This year, his draft year, he has been talked up as a likely top-five pick, and the club he supported growing up, the club where his grandfather played, finished near the foot of the ladder.

"We didn't really have a choice," Paddy says of being a Kangaroos fan as a kid.

Paddy's father Richard was a handy local footballer in Swan Hill who trained with North Ballarat. But Richard's dad Peter made it a fair bit further. Peter Dow played 18 games for North, spread across two seasons - 1959 and 1961. One centimetre shorter than his grandson (who stands at 184cm), Peter was a ruckman and centre half-forward in an era when the game looked substantially different to how it does today. He died at 68 in 2008, a few months after Paddy's eighth birthday.

"I was probably a bit too young to get to know him," Paddy says.

"[We'd spend time together] at Christmas and stuff like that."

Paddy was born a few weeks after the Kangaroos' most recent premiership in 1999. He notes how the Roos haven't had much success in his lifetime, although the unlikely 2007 run to the preliminary final stands out as a highlight of watching the club. He says Glenn Archer "was always an idol". Coincidentally Archer's famous No.11 was one of Peter's numbers at North.

So as Paddy - a midfielder with terrific endurance, a burst out of the contest and a knack for kicking goals - was firing this season, he contemplated the possibility he could follow his late grandfather's footsteps.

"I thought about it a little bit. It'd be pretty cool to go to the club you barrack for," he said.

"[But North] might have completely different ideas."

As it stands, it seems improbable Dow will slip through North's grasp if still available at pick four, although that is a big "if" given Carlton's interest at No.3.

Wherever he goes, it seems Dow won't have too much trouble acclimatising. The kid from the Swan Hill fruit farm left his family to board at Geelong Grammar in year 10.

"The first five weeks it was a bit intimidating. You didn't know anyone," he said. But Paddy soon built bonds, including with fellow top-20 draft boarders and Geelong Grammar students Lochie O'Brien and Jarrod Brander.

"You get to know all the boys in your house pretty well and they become pretty much like brothers."

He agrees that his boarding experience leaves him well placed for the transition to an AFL club, even one outside of Victoria. "If you're in an AFL club I think you should be happy," he said.

"I transitioned all right from boarding school so it can't be much different."

Similarly, Dow says he hasn't been overawed by the experience of being a top draft fancy. "It's a good experience, good learning curve, getting used to it all. I've just enjoyed it, tried to soak it all in," he said.

"After nationals it all started to become a bit real, started to get more serious.

"Everyone was talking about it a bit more. I've soaked it all in. Just trying to enjoy it."

Dow had something of a distraction late in the season, when his shoulder popped out while playing for Bendigo against Gippsland in the TAC Cup, leading to an arthroscopic shoulder reconstruction. "I thought if I got it done as early as possible, missed a couple of games, then I'll be back as soon as possible for pre-season," he said.

Dow is interested in becoming a player agent, having watched his own agent Matt Bain help guide him through the year. "He hasn't sort of filled my head with stuff that is just all good. He's given me stuff I need to improve on. What recruiters think I need to improve on and stuff like that ... running patterns and defensive pressure," he said. "It's been good."

Not that Dow looks he will need to move into life after footy all that quickly. He looks a long-term player.