Review Best Draft Year - Worst Draft Year

[GreyCrow]

I havent read martys thread so I dont give a rats tossbag what is in there. This is prompted by the discussion over Jordan and his mates. Its not Jordans fault he was picked first for the AFC. It is indeed too early to tell what his impact might be.

But surely we cant tell this early?

I thought the year we got Brown and B Crouch was pretty good trading and drafting. Then there were the Tippet years

Is 2016 going to be called a bad one or a good one or middling?

 

[dogs105]

I'd give it a couple more years. Others seem to be able to judge more quickly. Some seem overly confident of their judgement and should perhaps be working at a club.

 

[Plugger46]

Anything from 1992-1997 was shocking only decent players we picked up were Johnson and Rintoul imo
We've never really had a "really good" year. We kind of get 1 good one in each draft. 2004 was probably the best.
If you look at Rookie drafts on the other hand we've had some really good ones

 

[AFC979810]

We've never really had a "really good" year. We kind of get 1 good one in each draft. 2004 was probably the best.
If you look at Rookie drafts on the other hand we've had some really good ones

Would take 2007 slightly over 2004. 2004 was Van Berlo, Maric and Knights. 2007 was Danger, Otten and Walker.

 

[Plugger46]

Would take 2007 slightly over 2004. 2004 was Van Berlo, Maric and Knights. 2007 was Danger, Otten and Walker.

Hmmm forgot we got Walker with pick 75

 

[GROTTO]

Hmmm forgot we got Walker with pick 75

I think IIRC he was always ours regardless of what pick we used because of some zoning development rule at the time?

 

[cmndstab]

We took him on the NSW Scholarship Program. It was the year before the rules were changed to allow you to spend your last rookie pick, so we spent our last live national draft pick instead.

We'd had him on the scholarship for several years beforehand. There were around a dozen players taken on the program over the AFL but only two of them (Taylor Walker and Craig Bird) turned out to be any good. A few others played a handful of games (Ryan Davis, Nathan Gordon, Thomas Young, and the pigdog himself, Aidan Riley) but that was it.

 

[Vader]

1992
National Draft:
26 - Marty McKinnon
41 - Brooke Fogden
56 - Matthew Powell
86 - Sam Smart
116 - Michael Godden

Pre-Season Draft
11 - Darryl Wakelin
27 - Josh Mail
42 - Nick Pesch
55 - Simon Pedler

Mid-Season Draft:
6 - Jim West
21 - Andrew Geddes
32 - Alan Schwartz

Marty McKinnon played 84 games - 25 for Adelaide, 54 for Geelong, 7 for Brisbane. The rest of them were nothing to write home about.

 

[Vader]

1993
National Draft
44 - Eugene Warrior

Pre-Season Draft
18 - Shane Tongerie
31 - Matthew Kluzek

Mid-Season Draft
8 - Tim Perkins

This would have to be a strong contender for the worst draft year of all time. No notable players drafted at all this year.

 

[Vader]

1994
National Draft
27 - Toby Kennett
31 - Allen Nash
38 - Matthew Collins
50 - Brett Higgins

Pre-Season Draft
6 - Peter Vardy
21 - Tyson Edwards

The PSD was damn good for us this year. Edwards played 300+ games, and Vardy was a member of our 1998 premiership team. Pity the National Draft was so ordinary.

 

[Vader]

1995
National Draft
18 - Brent Williams
27 - Kane Johnson
45 - Spotty Dodges
53 - Adam Ugrinic
70 - Ashley Fernee

Pre-Season Draft
8 - Shane Ellen
18 - Simon Goodwin
21 - Brendan Logan

Goodwin, Ellen, Johnson & Hodges makes this easily the best of our first 5 drafts. That's 3 members of our premiership teams right there.

 

[Vader]

1996
National Draft
13 - Tom Gilligan
60 - Andrew Eccles
69 - Chad Rintoul
76 - Greg Dempsey
86 - Ben Parker

Rookie Draft
5 - Ben Marsh
20 - Stephen Coghill

Eccles, Marsh & Rintoul are all premiership players for the Adelaide Crows. Eccles was later traded to Carlton for Kris Massie, the first of many one-sided trades involving our favourite feeder club.

 

[Vader]

1997
National Draft
17 - Lance Picoane
33 - James Thiessen
49 - Ian Perrie
65 - Linden Stevens

Rookie Draft
16 - Ben Marsh (yes, we drafted him twice)
33 - Tim Davis
48 - Sudjai Cook
64 - Steven Hall

Thiessen is a premiership player. Perrie may not have been the most talented player ever to wear the Blue, Red & Gold, but he did play 116 games and made the absolute maximum of his limited talents.

