Disastrous Recruiting decisions

[SaintsSeptember]

Saints would consider the Lovett trade to be disastrous at this point in time ..nice try at denial tho

Yes StKilda's current list would have no hope of making and being competative in a grand final without Lovett ..... Oh wait.

 

[dickballsack]

the pies examles would also be my picks for our worst recruiting.
the one that sticks in my mind is freo recruiting croad for #1 (hodge) #20 ( not sure) & #36 ( mitchell).

the other is st kilda's decision not to recruit cousins, i reckon they wouldv'e won the flag with him last year.

 

[MF]

Wayne Carey and the Sydney Swans win this thread.

Yep, letting both Carey and Longmire go to North for a sum of about 50k from memory is probably the biggest f-up of all time.

Not so much a major setback for the club but.... Paul Chambers is possibly the worst player to have ever played senior footy for us. I can't remember what we gave up for him (possibly a 2nd rounder) but that's irrelevant, whatever we gave up was too much. At least I got a laugh out of him I suppose.

 

[Ron]

How can you go past this classic

Worst trade ever?

That's easy. Pick 16 and 46 for Stephen O'Reilly who played 12 games for you. AND you had to pay him illegally outside the cap. AND he blew the whistle on you. AND you had to pay a fine. AND you got kicked out of the draft and had to recruit hacks. AND it meant that your mulit-million investment in Denis Pagan was a waste because he had no players.

Stephen O'Reilly for - Pick 16, pick 46, $1m fine, pick 1, 2, 17 and 33 in the 2003 draft, pick 1 in the 2003 PSD, 1st and 2nd round picks in the 2004 draft.

I reckon that would have the McMahon trade covered by a couple of laps of Flemington, then a trip down the highway for a run round Caulfield, before a backtrack to run the length of the Moone Valley straight.

It brought Carlton to their knees, and they still haven't gotten up.

 

[Wizard]

How can you go past this classic




It brought Carlton to their knees, and they still haven't gotten up.

Begs the question, we done the deal that killed Carlton for a decade and all we got was two bloody drafts picks for it?
Poor form AFL......... poor form.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Begs the question, we done the deal that killed Carlton for a decade and all we got was two bloody drafts picks for it?
Poor form AFL......... poor form.

Should have been some sort prize like a Nobel I would think.
Doesnt really come under the headings of science or peace though.

 

[Ricmel]

Yep, letting both Carey and Longmire go to North for a sum of about 50k from memory is probably the biggest f-up of all time.

hard one to top.

 

[markr]

the one that sticks in my mind is freo recruiting croad for #1 (hodge) #20 ( not sure) & #36 ( mitchell).

#20 was used on Daniel Elstone who never did anything.

Freo get regularly criticised for this trade, but really it shouldn't have been that bad. They got Croad and McPharlin for those picks, which if Croad had stayed would have meant two quality talls for pick 1 and some speculative picks.

What hurts them is that Croad came back two years later, and that Mitchell bacame a very good player, there were plenty of duds taken around pick 36.

 

[telsor]

it's all good in hindsight but richmond taking fiora over pavlich is something which haunts them.

Yeah, having Pav would have ben a (big) help, but we did manage to offload Fiona for Simmonds (indirectly) who gave good sevice and thus reduced the 'disaster', so in our sparkling pantheon of dubious recruiting/drafting decisions, it's not the worst.

The most disasterous 'decision' was the recruiting war we had with Collingwood in the early 80's which almost bankrupted the club and in a number of ways led to the crap we've gone through since.

 

[AKA The Joker]

Pick 14 for Cameron Wood, there I said it.............Ok so it's not devastating trade but is not bearing any fruit whatsoever.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

#20 was used on Daniel Elstone who never did anything.

Freo get regularly criticised for this trade, but really it shouldn't have been that bad. They got Croad and McPharlin for those picks, which if Croad had stayed would have meant two quality talls for pick 1 and some speculative picks.

What hurts them is that Croad came back two years later, and that Mitchell bacame a very good player, there were plenty of duds taken around pick 36.

