play on talls and smalls, he’s a defender who can drop off and mark it and also joins in attack,” he added.
“He loves the boys, the boys love him, he trains hard, and he’s a competitive beast.”
Now, after an excellent 2026 season, outsiders looking inside at Andrew and the SUNS have something tangible from a football sense to grab onto, a podium finish in the best and fairest.
Andrew polled 50 votes to finish behind Bodhi Uwland (57) and Sam Collins (54).
It was a wonderful bounce back after he’d finished sixth in the B&F in his first full season in 2024 and then missed the top 10 in 2025.
The 201cm excitement machine was ninth in the count at Round 6 this year and seventh at Round 7. After his first five-vote game against GWS at People First Stadium, he jumped to fifth behind only Christian Petracca (23), Collins (22), Uwland (21) and John Noble (19).
One five-voter became three five-voters in a row as he ranked fifth in the count for six weeks.
Another five votes against Hawthorn at People First Stadium in Round 15 jumped him to third behind Collins and Uwland, and there he stayed, adding another ‘five’ against GWS in Canberra in Round 22.
The votes identify what will be his target for improvement next year: closing the gap between his good and his not-so-good. He had 12 games of either three, four or five votes and 11 games of zero or one. No two-vote games.
He polled three or more votes in 52.2% of games, higher than all but Uwland at 56.5%. His five five-vote games equalled Collins and trailed only Uwland’s six.
Andrew’s beaming smile on stage at the climax of the best and fairest dinner was the high point of a football career that is only part of a remarkable life journey.
Born on 4 December 2003 in Cairo to South Sudanese parents, he moved to Melbourne at 18 months and took up Australian football in the Under 9s at Wantirna South.
He played at Berwick, former home of Australia’s first Olympian and first Olympic gold medallist Edwin ‘Teddy’ Flack, and ex-AFL stars Michael Tuck, Justin Leppitsch, Stefan Martin and Tom Scully.
He played in the NAB Talent League with the Dandenong Stingrays, which also produced ex-SUNS captain and dual B&F winner Tom Lynch, and for a time was a member of Melbourne’s Next Generation Academy.
But when the AFL tightened the draft rules in November 2020, banning NGA players from being drafted inside the top 20, he fell into the open market and an A-plus top-end talent pool for the 2021 draft.
Five years on, the record books show it was a first round of extremes. The top five picks have quickly become stars of the League.
First-round picks in the 2021 National Draft were:
No.1 – Jason Horne-Francis (North Melbourne – now Port Adelaide) – 101 games
No.2 – Sam Darcy (Western Bulldogs) – 51 games
No.3 – Finn Callaghan (GWS) – 90 games
No.4 – Nick Daicos (Collingwood) – 118 games
No.5 – Mac Andrew (Gold Coast) – 88 games
No.6 – Josh Rachele (Adelaide) – 95 games
No.7 – Josh Ward (Hawthorn) – 92 games
No.8 – Jye Amiss (Fremantle) – 96 games
No.9 – Josh Gibcus (Richmond) – 22 games
No.10 – Neil Erasmus (Fremantle) – 65 games
No.11 – Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera (St Kilda) – 103 games
No.12 – Josh Sinn (Port Adelaide) – 30 games
No.13 – Ben Hobbs (Essendon) – 47 games
No.14 – Campbell Chesser (West Coast, now Carlton) – 39 games
No.15 – Leek Aleer (GWS) – 16 games
No.16 – Darcy Wilmot (Brisbane) – 109 games
No.17 – Tom Brown (Richmond) – 60 games
No.18 – Angus Sheldrick (Sydney) – 49 games
No.19 – Jacob van Rooyen (Melbourne) – 79 games
No.20 – Kai Lohmann (Brisbane) – 79 games
Before he was drafted, Andrew reflected on his early days in a story by AFL draft guru Cal Twomey on the AFL website which hasn’t been exposed in Queensland.
He told how, although he doesn’t remember leaving Egypt, his South Sudanese parents Mary and Luol had fled from pre-independent South Sudan to Egypt. They were desperate to escape the civil war consuming their country before moving to Australia soon after.
“They made the move to try to give us a better life,” Andrew said.
But he explained that life for his parents had always been bad.
“Growing up [for them] it was a pretty normal life. My dad tells me all they did was play soccer every day. Soccer, soccer, soccer. I think when he was around 20 it started to go bad. North and South Sudan divided and that started the war.”
At the time of the interview, COVID was rife throughout the world. And in Sudan, a country of more than 11 million people, fewer than 1,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines had been injected and thousands of people had died.
Andrew, who studied electrotechnology in Year 12 in 2021 at St Joseph’s in Ferntree Gully, has two older brothers, two younger brothers and a younger sister. It was through one of his older brothers, Makueo, that Andrew first took up football.
“It was probably around 2009, my brother’s mate invited him to go train down at Wantirna South. I used to go watch his training all the time but I was too young to start playing,” Andrew said. “A year or two later I told dad I wanted to play.”
Despite growing up in Wantirna South and then Cranbourne, Andrew started barracking for Geelong after his brother got a Geelong jumper. His idols were Joel Selwood and Jimmy Bartel.
His other heroes were fellow Sudanese boys Majak Daw, Mabior Chol and Changkuoth Jiath.
“They really inspire me to keep playing footy,” he said. “Seeing them play, it pushes more Sudanese kids to try to make the move to footy [from basketball], try to be like them.”
At the time Andrew was drafted by the SUNS, then National Recruiting Manager Kall Burns said he was capable at either end of the ground and would complement the existing list well.
“We’ve scouted Mac for several years and see great potential in him as an exciting ruck prospect that has versatility to play other positions,” Burns said.
“What appealed to us about Mac first and foremost is his competitiveness.
“On top of this, Mac shows tremendous physical attributes; for someone two metres tall he’s fast, agile, has a great leap and is quite skilful and those players don’t come around very often.”
