Discussion Paddy v Petracca

[Stan_Darsh72]

I met one of his friends who'd played juniors with him around the time he left for Port. It sounds like the poor kid really struggled mentally with the expectation and hate he got. The pressure he was under ruined all the enjoyment he had in playing the game. He's one you wonder if he'd landed at the right club he could have been a decent player.

Watts came into the league a year too early and to the worst possible club he could have gone too.

 

[Remboy]

I actually always said that. by the time he was traded to port, it was too late. melbourne ruined so many 1st round picks. Who were the two players that useless coach made co captain at aged 21? Both were top picks, totally ruined.

Melbourne were top pick vandals

Grimes and Trengove. They picked him and Scully when they had the first two picks.

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

it factors into how i determine if a pick is a dud or not, so i'm not moving the goal posts. for example if i spend pick 3 on player, he spends two years on my list but then i trade him for two pick 3's that doesnt mean the initial pick was a bust. i've now increased the likelihood of finding a better player.

i'm not talking about what people consider to be the "professional era of AFL" i'm talking about recruitment. they're two different things. would you consider 1990 to be professional in terms of drafting? i wouldn't given they were selecting players they haven't even spoke with.

it's funny you're having a go at me about "moving the goal posts" when you yourself are doing that in the paragraph in the same post. i never once mentioned our bust rate on 1st rounders... you did.

i'm not saying we are the worst drafting football club or our track record of drafting in the first round is bad. never ever said that.

i'm talking purely about the paddy pick.

so what do you want?
no one is saying paddy was a great pick ... and my reply is not just to you but also the comments previous to yours that St Kilda are the worst at screwing up draft picks .. this whole exchange started with you saying
"None of them have done it this bad. Atleast not in the professional era."
in reply to my comment :
"come on ... let be fair here all clubs have muffed their fair share of first rounders its not just a St Kilda thing .. where we have been perhaps better than the rest of the comp is identifying talent with late picks we also have a fairly solid strike rate in trading in fringe players who become very very good players ... "

my responce remains the same that every club has made many stuff ups when it comes to drafting but we are invested into our club more therefore we judge ourselves harsher than others, cause when we have a draft pick fail that hurts us ... when Carlton pick Boekhorse we laugh it off and never give it a second thought but we will have 60+ pages of posts when Billings has a low possesion game on how we stuffed it royally by taking him over Bont ...

paddy was a pick that failed .. but it was not a left of feild smokey pick that we blew on specualtion EVERY draft expert had Paddy going top three yeah most had Tractor ahead of him but again him failing to live up to our expectation wasnt because we didnt do the research into him

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

i will say one thing about the current team. part of me wonders how long the club will give Libba, sitting in the main seat.

the reason i say this is if you look at the core of the side, the engine, its all been acquired from the outside, from other clubs. so it appears our real strength is identifying and trading in recycled talent from other clubs. not necessarily the draft.

if you then go one step further, we don't have a good record of drafting and developing genuine midfield talent.

now i'm not saying Libba is bad in his role and needs to go. I'm just saying as it stands now we haven't had a guy be drafted and turned into a match winning or elite midfielder.

Steele is our guy but he was traded in.

now the hope is Clark/Coffield/Bytel can move into there. Gresham as well.

but it's too early to tell/hasn't happened yet.

so i do wonder if we are sitting here in season 2022 and we still not have a genuine mid we have drafted, if they will persist with him or make a call on it.

that's not to say i don't think the drafting has been decent.

in part its also about fixing the gap in our age demographic .. as you say the picks from the trout era never made it so without trading we pretty much have a gaping gap in the age demographics of the old guard and the new kids ... the world saw how Melbourne killed the kids by getting rid of the mid range and older demographic and with our drafting we had no one left in the mid 20's hence we used the trade option to bring that in ... the age demographic is now more even so the investment in the draft should be higher than the previous years

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

Hawks got a free pass because they nailed some before blowing some. Buddy, Roughy, Lewis in one draft while Richmond got Lids, Tambling, Meyer (12),Pattison (16), Polo (20) in the same one. Hawks also nailed Hodge and Mitchell. We weren't criticised for drafting when we had Rooey, Dal etc because there was strong evidence of both good and bad.

