Geelong Draft Shockers

[switch the play]

A mate of mine at work is compiling a team of Hawthorn draft shockers and is doing so quite easily.I need to come up with one from the cats-nothing personnel just a bit of fun.Can anyone help-has to be in the last 20 yrs.So far i have Aaron Lord;Austin McCrabb;Steve Hooper and David Spriggs to name a few.

 

[Redemptionin09]

Matthew McCarthy
Matthew Spencer
Martin McKinnon
Marcus Baldwin
Daniel Lowther
Hamish Simpson
David Clarke
Shane Ryan
Paul Lindsay

 

[shake_and_bake]

brett spinks
david haynes
stephen owen
peter street
paul chambers
david loats
leigh brockman
gerrard bennett
joel mckay
ezra bray
daniel foster
hamish simpson (although pick 69)
cameron thurley
kane tenace
Joel Reynolds

 

[bingle]

Joel Reynolds

i think nthat one's a bit rough as he never got a chance. 1 year at GFC and most of it was spent in rehab from a knee for memory. But there are a few.

put Brett Spinks and Steven handley in there maybe

 

[winty]

David Ugrinic for mine. Had the guy on our list for years, but I think he only played a handful of reserves games as, IIRC, he was very hesitant to leave Adelaide.

He wasn't drafted, but getting Ben Finnin from Adelaide for Ronnie Burns was a shocking decision too.

 

[Hinkley29]

A mate of mine at work is compiling a team of Hawthorn draft shockers and is doing so quite easily.I need to come up with one from the cats-nothing personnel just a bit of fun.Can anyone help-has to be in the last 20 yrs.So far i have Aaron Lord;Austin McCrabb;Steve Hooper and David Spriggs to name a few.

Aaron Lord and David Spriggs were hardly shockers.

As the lists above attest to, there have been plenty worse than these guys.

 

[Catsace]

Geelong's first drafted player to even don a senior guernsey was Ray Sterret, drafted in 1988. Our first two years in the draft drew duck-eggs!

 

[Johnson#26]

Remember, they aren't shockers if they are selected post pick 50.

 

[jim boy]

He wasn't drafted, but getting Ben Finnin from Adelaide for Ronnie Burns was a shocking decision too.

You do understand that trade don't you??

 

[thejester]

Ezra Bray for me. Tragic story, and zero games from pick 17 in a super draft is pretty awful. At least Foster and Spriggs got out on the park.

 

[Exhale You]

A mate of mine at work is compiling a team of Hawthorn draft shockers and is doing so quite easily.I need to come up with one from the cats-nothing personnel just a bit of fun.Can anyone help-has to be in the last 20 yrs.So far i have Aaron Lord;Austin McCrabb;Steve Hooper and David Spriggs to name a few.

1) Steven Hooper was an excellent talent who was cruelled by injury.

2) David Spriggs was a quality footballer before his mysterious injury.

3) Aaron Lord was only drafted by Geelong once, in the 2001 Pre-Season draft, so we actually got a decent enough return.

4) Austin McCrabb came to the club before the draft came into being.

Matthew McCarthy
Matthew Spencer
Martin McKinnon
Marcus Baldwin
Daniel Lowther
Hamish Simpson
David Clarke
Shane Ryan
Paul Lindsay

1) McCarthy, Lowther and Spencer were late pick 'flyers', so one could hardly call them 'shocking picks'.

2) Marcus Baldwin and Paul Lindsay were only a rookie pick, so again, hardly a 'shocking pick'.

3) McKinnon and Simpson came to the club through trades, not the draft.

As for genuine 'draft shockers', i'd go with:

* Leigh Brockman
* Leigh Willison
* Ezra Bray
* David Ugrinic
* Gerard Bennett
* Rob Di Rosa
* Peter Street

All top 20 picks who failed.

