Drafting an inexact science; Where were the stars of the competition taken?

Portmanteau

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Thread starter #1
The thread title is nothing groundbreaking. We know that drafting is an inexact science. However, it seems that so much time, attention and emphasis is given to the draft by diehard footy fans, who want to see the next stars of the AFL come to their club.

I thought I'd have a look through the National Drafts 1998-2007, to see if there was any pattern to where the the stars of the competition were drafted. What follows is a list of the best players taken from each draft, I have not selected a fixed amount of players per draft, only those who have at some point, or still are, considered an absolute star of the competition.

This does not mean that some picks I haven't listed here haven't returned good value for a club, but I'm interested in where the elite come from. We could all agree that a good draft pick will most likely be early, but to what extent do scouting, development and sheer luck come into play?

The stars of the competition from each National Draft (in particular order):

1998
Lenny Hayes 11
Brendon Fevola 38

1999
Matthew Pavlich 4
Jonathon Brown 30* (Father/son)
Paul Chapman 31
Darren Glass 11
Corey Enright 47
Joel Corey 8
Ryan O'Keefe 56

2000
Nick Riewoldt 1
Daniel Kerr 18
Scott Thompson (now at Adelaide) 16
Drew Petrie 23
Alan Didak 3
Shaun Burgoyne 12

2001
Gary Ablett 40*
Chris Judd 3
Jimmy Bartel 8
Luke Hodge 1
Dane Swan 58
Sam Mitchell 31
Steve Johnson 24
Nick Dal Santo 13
Brian Lake 71

2002
Brendon Goddard 1
Jobe Watson 40*

2003
Adam Cooney 1
Sam Fisher 55

2004
Lance Franklin 5
Brett Deledio 1
Travis CLoke 39*
Ryan Griffen 3

2005
Scott Pendlebury 5
Marc Murphy 1
Dale Thomas 2
Andrew Swallow 43

2006
Joel Selwood 7
Jack Riewoldt 13
Josh Kennedy (now at Sydney) 40*
Tom Hawkins 41*

2007
Trent Cotchin 2
Patrick Dangerfield 10
Cyril Rioli 12
Harry Taylor 17

Conclusions?

- Players can only really start being judged 5 years out from their draft year. Cotchin and Dangerfield have only really announced themselves as top-tier players. The best players from a draft seem to announce themselves immediately, but there's always 1 or 2 slow burners.

-Early draft picks are obviously valuable and scouting seems to be becoming more of an exact science since around 2005, but early picks are not the be all and end all - there's a lot of single digits missing in the above list!

-Father son picks have been massively valuable in terms of bargains ending up at teams that eventually contend for the premiership.

-2002 was a woeful draft. What if 2012 turns out the same time and we've wasted hours of our lives worrying about these guys :(

-2001 was an incredible draft, obviously.

-More often than not, the #1 overall turns out to be a superstar but after that it is a complete crapshoot.

-The 2003 West Adelaide SANFL grand final team provided 3 of the top 5-6 players from that draft, Cooney, Waters and Fisher. A pretty mighty effort - I'm sure those with better TAC Cup knowledge than I could point out TAC or other teams that have delivered similar draft classes (Geelong Falcons 2001?)

-That I've only looked at the National Draft ignores sources of other players, e.g. PSD, rookie, international. The ND represents the first 'crack' that teams have at these players, and stars who therefore to not appear in the list further demonstrate the inexact science of the draft.

-The actual potential of players is in fact largely unpredictable and absolutely not in descending order starting at pick 1 in the draft. We should probably spend less time frothing about 'who won the draft' in the 48 hours following the ND!

EDITS: Added Kerr, Lake, Mitchell, O'Keefe, removed others
 

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Eastern Rangers

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#2
Conclusion. None.

Apart from the fact you can't pick who the "stars" are?

No Kerr from the 2000 draft? Excellent player from his very first season.

2007? Cyril but no Ward or Selwood?

None of Gibbs, Kreuzer or Watts are stars and they probably won't be. Scully could go the same way of just being a good footballer. Using number one picks in perennial junior performers has it's risks.

Luke Ball was a star early in his career, injuries playing a massive part in his more vanilla playing style.
 

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#4
I think one thing is for sure ....clubs now put far more money into recruiting and in doing so have raised there chances significantly of getting what there after especially early on ....imo the standerd of the comp has raised because of this as well
 

bombermick

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#5
Even if I accept your list (good list, but any list will have its problem areas), it shows recent drafting has got much better - at least in regards to finding star players. There were greater numbers of bargain-priced stars earlier on (Swan, SJ etc), but there are far fewer now.
 

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I see this is yet another "name players from your own club and ignore the point of the OP" thread, so Ryan O'Keefe was pick 56 and Adam Goodes was pick 43
 

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Even if I accept your list (good list, but any list will have its problem areas), it shows recent drafting has got much better - at least in regards to finding star players. There were greater numbers of bargain-priced stars earlier on (Swan, SJ etc), but there are far fewer now.
It will be interesting to see how the Rookie draft fares in coming years with the extra spending - we may not see a Dean Cox, bona-fide superstar emerge but there are players taken as rookies in the last couple of years who suggest they will be more than handy (ie Dahlhaus or mature types like Barlow who had a massive immediate impact)
 
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#15
Absolutely agree with the OP.
Even if we go to 2008, Watts is iffy, Naitanui will probably be great but we dont know for sure yet. Is Hill or Rich better than Sidebottom or Zharakis? or Beams?
 

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#17
LeCras should be on the list.

Can see Scott Selwood being considered a 'star' in the next year or two.
 

bombermick

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#18
It will be interesting to see how the Rookie draft fares in coming years with the extra spending - we may not see a Dean Cox, bona-fide superstar emerge but there are players taken as rookies in the last couple of years who suggest they will be more than handy (ie Dahlhaus or mature types like Barlow who had a massive immediate impact)
Certainly a number of very good players still falling through to PSD and rookie picks - like Barlow. Mumford was taken as a rookie in '09, but he's several rungs below a superstar like Cox.
 

Pykie

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#20
You could probably bolster 2002 with Wells, he's a best and fairest winner, and has been in 3 consecutive AA squads.
 

stefoid

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#21
Didnt someone do a 'games played per draft pick' graph a while back? And it looked like you would expect - an inverse exponential from pick 1.
 
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#22
Didnt someone do a 'games played per draft pick' graph a while back? And it looked like you would expect - an inverse exponential from pick 1.
I dont know that its even relevant though. Players like Jason Blake and Steven Baker got lots of games, thats not to say that they ever had the potential that a player like Mitch Thorpe had.
 

Portmanteau

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Thread starter #25
Where are Boomer Harvey and Daniel Wells on that list?
Harvey was drafted earlier than the timeframe looked at in the OP.

I don't think Wells is at the standard of players included, but I'm happy to hear from North fans and neutrals about the case for Wells.

(FWIW, I don't think being considered in the top 40, but outside the top 22 players, for three years to be considered a star of the game).
 
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