but that kinda proves the point ... sometimes you get lucky with it other times you dont ...
we have had some poor drafts just like richmond did , just like hawthorn did but we also had some great drafts just like hawthorn did just like Richmond have ...
no team have the perfect draft record just some get it right in the draft that is especially helpful to get it right where other get it wrong in the draft where getting it wrong is the most damaging ...
ill maintain getting it wrong in Paddys draft class isnt as painful as say getting it wrong in a draft pool that produced guys like Roughy Buddy and lewis

 

[gringo2011]

but that kinda proves the point ... sometimes you get lucky with it other times you dont ...
we have had some poor drafts just like richmond did , just like hawthorn did but we also had some great drafts just like hawthorn did just like Richmond have ...
no team have the perfect draft record just some get it right in the draft that is especially helpful to get it right where other get it wrong in the draft where getting it wrong is the most damaging ...
ill maintain getting it wrong in Paddys draft class isnt as painful as say getting it wrong in a draft pool that produced guys like Roughy Buddy and lewis

That's the thing, it's not luck. It can be a luck sometimes but to go for years without getting any top talent in or staying up for 15 years without dropping down isn't luck. Bottoming out can be quick or slow depending on how well you draft. The Hawks stayed up for a long time and decided to top up which was a poor call because they would have been better going to the draft. They stopped doing what they did to get themselves up and concentrated on doing the thing that sustained an already good list. The Tigers are still drafting in a really strong way so should ge a long run at it too.

 

[StCicatriz]

so what do you want?
no one is saying paddy was a great pick ... and my reply is not just to you but also the comments previous to yours that St Kilda are the worst at screwing up draft picks .. this whole exchange started with you saying
"None of them have done it this bad. Atleast not in the professional era."
in reply to my comment :
"come on ... let be fair here all clubs have muffed their fair share of first rounders its not just a St Kilda thing .. where we have been perhaps better than the rest of the comp is identifying talent with late picks we also have a fairly solid strike rate in trading in fringe players who become very very good players ... "

my responce remains the same that every club has made many stuff ups when it comes to drafting but we are invested into our club more therefore we judge ourselves harsher than others, cause when we have a draft pick fail that hurts us ... when Carlton pick Boekhorse we laugh it off and never give it a second thought but we will have 60+ pages of posts when Billings has a low possesion game on how we stuffed it royally by taking him over Bont ...

paddy was a pick that failed .. but it was not a left of feild smokey pick that we blew on specualtion EVERY draft expert had Paddy going top three yeah most had Tractor ahead of him but again him failing to live up to our expectation wasnt because we didnt do the research into him

my apologies trav, i had completely forgotten about my initial response.

 

[Diehard Saint]

My best mate played TAC Cup with him at Sandringham. Said he was a great guy and pretty respectful so I'm sure the harassment during his career got to him.

I used to feel desperately sorry for Jack Watts as a young kid with the weight of expectation of a perennially unsuccessful club on his shoulders from day 1. He was going to be their saviour - I think they ruined him.
Much like giving the captaincy to kids like Scully and Trengrove. Pretty much ruined their careers as well. Terrible misjudgement from the club to burden such young players before they were ready.

Edit: Reading back in the thread I see I inadvertently “stole” Joffa’s post.

 

[Roddy Grant]

McCartin looked like a bust of a pick to me because I don’t remember him massively impacting many games.

He looked overweight and slow, slow to react, would get caught trying to get a hand pass away quite often and fumble a lot.

This could be due to his lack of match fitness with injuries curtailing his ability to get a run.

The preseason where he did the concussion against Freo I think, he was looking in the best shape he had been and looked good in those 2 games (think the first was against North). So it’s a pity we didn’t get to see what he could do that year.

I used to sit there every week willing him to be great, not just because he was a pick 1 (and we needed him to be) but also because he seemed a great guy with great leadership. Every week I would look for signs of this gun player he was going to be but lost confidence in that over the 4 years he played AFL games. It’s a long time to think back but only one game (draw with GWS at Etihad) stands out that we saw the excitement we might get with him in the future.

But had he remained injury free I have my doubts that he would be more than a GOP - I didn’t see A+ potential.

Ironically towards the end of his short AFL career he seemed like one of our best deliverers of the ball inside 50. Pity he couldn’t kick to himself.

