"He looked at me as if to say 'I don't know how to do this', and I was holding on to the baby thinking 'it took us an hour to get here, you're skating and we're doing this'," Sandy said. "For the first two laps he kept falling over and bouncing up and I was sitting there thinking, 'I'm the worst mother in the world', but when he came by me I'd smile and wave and say 'You're doing great'! and on the third lap, he didn't fall over at all. So I thought, 'oh well, he'll be OK'. He's always had that perseverance."

He hasn't ever lost it. Now a top AFL draft prospect, Andrew McGrath can't remember much of moving from Canada to Melbourne; he was only five when his father got a new job and his parents got to do something they had thought about doing for a long time: moving from their home near Toronto to the other side of the world. Andy is still a Canadian citizen and adaptable on more than just the football field; at school and around friends he speaks with an Australian accent but at home with Sandy, Mike and Noah – Haleigh is studying in Toronto – he slips back into his Canadian one. "It's a habit," he said. "Wherever I am, I think I just try my best to fit in."

Football helped on that front, from the start. "It was the best way to get to know other kids, playing Jack in the pack and taking speccies at school without really knowing what was going on," said McGrath, who also started Little Athletics near his new home in Brighton and took easily to all of it: the running, the jumping and even the discus, shot put and javelin. His father, Mike, played high school football but Sandy was a talented hurdler, who qualified for nationals as a teenager and would have competed had it not been so expensive to get there from her small home town. The family has memories of throwing a bunch of hurdles into the back of the car and as soon as he started jumping over them in races McGrath knew he liked them better than anything else.

"I wasn't that quick back then," he said. "Not over 100 metres. I was always in the middle of the pack and pretty average, but as soon as the hurdles were there everyone else would slow up and I'd still be there going at the same speed. There was something about the risky side of it I liked. The adrenaline. It's unparalleled, that feeling of getting over them." His dad thinks they sum up his personality. "He's at his best when he's got something in front of him."

McGrath was good enough – at high jump and long jump but mostly the hurdles – to compete and win at state and national level for a few years in a row. He had a coach, Kevin Prendergast, who taught him how to run properly, how to run the 400 metre hurdles in particular, and who became a bit of a grandfather figure given his wider family were living so far away. Had he stuck with athletics he was on track for the youth championships held in Colombia last July; instead he sat up watching them on his laptop in the middle of the night, having decided a few months before to give it all away.

The reason? Football. It wasn't until early this year, playing for Brighton Grammar, that McGrath began to get a clear idea of what he could do as a footballer. It wasn't until he led Vic Metro to a come-from-behind win in their first game of the under-18 championships that he showed the wider world. But when he was 16, his two sports were starting to get in the way of each other. Football season was ending, when he had to make his mind up, and he felt like he would miss it. When he sat down and thought about what he most wanted to do, he knew football was what he loved more.

"I guess it was my passion," he said. "I remember talking to my parents about it and they said to me: 'You're the one who has to do it, so it needs to be up to you'. That was comforting, and it was quite close at the time. It was at the point where if I'd kept going with athletics the Olympics would have started to come into my mind, so if I kept running for one more season it might have been different. But I don't regret my decision. It [football] was the one I loved the most, the one I cared about the most. I didn't like the thought of having to give it away."

What he did for Vic Metro enhanced those feelings. And his school, and the Sandringham Dragons; McGrath had 38 possessions in the TAC Cup grand final and was given the best player award. But before his first state game his coaches made him a co-captain and told him the other players would be looking to him. They told him to run, and keep running; they said the team needed his drive and that when he took off with the ball no one would be able to catch him. Then they sent him to play on Ben Ainsworth, who had kicked four goals in the first three quarters and looked like he might win the game for Vic Country.

"It was a massive challenge and I loved it," said McGrath, who simultaneously shut Ainsworth out of the game and launched run after run from the back line. He kept his form going and almost as soon as the championships were over had clubs coming to see him almost every Tuesday and Thursday nights, for six or seven weeks in a row. "A switch sort of flicked in my head halfway through that quarter. I'd always been a player who took the first option and did the conservative thing, but we had to win the game so I tried my best to rebound while playing on a really good opponent in Ben and remembering what the coaches had told me. Everyone played their role in the last quarter and that's the reason we won, but I think I realised that when I run and take risks, it's something that can help the team. That game gave me a lot of belief in myself, and a lot of confidence. It all sort of went on from there."

McGrath kept moving with it: a school premiership, the TAC Cup season, the combine, where he ran one of the best repeat speed times. On top of it all he was school captain at Brighton Grammar and had year 12 to get through. This has been a big, busy year and it wasn't until his last exam ended and he woke up the next day realising he had nothing to do and nowhere to be that he was able to start thinking clearly about what it all might mean come draft day. It felt weird; some say having too much to do suits him far better than having just enough on his plate.

"It's almost like he's unconsciously competent, because his life has always been busy and filled and he just rolls from one thing to the next," said Mike. "Even when he was really young we used to call him the most efficient kid ever, because if there was nothing happening he'd just go to bed. He'd say: 'I'm not wasting my time here, I'm going to get some sleep'. And then he'd drive us crazy because he'd be up as soon as it was light, looking for something to do. He wanted to get as much into every day as he could, and when his life started filling up with really meaningful pursuits he wanted to take all of it on, bring everything he possibly could to it, and enjoy his days to the fullest. That's the sort of kid he's always been."

McGrath can't wait to keep going, and knows how many people will be watching. He doesn't get back to Mississauga as often as he used to, and his pending AFL career means his parents might have to rethink their future retirement plans to follow the summer and live in two parts of the world. Their Melbourne winters might get a bit too busy. But McGrath has a large family and lots of cousins, who think Australian rules football is as crazy as he considers ice hockey, and who will be tuning in Friday to find out whether he is picked at No.1 or has to wait a few more moments for his name to be called.

"They're all intrigued by it and waiting to see what happens, and I'm the same. I'm relieved it's almost over and I'm excited it's starting again," McGrath said. "A lot of people say it's going to be a huge step up and that pre-season is really demanding, but I wouldn't play footy if I didn't enjoy all the things it entails. To be able to go to a club with one focus and one thing to do won't be a burden at all. I'm really looking forward to it. It's the one thing I've been waiting for."