I'd guess just about every draft class would contain notable players taken outside of the top 10 but if you have several top 10 names that live up the the hype as well as those outside the top 10 that become stars then you've got a super draft on your hands. The 2001 draft had Chris Judd, Luke Hodge, Luke Ball and Jimmy Bartel all in the top 10 and outside the top 10 it had stars like Gary Ablett Jr, Dane Swan, Sam Mitchell, Stevie J, Brian Lake etc.
That's obviously a much stronger draft class than 2000 so I'm not sure Riewoldt's number 1 pick status would have been assured had he been one year younger. Hence the point I was trying to make that just because you're the number 1 pick, doesn't mean you're better than a pick 2 or 3 in another draft class. I'd guess most people would have rated 2001's pick 3 (Chris Judd) higher than 2000's pick 1 (Nick Riewoldt) in their respective draft years but I'm not 100% sure on that one. To bring it back to my original point, it's entirely possible Walter would be looked at the same way Riewoldt was as a clear number 1 if Jed was in a draft class that didn't contain what could end up being a generational talent named Harley Reid.
I don't think it's really any different to some of the other comparisons we see between players who have something in common like Ugle-Hagan being compared to Buddy because they are both indigenous key forwards. We've seen Walter compared to Dixon earlier today and I compared him to Nick Riewoldt because both are Gold Coast juniors. They are just natural talking points that always come up when you have highly rated juniors. The truth is Jed Walter will be his own unique player and do it his own way.
It came into play because the southern clubs complained when GWS made their first preliminary final in 2016 and also matched academy bids for Setterfield (pick 5), Perryman (pick 14) and Cumming (pick 20). So now a northern club that make a prelim can only match one academy bid in the first round, one that makes the finals but is eliminated before the prelims can match two academy bids in the first round and one that doesn't make the finals can match more than two academy bids in the first round. So if we miss the finals then we are guaranteed to secure all three academy stars but if we make the finals then we probably need to get creative.