I left out guys like Joel McKay and Daniel Foster, who were cut down by injury.
I also didn't put Tenace is because despite him not truly making it, the 2003 draft blew so it actually hasn't been that bad a pick.
If you look at the players taken directly after Kane, it's not as if we were the only ones not to get a star (Trotter, Dunn, Watts, Willoughby, Morrison, Spaanderman, Gilmour, Thurley, Miller, Moody were all taken after Kane, but before pick 25, and not one is even on a list now).

 

[darren forssman]

As for genuine 'draft shockers', i'd go with:

* Leigh Brockman
* Leigh Willison
* Ezra Bray
* David Ugrinic
* Gerard Bennett
* Rob Di Rosa
* Peter Street

All top 20 picks who failed.

would ray sterret qualify here...was a top 20 draft pick but didnt play more than 50 games.

put Brett Spinks and Steven handley in there maybe

handley was picked up in the march or mid season draft from memory...hardly a shocker.

 

[Hinkley29]

1) Steven Hooper was an excellent talent who was cruelled by injury.
<snip>
1) McCarthy, Lowther and Spencer were late pick 'flyers', so one could hardly call them 'shocking picks'.

Stephen Hooper had one talent - he was huge. His football skills on the other hand were mediocre at best.

Lowther was a late pick, however we did draft him twice, and neither time did he really amount to much.

 

[Exhale You]

would ray sterret qualify here...was a top 20 draft pick but didnt play more than 50 games.

I tried to avoid the VFL drafts as they were a real crapshoot.

Mind you, i think a kid from Warnambool went not long after Sterrett, his name was Leon Cameron.

handley was picked up in the march or mid season draft from memory...hardly a shocker.

Handley was a decent enough player too, contributed relatively well for 4-5 years.

Stephen Hooper had one talent - he was huge. His football skills on the other hand were mediocre at best.

I disagree.
I believe that Hooper was extremely talented, but never got an opportunity to show it in the AFL due to injury.

As risky as the draft was back then, i don't see a guy going at pick 1 simply because he's big.

Lowther was a late pick, however we did draft him twice, and neither time did he really amount to much.

He (and Hamish Simpson) was only delisted and redrafted because we needed to meet the 'three draft picks' minimum in 2000, and after giving up all our early picks for players who shall remain nameless, we only had crappy picks left and didn't want to commit to kids we didn't really want.

 

[ripitup27]

Pretty sure Brockman had major knee injuries too.

 

[Budda 230]

This is turning into a bad player list thread instead of a shocking draft selection thread.

You can't really blame the club for selecting players like Tenace, Bray and Spriggs as they were all very highly rated juniors that would have been high draft picks in any case. Tenace especially was rated a top 5 pick and Geelong were considered lucky for him to slide (this looks like happening maybe to Rich this year). Considering the Tenace draft was weak, everyone was happy to have selected him at the time.

One of the most baffling picks was in the same Tenace draft, selecting the mature age recruit Cameron Thurley at pick 22. Thurley had produced nothing more than average, steady performances for Tasmania in the VFL, but was seen to have outstanding skills, speed and goal sense. A player of his age and ability was always going to struggle having a role at AFL level. His scope for improvement was minimal at best. Yes, it was a weak draft, but we still overlooked great talents in Sam Fisher and Jed Adcock. One of the only high picks that Wellsy has completely stuffed up and misjudged.

Thank god Thurley quit the Cats, but how handy would Sam Fisher be down back at this moment in time? More importantly, how lucky are we that Thurley is such a rare blemish on Wells' outstanding record? Especially considering he has never had the chance to work with a pick any better than No.7.

 

[darren forssman]

Handley was a decent enough player too, contributed relatively well for 4-5 years.

i concur, i thought he was more than handy...was more a kp player but carried the ruck for a few years and if we had won one or more premierships he would have been remebered differently.

 

[Exhale You]

You can't really blame the club for selecting players like Tenace, Bray and Spriggs as they were all very highly rated juniors that would have been high draft picks in any case. Tenace especially was rated a top 5 pick and Geelong were considered lucky for him to slide (this looks like happening maybe to Rich this year). Considering the Tenace draft was weak, everyone was happy to have selected him at the time.