 

[Vader]

1998
National Draft
16 - Brett Burton
29 - Tyson Stenglein
32 - David Gallagher
34 - Bryan Beinke
48 - Lucas Herbert
63 - Clint Kirey
75 - Ken McGregor
80 - Brodie Atkinson

Pre-Season Draft
12 - Darryl Wintle

Rookie Draft
15 - Stuart Brown
30 - Dean Howard
43 - James Golding
53 - Jarrod Twit
58 - Linden Stevens (again)
62 - Scot Matthews

Burton, Stenglein & McGregor all played 100+ AFL games. Beinke and Herbert both played at the AFL level, though neither had big careers. Overall, this was easily our best draft year of the 1990s.

 

[Vader]

1999
National Draft
36 - Rhett Biglands
51 - Ricky O'Loughlin
65 - Justin Cicolella
67 - Robert Shirley
79 - Balraj Singh
83 - Matthew Shir

Pre-Season Draft
4 - James Byrne
12 - Andrew Crowell

Rookie Draft
4 - Michael Doughty
20 - Josh Coulter
36 - Chris Robertson
50 - Jon Yerbury

Biglands, Shirley & Doughty all had successful AFL careers. I wouldn't call any of them A-graders, but they were definite success stories. The rest of them... not so much.

 

[Vader]

2000
National Draft
7 - Laurence Angwin
38 - Michael Handby
48 - Matthew Smith (calling macca23)
53 - Hayden Skipworth
67 - Graham Johncock

Pre-Season Draft
5 - Chris Ladhams
12 - Adam Richardson

Rookie Draft
6 - Kane McLean
22 - Justin Cicolella (again)
37 - Matthew Golding (again)
40 - James Gallagher

Angwin was our highest ever draft pick, and he was a complete and utter head case. Thank-you Gary Ayres.

Skippy had a surprisingly long AFL career. Adelaide delisted him in 2006, after 44 games. He went back to the VFL, and was rewarded when Essendon drafted him in 2008. He played 11 games for them in 2009, before being delisted once again.

Johncock will be remembered as one of Adelaide's favourite defenders. 227 games is a great return for pick #67.

Smith spent 5 years on Adelaide's senior list, and never even looked like playing a senior game. Macca will tell you that he was the ultimate "built like Tarzan, plays like Jane" player. That's probably not PC any more, now that we have an AFLW team.

 

[Vader]

2001
National Draft
12 - Brent Reilly
44 - Ben Finnin
59 - Jacob Schuback

Pre-Season Draft
5 - Trent Hentschel

Rookie Draft
9 - Paul Thomas
25 - Nathan Bock
40 - Ben Rutten
51 - Martin Mattner

Rutten, Mattner & Reilly all played 200+ games. Bock played 140, before injuries put an end to his career at Gold Coast. 2001 is widely regarded as the greatest draft class of all-time, and it's not without good reason. Geelong built their premiership dynasty around it. Adelaide had to wait until the Rookie Draft before they really struck gold, but overall it was still a great result. 2/3 of our draftees from this year played 100+ games - easily the best result in the club's history.

I should also make a special mention of Trent "Potential", whose career was ended by a horrible knee injury - just as he was having his breakout season. He too would have joined the 100+ club, with just a little more luck.

 

[Vader]

2002
National Draft
32 - Luke Jericho
56 - Robert Shirley (again)
68 - James Begley

Rookie Draft
13 - Hayden Skipworth (again)
29 - Jason Porplyzia
45 - Aidan Parker
58 - Michael Bratton

From riches to rags... Jericho was one of the softest players to ever represent the AFC. Only a post-concussion Henderson comes close. I will never forget Jericho's woeful performance in that pre-season Grand Final. Porps did have a successful AFL career, but not from this draft year - he only lasted 12 months this time, before being sent back to the SANFL. Shirley was a good pick-up, but we'd already had him on our list previously.

 

[Vader]

2003
National Draft
8 - Fungus Watts
31 - Joshua Krueger
58 - Benjamin Hudson

Rookie Draft
11 - Tim Hazell
28 - Rowan Andrews
43 - Brad Dabrowski
57 - Matthew Smith (again)

Anyone who thinks we always win the Rookie Draft should have a long hard look at these selections...

Our National Draft was heavily compromised by the need to find a long-term replacement for Matthew Clarke. All 3 of our draftees this year were talls. Hudson had a hissy fit and walked out on the club, but overall I still have to rate his AFL career as a successful one.

This draft was, thankfully, the last of the James Fantasia era. Things would only improve from here on in.