Leigh Montagna, Jarrad Waite, Andrew Welsh. But seriously, you are right there is an element of luck to nearly all drafts / trades.
Freo did seem to trade a lot of draft picks for fair to middling players though, and along with unlucky drafting, they didn't really end up with too many superstars from that period.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Does Richmond recruiting Terry Wallace count?

 

[Jade]

Thorp/Selwood of course.

Outside of that, Rioli/Myers was a massive screw up by the Dons.

Myers is still yet to be proven. Essendon are hopeful on him. Has a hell of a kick on him, will look to become a damaging half back flanker or outside midfielder.

Fingers crossed of course.

 

[TedDougChris]

You could make a good case for the Bulldogs first round selections not quite making the mark in the past 10 years, particularly early on....

Good:

Cooney - 2003
Griffen - 2004
Higgins - 2005

Ok/Potentially Ok:

Williams - 2004 - if he stayed fit
Ray - 2003 - he was ok, nothing great for us. Has been better at the Saints
Everitt - 2006 - ok

Rubbish:

McMahon - 2000
Power - 2001
Walsh - 2002

Unproven:

Grant - 2007
Cordy - 2008
Howard - 2009

So, if you exclude the guys that haven't had a chance to perform (even though I'm worried about Grant), we've had 3 good selections out of 9. For first round draft picks that's pretty ordinary.... In fact, we've traded 3 top 10 picks this decade because they either wanted out or were rubbish...

We have done well later in the draft to make up for this however.

I may have missed one or two people off this list, it's not thoroughly researched....

 

[doggiesin08]

In the 2003 post season the Dogs did the following:

3 way deal with Essendon and Hawthorn effectively being:

• Nathan Brown and Mark Alvey for Lochlan Veale + Pick 20

• Pick 20 ontraded for Peter Steet

• Pick 19 (our own pick) traded for Steven Koops

• Part of "Veale Deal" was that Jade Rawlings got through to the PSD where we drafted him pick #1

Veale was never really expected to be any be any good but we would have been hoping for a lot more from Street, Koops and Rawlings. We were lucky the draft was shit and so it probably didn't hurt too badly (who knows who Clayton would have picked though).

Looking at what it could have possibly been though:
Keep Brown (I know he wanted to go), keep pick 19 (was David Mundy), Jade Rawlings gets traded somewhere else and we instead have to draft Nick Stevens instead (oh no!!). I know which option would have been better although we probably wouldn't have then finished low enough to get Griffen and Williams who can still hopefully help us get a flag.

 

[TedDougChris]

In the 2003 post season the Dogs did the following:

3 way deal with Essendon and Hawthorn effectively being:

• Nathan Brown and Mark Alvey for Lochlan Veale + Pick 20

• Pick 20 ontraded for Peter Steet

• Pick 19 (our own pick) traded for Steven Koops

• Part of "Veale Deal" was that Jade Rawlings got through to the PSD where we drafted him pick #1

Veale was never really expected to be any be any good but we would have been hoping for a lot more from Street, Koops and Rawlings. We were lucky the draft was shit and so it probably didn't hurt too badly (who knows who Clayton would have picked though).

Looking at what it could have possibly been though:
Keep Brown (I know he wanted to go), keep pick 19 (was David Mundy), Jade Rawlings gets traded somewhere else and we instead have to draft Nick Stevens instead (oh no!!). I know which option would have been better although we probably wouldn't have then finished low enough to get Griffen and Williams who can still hopefully help us get a flag.

If you combine that with our drafting in 2000 - 2003 (where the only good player we got was Cooney), we were clearly on drugs during this period....

 

[doggiesin08]

If you combine that with our drafting in 2000 - 2003 (where the only good player we got was Cooney), we were clearly on drugs during this period....

hmmm yes but that 2000-2003 window did give us McMahon and Ray...and while both have shown a little, I'm SOOO glad we got rid of them (say what you want about Ray and Dawson being great recruits last season, I think they're both terrible still looking half decent in a ripper side) and have nabbed ourselves Callan Ward and Jordan Roughead with the received picks.

