Worst Draft Ever For Us

[DST]

Originally posted by wheels27
Looking at that draft list I feel a little uncomfortable with the system in it's current form. The higher picks who went to bottom teams under the priority system - Hodge, Ball, Clarke, DalSanto - have all been struck with chronic injuries, I believe, from being played too often, too soon, something the lower clubs are forced to do.

I reckon this will see a lot of careers shortened unnecessarily.

Could not agree more Wheels27, these kids are being trained to hard at an early age and then subjected to too much football too early.

Just have a look at Chris Judd, WC have been etremely cautious with his first soft tissue injury knowing full wheel that he has played alot of football already. If they get it wrong now it may have massive consequences in years to come.

DST

[Swanner]

Saints and Hawks missed out on Judd

The big story of that draft is the Saints and St Kilda missing out on Judd.

Imagine adding Judd to the Saints line-up...on paper one of the most talented sides ever assembled...

In my book if the Saints don't win this year..Grant Thomas has to go...

[goswannie14]

Re: Saints and Hawks missed out on Judd

Originally posted by Swanner
The big story of that draft is the Saints and St Kilda missing out on Judd.

Imagine adding Judd to the Saints line-up...on paper one of the most talented sides ever assembled...

I don't think St Kilda is that good, but at least Judd would have added some balls to a pack of winging morons.

[wheels27]

Ironic that he was seen as an injury risk at the time, after shoulder surgery as a young bloke.

[originalswan]

St Kilda

I would hold off on saying that St Kilda are not a good team just at the moment. Especially with their continuing (misfortune? or bad mannagement) problems with injuries.

How would we travel without the services of players the caliber of Hamill, Koschitzke, Harvey, Hayes and Luke Ball playing with obvious miscomfort? If I transferred those missing at St Kilda to say O'Keefe, Jolly, Goodes, Jude Bolton how would we travel?

By the way any perceived failures of past drafts surely pale in significance to the trades of Wayne Carey, John Longmire and James Hird!!!

[liz]

Re: Re: Saints and Hawks missed out on Judd

Originally posted by goswannie14
I don't think St Kilda is that good, but at least Judd would have added some balls to a pack of winging morons.

Luke Ball already does this though. If you were going to add Judd to the Saints list you'd surely have to assume that either West Coast or Hawthorn would have taken Ball before the Saints' no 5 pick.

Of course, if the Swans had had the foresight to get another half dozen games into Ray Ball, Luke could be running around in the red and white.

[goswannie14]

Re: Re: Re: Saints and Hawks missed out on Judd

Originally posted by liz
Of course, if the Swans had had the foresight to get another half dozen games into Ray Ball, Luke could be running around in the red and white.

Wouldn't you think that the selectors of the past would have known that there would be a father-son rule introduced at some later stage.

[Snowy]

Originally posted by liz
I disagree. There are some gems in the top 20-25 but the Swans never had a chance at these (once we'd decided to trade for Hall and I defy anyone to claim that this was a mistake).

Putting aside whether we think LRT is a champion-in-the-making or a so-so player, he was taken with a priority zone pick and the only other two realistic options with this pick were Rogers or Playfair. Five years on, I think we're better off with LRT than with Playfair (and the Rogers discussion doesn't even need to be had).

Sure, Powell and Hunt were "fails" but I don't see a huge number of quality options we missed out on who were taken from picks 30 onwards.

Ablett jnr and Waite, though quality players, are irrelevant to the discussion because they were father-son selections. Other than these two, the only real quality on that list are Mitchell and Harris. There are a handful of others who are either GOPs (but not outstandingly better than the GOPs we have on our list), such as Hyde, Welsh, Montagna and Miller. Swan has emerged with a bang this year but it remains to be seen whether he will sustain a long term career playing at that level, especially after other teams have worked him out.

Some may point to Medhurst or Hansen. I think Medhurst has limitations - certainly he's no star. Hansen may yet become a very good player but he's not there yet.