Well said.

One of the most baffling picks was in the same Tenace draft, selecting the mature age recruit Cameron Thurley at pick 22. Thurley had produced nothing more than average, steady performances for Tasmania in the VFL, but was seen to have outstanding skills, speed and goal sense. A player of his age and ability was always going to struggle having a role at AFL level. His scope for improvement was minimal at best.

It was a baffling selection, and we've never really had any explanation of it.

Yes, it was a weak draft, but we still overlooked great talents in Sam Fisher and Jed Adcock.

The Thurley pick was awful, but the above is grossly unfair.

Every team in the league overlooked Adcock at least once (some twice), whilst every single club overlooked Fisher three times before St. Kilda took him.
It's all well and good to look back and suggest we should have taken Fisher, but he went at pick 55 for a reason, so i think it's fair to say that no one expected him to reach the heights he has.

 

[switch the play]

Thanks boys-reckon i've just about got my 22.Sure to suprise him with a few old names-lol.Reckon i might throw in Spiro Malekalis just because i like his name.

 

[Budda 230]

The Thurley pick was awful, but the above is grossly unfair.

Every team in the league overlooked Adcock at least once (some twice), whilst every single club overlooked Fisher three times before St. Kilda took him.
It's all well and good to look back and suggest we should have taken Fisher, but he went at pick 55 for a reason, so i think it's fair to say that no one expected him to reach the heights he has.

I can see where you are coming from, but I thought it was important to mention a couple of players we missed out on to justify the bad selection. Adcock a week before the draft was seen as a top 15 selection. It was definitely strange to see him drop that far. Fisher was a bit of a smokey from what I can recall. But what a great pick up.

The frustrating thing about drafting Thurley was his scope for improvement. It was non existent. When you never know what is going to come from an 18 year old. Who knows, we could have developed a failure from another club into something worth while.

 

[Exhale You]

I can see where you are coming from, but I thought it was important to mention a couple of players we missed out on to justify the bad selection.

Yeah, i understand why you mentioned them, but i just wanted to put it into perspective.

If Sam Fisher was rated highly and taken right after Thurley then the 'we should have taken him' argument would be justified, but i think it's a little unfair to suggest we should have taken someone who was passed over 54 times before being selected.

 

[Catsace]

The fact that we have to use Thurley as an example of a recent bust probably underlines how good Wells has been at Geelong in his tenure there as recruitment head honcho...and as far as Adcock goes, i had him in my Supercoach side in 2008, and he was terrible. he may have been injured, but he was a sad shadow of the high scoring player of 2007.

Hoping Varcoe comes on a bit, i know he missed a fair part of his 2006 season due to injury at Geelong, but next year will be his 4th year at the club, he'll need to step right up and become a regular contributing member of the side for his fairly high pick (15) to be justified.

 

[Exhale You]

Hoping Varcoe comes on a bit, i know he missed a fair part of his 2006 season due to injury at Geelong, but next year will be his 4th year at the club, he'll need to step right up and become a regular contributing member of the side for his fairly high pick (15) to be justified.

Travis has performed as well as anyone taken with the following 8-9 picks.

The first few rounds of the 2005 draft have been shown to be pretty ordinary, so our pick at 15 has worked out to be quite a solid one.

 

[year of the cat]

The Thurley pick to the best of my recollection was justified by the club by saying they were targeting players who had good foot skills. They had just delisted David Clarke (there may have been others) who had appalling foot skills and it was a conscious policy to bring people into the club who had good skills as juniors.

Thurley was a nice kick. They got that bit right.

Not too sure how Tenace got drafted therefore under the same philosophy..

 

[LifeSpan-Void]

wow. look at all of you dumb jackasses getting sucked into yet another hawthorn troll thread. "I have to come up with a list of geelong draft shockers"... yeah right. What a perverse pleasure it must have been to watch Geelong supporters freely admit all the shit decisions the club has made at the draft table.