And yeah Sammy Power doesn't have many more tricks than a decent soft 25-35m pass under not much pressure, but he was awarded the best player at the U18 champs in a ripper year + his last name...well you can understand the mistake at least.

 

[Death Cab]

Hawks passed up Ryder and Mitch Clark for the injured Beau Dowler (the year after we drafted Roughie and Buddy). The next year, worried about the progress of Dowler, we went for Mitch while Selwood was taken a pick later.

A Hawks side with Ryder and Selwood would be frightening!

 

[mick ryan]

it's all good in hindsight but richmond taking fiora over pavlich is something which haunts them.

for us overlooking simon black (local WA boy) has hurt.

Also was reading last year that West Coast were very interested in Adam Goodes but took Andrew Williams and Todd Holmes with two picks in the 10 in front of where Goodes went to Sydney.

Pick 5 Andrew McDougall, now that was embarrassing!

 

[NTRabbit]

Pick #2 and #18 in 2002 for a broken down Wayne Carey

Pick #75 in 1998 Ken McGregor, instead of Matthew Pavlich

Plenty of other bad decisions in Crows drafting and trading under the Ayres regime, but nothing else quite so disastrous.

 

[Naitawhoey]

For all the talk of Jonathon Hay im never quite sure how this beauty slipped through the trap of that year

Nathan Lonie to Port Adelaide for pick 14 (Grant Birchall). How why what? Nathan Lonie was close to being delisted by the Hawks that year and Port gave them a ****ing first round pick. Insanity at its best

Eagles in general though have never made a poor recruiting or trading decision. History says we are the best at it and by quite some distance. Some recent beauties from last decade

Chad Morrison for Pick 37 (Mark LeCras)
Daniel McConnell and pick 18 (Jon Hay/Max Bailey) to North for pick 13 (Shannon Hurn) and pick 29 (Ben McKinley)
Tyson Stenglein for pick 12 (Scott Thompson/Danny Meyer) and pick 28 (Chad Gibson)
Paul Johnson for pick 29 (Matt Rosa)
David Haynes for pick 20 (Sam Butler)

 

[Sedat!]

If you combine that with our drafting in 2000 - 2003 (where the only good player we got was Cooney), we were clearly on drugs during this period....

You don't rate Brian Lake, Daniel Cross and Matthew Boyd as players? Whilst the likes of Ray, McMahon and Power never scaled the heights envisaged when they were recruited, they weren't total write-offs during their time at the club either (almost 300 games for the club between them). Irrespective, we have since on-traded these guys whilst they still had some currency for picks used to secure Jordan Roughead, Callan Ward and Jarrad Boumann respectively. So 2000-2003 wasn't an outstanding success but has still delivered a decent return on investment that is still bearing fruit today.

 

[El_Scorcho]

Nathan Lonie to Port Adelaide for pick 14 (Grant Birchall). How why what? Nathan Lonie was close to being delisted by the Hawks that year and Port gave them a ****ing first round pick. Insanity at its best

Yeah, due to the way the AFL recorded the trade, it looks like that, but that was actually part of a complicated 3 club trade (IIRC) that landed us Motlop.

It's the same as saying we gave up picks 24, 40 and 56 for Jay Nash this season. It didn't really happen like that.

 

[stefoid]

Jade rawlings was a dud. no knees left to speak of.

The only redeeming thing is that was one of the weakest drafts in memory. what would we have spent pick 6 and 20 on instead? would have been very lucky to get anyone of significance.

 

[estibador]

Eagles in general though have never made a poor recruiting or trading decision.

Some notable eagles 1st round draft picks:

Ashley Sampi
Andrew McDougall
Travis Gaspar
David Haynes
Brandon Hill
Jaxon Crabb
Callum Chambers
Brendon Fewster
Luke Trew
Shane Sikora
Paul Symmons

Since 1992 that's 11 first round duds in 18 years. That's a lot of wasted 1st round picks for a team that never makes poor drafting decisions.