Every draft has early misses and late gems. I don't see how one can discount the "success" of the Schneider pick in the same breath as claiming that overall the club did poorly with the picks it had.

One can also point to late gems from other drafts (Buchanan, Goodes, O'Keefe) and deride other clubs for failing to pick them, not to mention the list of other late gems that other clubs have found (Davey is an outstanding example).

The draft is a hit and miss process but I don't think that 2001 list is particularly damning on the Swans' recruiting staff.

Yes agree with most of that, though in the case of Goodes, he was a 17 year old, hence was out of bounds to other clubs once they had picked their 17 year olds. And certainly there was some very good 17 year olds chosed ahead of Adam. This year's draft looks a similar bountiful prospect to the 2001 one. Jack Riewoldt was profiled on tonight's seven news in Melbourne. He's a cousin of Nick and is expected to go top ten, though there about 15 so-called 'guns' who might be selected ahead of him.

[Damien]

Originally posted by Snowy
Jack Riewoldt was profiled on tonight's seven news in Melbourne. He's a cousin of Nick and is expected to go top ten, though there about 15 so-called 'guns' who might be selected ahead of him.

Be good to get Jack Riewoldt - especially seeing we need another Tasmanian to replace Willo!!

The feedback I get from Tassie though is that he has gained more attention for his name than his skills, but I am guessing the AFL scouts would know better.

[liz]

Originally posted by Snowy
Yes agree with most of that, though in the case of Goodes, he was a 17 year old, hence was out of bounds to other clubs once they had picked their 17 year olds. And certainly there was some very good 17 year olds chosed ahead of Adam.

True, though with the (dubious) benefit of hindsight, I suspect most clubs would be happy to have Goodes in place of the 17yo they actually picked. Maybe Collingwood would stick with Tarrant (though I'd prefer to keep Goodes) but who else would claim to be better off with who they picked?

The reason Goodes fell to the Swans is because there were big question marks over him. Thankfully for us, he has answered them with aplomb. Similarly, there were reservations over Mitchell (footspeed), Davey (fitness, versatility, committment and build) and many others who have belied their position in their draft list.

Some forget that Matthew Pavlich was overlooked by everyone in the year he was first eligible to be drafted, before being nabbed by Freo early the following year. Yes, there were restrictions on drafting 17yos in that year but he's another example where 15 clubs would be kicking themselves in hindsight.

[The Big Cat]

Re: St Kilda

Originally posted by originalswan
By the way any perceived failures of past drafts surely pale in significance to the trades of Wayne Carey, John Longmire and James Hird!!!

Add Chris Johnston to that who the Swans didn't draft on compassionate grounds in that he didn't want to leave Melbourne. He was then one of the original Fitzroy players who went to Brisbane!

[giant]

I rarely question you Liz but I'm pretty certain Davey is a rookie list rather than a draftee - which doesn't make his pick-up by Melbourne any less remarkable. You'd certainly wouldn't swap him for a Sampi at this stage (pick 6).

Amazing how many of this list has ended up at St Kilda almost as tho they think 2001 was a great vintage, let's get as many of those as we can.

[liz]

Originally posted by giant
I rarely question you Liz but I'm pretty certain Davey is a rookie list rather than a draftee - which doesn't make his pick-up by Melbourne any less remarkable. You'd certainly wouldn't swap him for a Sampi at this stage (pick 6).

Didn't mean to imply otherwise. He certainly was a rookie list pick-up. But in reality that just means he was even further back in the pecking order that year because you really just have to stick the rookie draft at the back of the National and PS drafts.

[elroy67]

Aaron Davey is the poster boy for the Rookie list.

Its just my observation, but it seems clubs tend to use the draft to pick up the 'best' young midfielder or potential KPP. If you don't fit either mould its easy to slip through the cracks.

[liz]

Originally posted by elroy67
Aaron Davey is the poster boy for the Rookie list.

Good as Davey is, there are a few others with claims to that position built over a longer time - Michael, Cox and our very own Captain Kirk are but three examples.