View Full Version : Then there were fourteen!
blackdiamond
31 Oct 2001, 21:15
With the delistiing of 5 inaugural players this now leaves us with only 14 players that were on our first list in 1997, they are:
Scott Bassett
Peter Burgoyne
Stuart Dew
Josh Francou
Roger James
Adam Kingsley
Brendon Lade
Bowen Lockwood
Darren Mead
Stephen Paxman
Matthew Primus
Warren Tredrea
Gavin Wanganeen
Michael Wilson
How well do you think we did with our original list?
From the players that have left our club from the original list the only players that have gone on to still be playing today are Nathan Eagleton, Tom Harley and Scott Freeborn.
I think the most disappointing part of our recruiting from our first year was the four out of contract players. Gavin Wanganeen and Matthew Primus have been great but the other two were shocking. Adam Heuskes was just a walking time bomb and Ian Downsborough, well where is he today?
What do you all think?
Biglands was also part of our initial squad.
You have to remember that apart from our 4 uncontracted and 6-7 draft picks, the other 35-odd players we had to pick were SA players no-one else wanted or were in the draft range of 1-2 years where they might be picked up.
If you had to do that this year who would you get? Only a couple of SA players per year go on to be very good players.
While we only have 14 left, a few others of our initial squad gave us very good service. I'd say about half of our initial squad was successful to get us to where we are today.
When AFL teams turnover 5 players a year minimum, we were never going to have a lot left by this stage.
Out of the 14 only lockwood and bassett are not in our best 22, so I'd say with a touch over half of our best 22 still from our initial squad we havent done too badly there.
I don't expect half of our draftees every year to go on to become first team regulars.
I think we did fine.....only problem was that we picked up too many Centrals players on the starting list (Cotton, Conway, Steinberner, Geister)
I think we did very well with our list. 1996 was not a strong SANFL year and we have done very well with who we got from the SANFL.
We could of got a few more years out of Heuskes but the club thought he wasnt worth it.
Lyle was great for us in our early years, so was Heuskes, Harwood was helpful, Eagleton was helpful, Pooley was helpful etc.
We did ok.
Port01 - i think youll find that Scott Bassett is fast becoming part of our first 22
Can't argue about Bassett, but with regard to this year he probably wasn't early but will be close by 2002 start.
Satay Mat
1 Nov 2001, 11:01
The SANFL was not great in 1996 but the SA under 18 squads from 1995 and 1996 were (I think we won it in 1995 and lost the final in 1996).
I thought we got some good pick-ups from the SANFL...considering it had been raped every year for 20 years. Pooley, Mead, even Carter and Fiegert (sp ?) were servicable on occasions....and of course Flash. COuld not have expected much more form these guys.
The two biggest disappointments have been Tom Carr and Paul Evans. Carr was captain of the SA under 18 side which included Burgoyne, Tredrea etc and really looked the part as a youngster. Evans kicked 8 in the under 18 final in 1995 (?) and did really well in 1996 as well. Both of these guys would have been top 10 draft picks had they gone into the draft and would have been ahead of Tredders and Burgoyne.
As for our uncontracted players I think we did as well as could be expected. We only had the option for 1 year (Crows 3, even Freo got 2) so really it was who was out of contract in that year (say 1/3 of players) and then we had to get them to move. We got 2 All Australians this year from that process which is pretty good given the circumstances.
Satay Mat
Tredrea would have been ahead of Carr & Evans, due to having a Collingwood dad, and being tall & playing finals for Magpies
I reckon Tredrea and Burgoyne were both in front of Carr and Evans in 1996 and when Port came into the AFL. Tredrea and Burgoyne had both broken into the League Magpies side in 1996...Tredrea ended up playing in a premiership - kicking 2 goals in the 96 Grand Final and taking a few very strong marks. Burgoyne was an excitement machine in 1996 and took the best 2 marks for the year!!! He missed the grand final becuase of a thigh strain from memory.
I reckon Carr should of been kept by the Power....he is a top player and would be very good in defence for us. I reckon he is in the top 10 SANFL players at the moment.
As for Evans, well he just lost the plot, but you could tell way back in 1997 that he wouldnt make it...he was too slow on a lead and didnt do much at SANFL level let alone AFL level.
But Tom Carr...he is a strong player...i still wish he was at the Power.
Satay Mat
1 Nov 2001, 16:15
yeah Evans I accept may have been lower...but strong full forwards do not come along very often inthe draft.
The only thing which would have had Tredrea ahead of Carr would have been his position. CHF's may go earlier than midfielders. Certainly the state selectors saw Carr in a higher position that Tredrea. I would not put as much emphasis on playing senior football. It depends as much on the stage of development of the player, the structure of the team and the depth of the team as it does with the relative strengths of one player over another.
I agree with you Macca re Carr. It is a shame Carr was delisted by the Power. He did not set the world on fire...but perhaps that was simply not meeting early expectations. Does not mean he would not have been a handy player though...even if he was not as good as he originally pronmised.
Overall though, regardless of the relative positions of these 4 it was a very strong draft in SA in that year.
In addition the Port Magpies managed to get Lade and Wilson not to nominate for the 1995 draft (for which they were both eligible IIRC) thereby strengthenning the position even further.
For us to get 6 players from one state in one year who are in our top 22 players is great. A good deal of luck too !
If Port we enterring the comp this year then it would be a different story.
Satay Mat
I would of liked to see Carr still on the Power list but I think the reason he is not there is because he seemed to get injured every 2 minutes. Last season for the Maggies is the only one I can remember where he played more games than he missed through injury.
Asgardian
3 Nov 2001, 14:27
One of the main reasons Tommy Carr is not on the Power list is because of his peripheral vision.
A former Magpie player explained to me that Tom has just about the worst peripheral vision of anyone he has ever seen play footy.
Now you can get away with that at SANFL level these days, but in the AFL, if you carefully watched the games Tom played, you would have seen him get crunched several times, also caught in possession a lot.
His awareness of who was around him just couldn't cope with the speed of the game at AFL standard.
It's a pity, coz the boy can seriously play
I think from memory his first AFL game was Showdown 1 back in 97. In that game he broke a few ribs. I cant help but think if he didnt break his ribs in that game, hed be a major part of our side.
Of course the ribs is just a minor part of it....he was constantly injured as Carb pointed out.