 

[Crusty Undies]

So what if McCartin is 193cm? Undersized...yet 3 years after McCartin was drafted a team won the flag with their tallest forward 195cm. Not too sure what you're basing your opinion off of but the strategy was absolutely fine, the spine of the ground is undoubtedly the most important and the most expensive. Structure. This is why Carlisle came to us in 2016.

Strategy was far from flawed, in fact it was the exact opposite, we needed a spine and McCartin & Goddard were two fine selections that unfortunately didn't pan out. That's not to say they were never up to it or they were bad decisions because sometimes being unlucky is a part of football not to mention the application of the player to his career. In hindsight we stuffed it up but at the time they were both good selections.

Max King was best available and he was also what we needed. McCartin was looking like never playing again. But more importantly it goes back to my other point. Either draft a midfielder in 2018 with our first pick and then trade for Max later which would've cost us millions or draft Max now and then put together a nice, decent group of midfielders who collectively can get the job done which is what we're seeing in some ways now. And you bring up McCartin's injury history. What about King? We were taking a massive risk with him coming off an ACL too. He was going #1 overall if it weren't for that injury. Point is sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you get unlucky. Both Paddy & Max came in with injury concerns, one turned out unlucky, the other has been playing well so far but still needs to keep it going for a few more years before any call is made there.


See, that's taking what I said out of context. I didn't say we needed to take him because KPF's cost more. I said that's definitely a reason but the other reason was the state of the list in 2014 and the needs of the list in 2014. We couldn't have predicted we would bring in King, Membrey, Marshall, Battle and others at the time we selected Paddy, would be great if we could see into the future as obviously we wouldn't have selected him. It just didn't turn out as we would've hoped. That's all. All this talk about a bad draft selection and the worst selection we've made is nonsense. He was a clear cut top 3 pick. We had holes all over our list. We needed midfielders yes but we also needed forwards, backs, rucks, everything. We had bottomed out - we had the number 1 pick haha.

Do you not think the points I've made were not discussed in list management meetings? Tom Boyd going to the Dogs for a million a year set the bar at what it would've taken clubs to bring in KPP's from other clubs. Knowing there's a kid who is rated, lets say top 5 in his draft, and is a KPF, wouldn't it make sense to draft him and look to bolster the side in other areas with the million we'd saved? Petracca wasn't going to be our saviour. We needed a lot more than that. Imagine we draft Petracca, the bar is set on price for KPF's with the Boyd deal, so we go after a KPF from another club. Say we get Boyd. What do we do now? We bring in two players, whereas drafting McCartin gave us the best forward in the draft while also having plenty of money to spend to improve other areas of the side. Again the issue was that we didn't do anything with that available money. Not sure if players didn't want to come to us or if we were just horrible at prying players out, but for whatever reason we didn't do it. That's the issue. If we drafted McCartin but were able to get 2 decent mids from other clubs on 500k each, I reckon nobody would even be talking about this selection. Which is the point I'm making. It wasn't the draft that was stuffed (in hindsight yes but what good is that at the time) but the lack of talent we brought in, specifically to the midfield.

Took us three years to land one finally in Steele and even then we didn't really know what we'd be getting until last year but most definitely this year.

Has any club paid for the same for a kpf since the doggies though? Every year there's at least 1 massive trade for a gun midfielder but the only kpf I can remember since is Lynch who still went on less money than Boyd.

Maybe it's a difference of opinion then because as I see it midfielders win premierships. The game revolves around the midfield and a good midfield can carry a mediocre forward and backline but not vice versa. It's why GC paid what they did for GAJ and why he was almost capable of carrying them to finals single handedly. A gun midfielder has by far the most capacity to influence the game. Significantly more than a kpf who gets maaaaybe 10-15 looks at the ball a game. It's why Richmond won a premiership with the worse Riewoldt as their only KPF and Rance as their only truly great defender.

 

[gringo2011]

Has any club paid for the same for a kpf since the doggies though? Every year there's at least 1 massive trade for a gun midfielder but the only kpf I can remember since is Lynch who still went on less money than Boyd.

Maybe it's a difference of opinion then because as I see it midfielders win premierships. The game revolves around the midfield and a good midfield can carry a mediocre forward and backline but not vice versa. It's why GC paid what they did for GAJ and why he was almost capable of carrying them to finals single handedly. A gun midfielder has by far the most capacity to influence the game. Significantly more than a kpf who gets maaaaybe 10-15 looks at the ball a game. It's why Richmond won a premiership with the worse Riewoldt as their only KPF and Rance as their only truly great defender.