 

[Vader]

2004
National Draft
8 - John Meesen
24 - Nathan Van Berlo
28 - Chad Gibson
40 - Ivan Maric
56 - Chris Knights

Rookie Draft
5 - Ryan Nye
21 - Jonathon Griffin
35 - John Hinge

Griffin was yet another in our long line of ruckmen draftees. His AFL career lasted all the way through to 2017, so you'd have to call him a "win". VB played 205 games and captained the club, so he too was a good result. Maric & Knights both had good AFL careers, though Knights' was limited by injury.

With 4 successful AFL players drafted, this is definitely one of our better draft years overall.

 

[Vader]

2005
National Draft
16 - Richard Douglas
17 - Darren Pfeiffer
32 - Bernie Vince
48 - Alan Obst

Pre-Season Draft
9 - Jason Porplyzia

Rookie Draft
13 - Brad Sugars
29 - Tom Redden
42 - Adrian Bonaddio
53 - Sam Elliott

Douglas & Vince are both 200+ AFL game players. Porplyzia played 130. That's 3 good players from the one draft year, which is a pretty fair result.

Obst was one of those rare players who was delisted only 1 year into his initial 2-year draft contract. He subsequently ended up at Melbourne, where he had a mediocre career, with kicking skills that made Charlie Cameron look like Tony Lockett.

 

[Vader]

2006
National Draft
14 - James Sellar
36 - Pond Scum
48 - David Mackay
64 - Nick Gill
72 - Bryce Campbell

Rookie Draft
14 - Andrew McIntyre
29 - James Turner
43 - Rhys Archard
54 - Greg Gallman

This was the first draft year where every one of our National Draft selections went on to play at AFL level. Mackay has played 190 AFL games, and the Pond Scum played 104 for Adelaide, before his treachery became fully apparent. He's qualified for the Father Son rule, though I doubt we'd ever want anything to do with a player from his gene pool.

It's not our worst year, but not our best year either.

 

[Vader]

2007
National Draft
10 - Patrick Dangerfield
27 - Andy Otten
30 - Jarrhan Jacky
38 - Myke Cook
57 - Tony Armstrong
71 - Aaron Kite
75 - Taylor Walker

Rookie Draft
9 - James Moss
25 - Jared Petrenko
40 - Ed Curnow
52 - Brodie Martin

How on earth do you judge this draft group?

Petrenko played 76 games for the AFC, which is good value for a player off the rookie list. It also speaks volumes about how poor our "small forward" stocks were at the time, and the AFC's failure to correct this obvious problem with their list structure. But I digress...

Dangerfield played 154 games for the Crows, and is clearly the best player from his draft year. He did his best to ensure that the Crows were fairly compensated when he left (he didn't opt for Free Agency when he had the choice). He's a 1st Class, A-Grade narcissist, but he's also a damn good footballer.

Ed Curnow was delisted by the Crows, without playing a single game. He was subsequently drafted by Carlton, and has 128 AFL games under his belt as of today. Is that a pass, or a fail, for Adelaide's drafting?

Walker & Otten are the stand out wins for Adelaide in this draft class. Otten played his 100th last Saturday, and Walker is the team's Captain. Don't read too much into Walker being taken late in the draft, as he was a product of the NSW Scholarship system.

 

[Vader]

2008
National Draft
10 - Phil Davis
28 - Shaun McKernan
44 - Rory Sloane
60 - Thomas Lee
72 - William Young

Rookie Draft
10 - Ricky Henderson
26 - Chris Schmidt
55 - Brian Donnelly

Sloane is the obvious stand out here, but Henderson & Davis have also had long & successful AFL careers. SMack's career has been long, I'm not sure I'd call it successful. All 4 of these players are still on AFL lists - Henderson with Hawthorn, Davis with GWS, SMack with Essendon.

Donnelly was our first attempt at recruiting from Ireland. The experiment was not a success.

Will Young famously won a TV for being BOG, in a game against Collingwood. He only had 2 disposal for the entire game. True story!

 

[Vader]

2009
National Draft
13 - Daniel Talia
29 - Mummy's Boy
45 - Sam Shaw
61 - James Craig

Rookie Draft
17 - Luke Thompson
33 - Matthew Wright
46 - Matthew Jaensch

This year is somewhat unique, in that all 3 of our rookie draftees went on to play at the AFL level. Wright is still on Carlton's list.

The standouts here are Talia, and Mummy's Boy (Gunston), both of whom are outstanding players. It's hard to fault the talent scouts when 7 of the 8 players drafted play at least 1 AFL game, and both of the first 2 national draft picks are huge and obvious wins.