QUIZ MASTER: Next question. Who was Port Adelaide's first draftee?

CONTESTANT: Martin Leslie, Brisbane 1986 draft.

QUIZ MASTER: Correct.

From the back of room, there is an interjection: "You might want to check that ..."

"Half an hour later," says Peter Hofner, a three-time SANFL premiership defender from John Cahill's three-peat from 1979-1981, "the bloke came back saying, 'It was you, wasn't it?'"

Forgotten, almost airbrushed from football history, is the first VFL (now AFL) draft when 12 Victorian-based clubs met at the Southern Cross hotel in Melbourne on October 8, 1981. Two picks each, in reverse order of premierships rankings that season. Take the best of South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania - albeit still needing a clearance to be signed, with remuneration, by the non-VFL club.

Richmond called at No.6. The then seventh-ranked Tigers, fresh off appointing Francis Bourke as their new coach, chose the relentless 24-year-old half-back at Alberton, Peter Hofner.

Three Port Adelaide players were claimed in the controversial 1981 and 1982 VFL drafts that were the forerunner to the 1986 national version that took Leslie to Brisbane with the newly formed Bears. Hofner and Danny Hughes by Melbourne in 1981; and 16-year-old Greg Anderson by Sydney in 1982.

"I can't remember," says Hofner of how he learned of his drafting to Richmond in an era with no mobile phones, no social media and now phantom drafts forecasting how Australia's best football talent would be assigned across the elite league.

"There were many knocks on my door, meetings, spotters (recruiting scouts) at games before that draft ... but I am not sure how I found out Richmond drafted me."

Long-serving recruiting scouts, the Adelaide-based Rod Boots and Essendon master Noel Judkins, had alerted Hofner to the new theme of drafting the VFL was planning to introduce after decades of signing SANFL prospects on Form 4 contracts.

"I told them not to worry about me ... and they still drafted me," Hofner recalls while Port Adelaide chief "Big Bob" McLean prepared to stonewall the VFL clubs with his trademark reluctance to release players. 

"Richmond was doing the same with David Tiller at North Adelaide (pick 18) ... and he did not go either.

"It was a bit different then."

It was the era when the SANFL still believed it was on par with anything in the VFL.

"We played Richmond twice in pre-season games at Alberton at the time ... and came within a point of them; would have won once if not for a David Granger free kick off the ball while Paul Belton was running into the goal square ... if only Paul had kicked it as he hit the square!"

And it was a time when the business of drafting new talent was a galaxy from today's sophistication, as the Hofner story highlights as a contrast to the AFL methods in place now.

Richmond flew Hofner to Melbourne for a weekend that left one lasting impression.

"The War Memorial in the gardens," says Hofner 44 years after being introduced to a VFL club.

"They flew me over for the weekend when the players were away on a trip. I am thinking, 'Why am I here?' They put me in a low-cost motel where I had to deal with the noise of a band late at night. They upgraded me to a place near Waverley after that, but I was wondering why did they not put me in better digs from the start?

"I was given a tour of the club. I remember the board room - even if the place was dark - with the trophies and the legendary tiger on the table. Not sure why they didn't turn the lights on.

"Saw the big streets of Melbourne, the war memorial and the club official giving me the tour took me to his place where there was a fire next door ... some introduction to Richmond!

"Sunday, it was lunch with (senior coach) Francis Bourke and (club powerbroker) Graeme Richmond. There was not much discussion. I was there to enjoy a meal ... I was the shy, introvert ... didn't say much.

"Sunday night, I was flying home ..."

Hofner did return. Training - VFL style, Richmond style with the remnants of the Tom Hafey era demanding endurance.

"That was obvious from the start," recalls Hofner, who regards himself as the "real McCoy" Port Adelaide boy, from the Riverside amateur football ranks with the scars from playing across the railway tracks that cut through Port Adelaide. He had built up his legs as a teenager riding his bike to Findon High after overlooking Seaton Tech. "I was an academic ...," says Hofner, with some tongue in cheek.

Richmond's training sessions were filling his cheeks with much more.

"It is getting dark," recalls Hofner of his night on the Punt Road track at Richmond. "We have done the repetition 50-metre sprints, 50 laps ..  and I am haggard holding on to the tail of the pack. I had never experienced anything like this before. You have to remember we had still not started pre-season training at Port Adelaide.

"Francis Bourke calls us into the centre square. I am thinking we are finished. Nope. Bourke is telling us, 'Imagine this is the grand final. It is three quarter-time. To win, we have to give the same effort in the last quarter. Go do it again!'

"I nearly collapsed then and there.

"Maurice Rioli is laughing at me ... And it does not end there.

"We get back into the club rooms with me thinking we will hit the showers ... and there is a weights session. We had started at 5. It was now 8.30. I can remember training sessions at Port Adelaide starting at 5 and I was at the dinner table at home at 6.15. Thankfully, one of the Richmond trainers showed some mercy that night and said I could go.

"I get back to my room and thought, I need a bit of a rest, about 15 minutes, before I have a meal; so I throw myself backwards on the bed. Next thing, there is this banging on the door - the sun is up, it is bright sunshine and a Richmond official wants to take me to a job interview. He is saying, "Are you ready?' Ready? I thought he had just left; instead I had slept the whole night with my legs hanging off the end of the bed."

After the fly in, fly out sessions with Richmond, Hofner opted to stay with Port Adelaide playing his 94th league game in the infamous 1982 preliminary final against Glenelg at Football Park. 

"Lost by a point ... my last game (for Port Adelaide) was my best," recalls Hofner who made his league debut in 1978, after arriving at Alberton from Seaton Ramblers to work through the grades from the under-17s with the guidance of Hall of Fame coach Brian Fairclough.

Hofner moved to Perth in 1983, first playing three games at East Fremantle and then one WAFL senior game with East Perth in 1984. He was back in familiar surrounds at Port Adelaide in 1985 but with no more league football.

"It was the end of an era when Jack (Cahill) left for Collingwood after the 1982 season," says Hofner. "I had a chance to go to Collingwood too; a chance to be part of that Collingwood-Richmond war that was sending both clubs broke.

"I could not have tried my luck at another SANFL club. So I went to Perth - and not in the right mind; I needed someone to grab me and settle me down."

What if he had taken the path to Richmond or followed John Cahill to Collingwood in 1983?

"It is all unknown," Hofner says. "But you know if you are good enough to play league football you would be good enough to adjust in any era."