Interesting WA Connection with Number One Drafts

Remove this Banner Ad

GoEagles

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 10, 2000
7,388
16
Sydney
AFL Club
West Coast
In an article in the West Australia I noticed how strong WA has been in the past 10 years of number 1 draft picks.

* 4 out of the last 10 drafts either the Eagles or Fremantle have got the number 1 pick

* 6 out of the last 10 drafts who went at Pick 1 were from WA (Hooper, Hutton, Banfield, Gaspar, Gardiner, Headland).

There is some excellent WA talent up for grabs this year also: Cassisi, Kerr, Coughlan, Hadley, Woods, Haines, Buszan, McGrath, Ugle, Parker, Carlon, Bradshaw.
 
In that list you forgot the best West Aussie player that will be drafted..McDougall....an interesting point:

Today was the last day for year 12's at my school (McDougal attends it). McDougal is in my house/faction whatever you want to call it and they were doing descriptions on each of the yr 12's McDougal included. In year 8 he said he wanted to play AFL football and earn some money...looks like things are turning out for him
smile.gif
 
And they call Victoria the capital of football in Australia

The one definite trend in the draft situation since the begging is how each year teams are becoming so much more thorough and precise when drafting.Players like Hutton these days would never have been taken first.

That is why i laugh when people say that there is always hope in the later picks take hird for example.
This will never happen again, the amount of monitoring and scouting work that goes on ensures that quality players will get drafted early and players with more heart than talent get drafted later.
And that is why top draft picks have become such a priceless comodity.
St kilda knew this, their 2 draft picks have the potential to completely turn this team around.
So what is the First or second draft pick worth in trading terms?
 

Log in to remove this ad.

not true sabre
essendon recruited 2 players, hille and forster knight at 40+ both of who will be good footballers, hille especially

even though more and more work is put in to recruiting today its still a hit and miss affair, a fair bit of luck is involved, early draft picks may not develop or have injuries while late picks may hit their best at 22 and become champions, there is always going to be great success stories with late picks and disapointments with early picks, its one of the great things about football, you can never 100% predict what is going to happen
 
Have to agree with both Sabre & Walshy, yeh it is more professional, but there is still the hit & miss element.

I barrack for the Saints & quite obviously look forward to sunday lunch with relish (half sorry), however I'd like to theorise about some of the reason for not getting it right.

Assume the first 2 draftees are the same, but imagine the possible differences if rather than going to a new, invigorated outfit that they instead found themselves stuck in a rerun of Saints circa 2000
frown.gif

As a supporter, last season seemed like Groundhog Day, to 2 bright young players it might forever compromise them.

GoEagles
For mine, I'll be very happy if a West Aussie is not #1 or 2 draft pick this year thank you very much. Koschitzke & Reiwoldt will do me nicely.
 
Interesting statistic about WA #1 picks. Why could that be? Last year 52% of the players taken came from the Victorian U18 competition. Maybe with this broad spread of talent, individuals don't stand out as much? Maybe more attention is paid to the WA players as they stand out more.

I also agree that there are still players missed in the early rounds. The chances that another Hird or Chris Grant or Dean Kemp will be taken with a late pick are still quite real. Neither Grant or Hird were standout players as juniors.

Let's look at a few that have slipped through in recent times:

Current Brownlow medallist Shane Woewodin passed over in a number of drafts and was eventually taken with Melbourne's last pick in the pre season draft.

Richmond's Andrew Kellaway was also passed over in a number of drafts and was finally picked up as a supplementary player (effectively pick 160+) mainly because of his brother, Duncan. He was finally taken at pick 71 in the 97 draft. Now is an All-Australian (and the Aussie goal-keeper).

Andrew Thompson of St Kilda and David King are both players that have been All-Australian that were missed in drafts.

Marc Dragacevic (55) and Adam Goodes (43) were both late picks and will end up being 200+ game players.

The list goes on; maybe someone else would care to mention a few more as well.

[This message has been edited by CJH (edited 28 October 2000).]
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Interesting WA Connection with Number One Drafts

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top