On SEN they were saying Ben Brown was worth a second round pick. He came second in last years Coleman and lead for most of the year, kicked over 60 goals three years in a row. Bruce who was a 40 plus forward got us a late pick. These days they are worth * all. You could even get Hogan for free and Mitch Brown was picked up DFA.

 

[Crusty Undies]

so we got ...

1990​	Stephen Hooper	Geelong	East Perth	WAFL
1991​	John Hutton	Brisbane Bears	Claremont	WAFL
1992​	Drew Banfield	West Coast Eagles	Subiaco	WAFL
1993​	Darren Gaspar	Sydney	South Fremantle	WAFL
1994​	Jeff White	Fremantle	Dandenong Stingrays	TAC Cup
1995​	Clive Waterhouse	Fremantle	Port Adelaide Magpies	SANFL
1996​	Michael Gardiner	West Coast Eagles	Claremont	WAFL
1997​	Travis Johnstone	Melbourne	Dandenong Stingrays	TAC Cup
1998​	Des Headland	Brisbane Lions	Subiaco	WAFL
1999​	Josh Fraser	Collingwood	Murray Bushrangers	TAC Cup
2000​	Nick Riewoldt	St Kilda	Southport Sharks	QAFL
2001​	Luke Hodge	Hawthorn	Geelong Falcons	TAC Cup
2002​	Brendon Goddard	St Kilda	Gippsland Power	TAC Cup
2003​	Adam Cooney	Western Bulldogs	West Adelaide	SANFL
2004​	Brett Deledio	Richmond	Murray Bushrangers	TAC Cup
2005​	Marc Murphy	Carlton	Oakleigh Chargers	TAC Cup
2006​	Bryce Gibbs	Carlton	Glenelg	SANFL
2007​	Matthew Kreuzer	Carlton	Northern Knights	TAC Cup
2008​	Jack Watts	Melbourne	Sandringham Dragons	TAC Cup
2009​	Tom Scully	Melbourne	Dandenong Stingrays	TAC Cup
2010​	David Swallow	Gold Coast	East Fremantle Football Club	WAFL
2011​	Jonathon Patton	Greater Western Sydney	Eastern Ranges	TAC Cup
2012​	Lachie Whitfield	Greater Western Sydney	Dandenong Stingrays	TAC Cup
2013​	Tom Boyd	Greater Western Sydney	Eastern Ranges	TAC Cup
2014​	Paddy McCartin	St Kilda	Geelong Falcons	TAC Cup
2015​	Jacob Weitering	Carlton	Dandenong Stingrays	TAC Cup
2016​	Andrew McGrath	Essendon	Sandringham Dragons	TAC Cup
2017​	Cameron Rayner	Brisbane Lions	Western Jets	TAC Cup
2018​	Sam Walsh	Carlton	Geelong Falcons	TAC Cup
2019​	Matthew Rowell	Gold Coast	Oakleigh Chargers	NAB League

Patton was a dud, Boyd was a dud, Paddy was a dud , Waterhouse a dud, Fraser a dud, Hooper a dud, Hutton a dud....

Patton has still done more than Paddy and Boyd played a blinder in a gf and practically won it for the bulldogs. The rest you have to go back to basically the inception of the draft and prior to real scouting to find. Wow.

 

[Crusty Undies]

look i dont think anyone would argue Paddy was a bust of a number one pick he obviously was but ill say our strick rate of picking dud players is well on par with every other club .. i mean no one talks about Patrick Veszpremi being taken before Cyril Rioli .... no one talks about Cale Morton being taken before Dangerfield...
no one mentions Chris Yarren taken before Jack Ziebel or Aycee Cordy being picked over Luke Shuey
Trengrove over Dusty , Christian Howard,Jasper McMillan-Pittard, dan menzel, Luke tapscott, ben griffiths all taken befor Fyfe
Gorringe taken before Tom Lynch!!

EVERY club makes massive stuff ups in drafting our stuff ups are not and worse or any better than any other clubs stuff ups

Yes but none of those were pick 1. That's the problem it's hardly fair to say oh well no club took Nat Fyfe at pick 1 and look what he's become. Fyfe didn't play like a pick 1 or even a top 10 in his draft year. When he was drafted he was an awkward height who wanted to play mid but didn't get enough, couldn't play kpf anywhere and was being touted more as a utility. He wasn't the best player in his draft at the time, and neither was Paddy kn his draft respectively. The difference is freo had pick 20 and we had pick 1. And we wasted pick 1 on a player who clearly wasn't the best in his draft.

 

[Joffaboy]

Patton has still done more than Paddy and Boyd played a blinder in a gf and practically won it for the bulldogs. The rest you have to go back to basically the inception of the draft and prior to real scouting to find. Wow.

So in hindsight and thats all we can go on, it was a very poor decision because
1) Paddy played 33 average games before his career was ended
2) the rationale for getting a Key Forward, i.e it would cost a $1 million has proven to be a load of rubbish.
3) We are still skinny on mids.

All in all a right royal eff up, but that is so far in the past, the instigators are gone, the new admin is working, they took the hard decision to reset the rebuild in around 2016 and so far it is pretty much working.

One last thing and it is supposition, I wonder if Paddy had not been struck down and was going pretty good at FF, if we would have gone for a Connor Rozee or Bailey Smith instead of a Max King? Who knows as it is only a hypothetical.

 

[Crusty Undies]

Nah wasn't comparing Watts to McCartin, just saying Watts never really did too much in comparison to the others on that list.

But regardless, Paddy's output is still a different discussion to if he was the right pick for us.


Yep agree Paddy was a bust of a pick but we can only form that view in hindsight which is what I have been discussing with others here. People acting as if the pick was a bust from the start. Paddy was a top 3 pick and the best forward in the draft.

We aren't sitting here saying Max King was a bust of a pick but if he does another ACL or his career is eventually cut short by it (touch wood it isn't) then I would assume the same people would say the pick was a bust too (using the same logic).

Both King & McCartin came into the draft with injury concerns, funnily enough one could argue that King's was more serious in terms of football longevity. McCartin's head knocks are serious for football of course but mainly for different reasons. Only reason people say it was a bust pick is because of his output. Not like he wasn't highly rated before the draft. And for our needs at the time and the money needed for those kinds of players, drafting one of them instead was the right move. If you take the names and labels out of it you are left with a KPF and a inside midfielder both ranked in the top 5. Then you need to work out your needs. For us it was basically all over the ground. Then, I'd assume, you work out what it would cost to bring in those types of players from other clubs. Looking at the Boyd deal it's clear the thinking the club had behind the McCartin selection, not to mention his obvious talent.

I don't think you understand George I have literally been saying Paddy was a bust since before we drafted him. I was tempted to stop following our club heaven forbid when we made such a horrendous decision and it's why I feel so vindicated but also so jaded about Petracca. Everyone knew it was the wrong pick apparently except our own recruiters. Nearly all supporters, the vast majority of recruiters, the entire football commentating world etc were all in furious agreement and that never happens. Alarm bells should've been ringing that moment but I guess not because trout knew best and a spine wins premierships right?

 

[Crusty Undies]

So in hindsight and thats all we can go on, it was a very poor decision because
1) Paddy played 33 average games before his career was ended
2) the rationale for getting a Key Forward, i.e it would cost a $1 million has proven to be a load of rubbish.
3) We are still skinny on mids.

All in all a right royal eff up, but that is so far in the past, the instigators are gone, the new admin is working, they took the hard decision to reset the rebuild in around 2016 and so far it is pretty much working.

One last thing and it is supposition, I wonder if Paddy had not been struck down and was going pretty good at FF, if we would have gone for a Connor Rozee or Bailey Smith instead of a Max King? Who knows as it is only a hypothetical.

I honestly wouldn't have minded Smith or Rozee one bit in fact if King keeps flubbing marks despite having hands the size of buckets maybe I'd even prefer them haha. Jury still out but all the top 8 from that draft look like future guns at this point.

 

[Dr Spaceman]

One day

 

[saints man]

Surely after 12 pages of comments, there is no new points being made to keep this conversation going? We ****ed up and picked the wrong player. In saying that, you choose trac instead of paddy. Where does that leave us now? Do we get King? Do we ever get a decent full forward in the draft? who knows, but the decision was made and here we are.

 

[jwikked]

That's the thing, it's not luck. It can be a luck sometimes but to go for years without getting any top talent in or staying up for 15 years without dropping down isn't luck. Bottoming out can be quick or slow depending on how well you draft. The Hawks stayed up for a long time and decided to top up which was a poor call because they would have been better going to the draft. They stopped doing what they did to get themselves up and concentrated on doing the thing that sustained an already good list. The Tigers are still drafting in a really strong way so should ge a long run at it too.

It’s definitely not luck when you’re overlooking talent to try and find the nice good boys to fill the list with.
You want to pick the best footballer possible. Not drafting a guy because he has confidence or swagger or a bit of dickhead is just stupid.

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

The drafting of Mccartin over Petracca is the dumbest thing this club has done in 10 years.

I said the day we drafted Mccartin and I have never understood it.




I hope those saints fans that have bagged petracca are feeling pretty stupid right now.

Another prime time performance from the superstar when they most needed him...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[George]

Has any club paid for the same for a kpf since the doggies though? Every year there's at least 1 massive trade for a gun midfielder but the only kpf I can remember since is Lynch who still went on less money than Boyd.

Maybe it's a difference of opinion then because as I see it midfielders win premierships. The game revolves around the midfield and a good midfield can carry a mediocre forward and backline but not vice versa. It's why GC paid what they did for GAJ and why he was almost capable of carrying them to finals single handedly. A gun midfielder has by far the most capacity to influence the game. Significantly more than a kpf who gets maaaaybe 10-15 looks at the ball a game. It's why Richmond won a premiership with the worse Riewoldt as their only KPF and Rance as their only truly great defender.

I'd say the game has changed since 2014 but Boyd did set the price on what it would take to trade in a KPF.

Fair enough on the rest but aren't Houli and Grimes both All-Australian? Richmond had an incredible backline.

I don't think you understand George I have literally been saying Paddy was a bust since before we drafted him. I was tempted to stop following our club heaven forbid when we made such a horrendous decision and it's why I feel so vindicated but also so jaded about Petracca. Everyone knew it was the wrong pick apparently except our own recruiters. Nearly all supporters, the vast majority of recruiters, the entire football commentating world etc were all in furious agreement and that never happens. Alarm bells should've been ringing that moment but I guess not because trout knew best and a spine wins premierships right?

I understand fine, if you thought that before we drafted him why would you think I was talking to you?

So in hindsight and thats all we can go on, it was a very poor decision because
1) Paddy played 33 average games before his career was ended
2) the rationale for getting a Key Forward, i.e it would cost a $1 million has proven to be a load of rubbish.
3) We are still skinny on mids.

All in all a right royal eff up, but that is so far in the past, the instigators are gone, the new admin is working, they took the hard decision to reset the rebuild in around 2016 and so far it is pretty much working.

One last thing and it is supposition, I wonder if Paddy had not been struck down and was going pretty good at FF, if we would have gone for a Connor Rozee or Bailey Smith instead of a Max King? Who knows as it is only a hypothetical.

I don't think anyone is disagreeing it was a stuff up in hindsight. That's completely different to saying we should've drafted a mid over a forward though. Unless you can predict the future, there was nothing wrong with the decision at all.

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

Patton has still done more than Paddy and Boyd played a blinder in a gf and practically won it for the bulldogs. The rest you have to go back to basically the inception of the draft and prior to real scouting to find. Wow.

again missing the point ... never once did i say paddy was better than any of those other number 1 picks ... its fairly obvious he was the worst of the bunch .... the point im making is St Kilda are not alone in the unfortunateness of picking the wrong guy at number 1 ... in fact with the exception of Rooey and possibly BJ the number 1 pick generally doesnt end up being the best player from that draft year ... obviously they dont normally end up as bad a mistake as Paddy did

 

[st_trav_ofWA]

Yes but none of those were pick 1. That's the problem it's hardly fair to say oh well no club took Nat Fyfe at pick 1 and look what he's become. Fyfe didn't play like a pick 1 or even a top 10 in his draft year. When he was drafted he was an awkward height who wanted to play mid but didn't get enough, couldn't play kpf anywhere and was being touted more as a utility. He wasn't the best player in his draft at the time, and neither was Paddy kn his draft respectively. The difference is freo had pick 20 and we had pick 1. And we wasted pick 1 on a player who clearly wasn't the best in his draft.

i ask again how many number 1 picks have gone on to be the best player in their draft year ? how many have been rising star winers say against guys taken later in the draft .. we put so much enthasis in the number 1 pick but in almost every draft if you selected it again with hinesite with the exception of Rooey the guy who went number 1 wasnt the best guy

 

[Crusty Undies]

i ask again how many number 1 picks have gone on to be the best player in their draft year ? how many have been rising star winers say against guys taken later in the draft .. we put so much enthasis in the number 1 pick but in almost every draft if you selected it again with hinesite with the exception of Rooey the guy who went number 1 wasnt the best guy

Roo, Hodge, Goddard, Cooney, Deledio, Kruezer, Swallow, Weitering, Whitfield, McGrath, Walsh and Rowell all have arguments that they're some of the best if not the best from their draft, every other player drafted at 1 pretty much ever has been more serviceable for their club than McCartin. And the point isn't that the player who turns out best from the draft has to go at 1. But if you use pick 1 on a player who isn't considered the best IN THEIR DRAFT YEAR, and they turn out to be the worst pick 1 ever I'd say the extensive criticism is pretty well justified. All those other players I listed and even the likes of Boyd, Patton, Murphy, Gibbs etc were pretty universally considered better to some degree than the rest in their draft year. The only exception is McGrath who I maintain is still the worst of the top 3 in his draft year but will also still be infinitely better than Paddy.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

That's the thing, it's not luck. It can be a luck sometimes but to go for years without getting any top talent in or staying up for 15 years without dropping down isn't luck. Bottoming out can be quick or slow depending on how well you draft. The Hawks stayed up for a long time and decided to top up which was a poor call because they would have been better going to the draft. They stopped doing what they did to get themselves up and concentrated on doing the thing that sustained an already good list. The Tigers are still drafting in a really strong way so should ge a long run at it too.

Hawks haven't gone to the draft assuming that every pick they get early will be great, or assuming that every late pick will be terrible.
They've made some horrible clangers. Mitch THorp. Beau Dowler.

They got really lucky having a priority pick and trading in a first rounder in a year that had a great top end, and little depth in the draft.
Lewis , Roughead and Franklin.

They built a competative team, as did StKilda.
The KEY!!.
They managed their salary cap so that they could leverage their high performances, becoming a destination club, trading in exactly the players they needed at the right times. Its finally caught up with them, but a 12 year window from a 2 year rebuild can't be considered bad.

Saints struggled to hold onto the players that they had , and as the team aged , were forced to replace the oldies with foot soldiers prepared to work for minimum wage.
Its debateable that our current position is stronger because we shipped off Goddard, DalSanto, and McEvoy.
We might have even made finals a few years ago if we hadn't.

Were we trying to be too clever?

I think 2 year rebuilds are a thing of the past now.
Both StKilda and Hawks used Priority picks to launch themselves back up. You really have to wonder how rampant the tanking was . 2 years??
It takes a special kind of talent to stuff up both the first and second pick . ( Melbourne almost did ).

1999 Hathorn 9th Saints 10th
2000: Hawthorn 8th. Saints 16th. ( Priority pick to Saints 2 games one in 2000).
2001: Hawthorn 6th. Saints 15th. ( Priority pick to Saints. Freo PP traded to Hawks ).
2002: Hawthorn 10th Saints 15th ( No Priority Pick)
2003: Hawks 9th Saints 11th.
2004: Hawks 15th Saints 3rd ( Priority pick to Hawks ).
2005: Hawks 14th Saints 4th ( Priority pick to Hawks ).
2006: Hawks 9th Saints 6th.
2007: Hawks 5th Saints 9th.

Now i'm going to suggest that a couple of first and second year players isn't the difference between an uncommunicative team and a competitive team.

Have Clark , Coffield, King and Battle improved us to a huge extent? Are they the difference between 15th sport and 5th spot?
There is a reason the AFL scrapped the priority pick system and it sure looks a hell of a lot like the Hawks took a 2 year dip to rebuild.

Its interesting that in 2007 ,a lot of Saints supporters were saying we were out of the window, after making finals for 3 years.
The Hawks have had a decade long window.
If you make finals , luck can go your way or against, if you don't you can't get lucky.