The Greatest Draft Class

[Ridley This]

After hearing news recently that Mitch Hahn, Lindsay Gilbee and Ryan Hargraves have recived life memberships for the Western Bulldogs, I had a look back at 99 draft which also included fellow life members Robert Murphy and Danial Giansiracusa.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/td-western-bulldogs?year=1999

I think it amazing that a club can gain 5 life membership players from one drafting year alone. It probably saw us through a number of subserquent drafting bungles.

I was also struck by this stat:
6 Picks - 5 Still Active (10 years later) - 837 Games

So, give us your best draft class, either for your team or all time.
It's probably been done before, but hell, it's off season.

 

[Selective Retention]

The depth of 99 with good players being picked so deep is amazing really, even if a few of the top 10 picks failed to live up to the hype.

Fraser (#1), Haselby (#2), Pavlich (#4), Corey (#8), McPharlin (#10), Glass (#11), R.Murphy (#13), B.Green (#18), J.Blake (#24), Guerra (#28), Hunter (#29), J.Brown (F/S #30), Chapman (#31), Giansiracusa (#32), Davis (#34), Hahn (#37), Ling (#38), Hille (#40), Gilbee (#43), Enright (#47), Bateman (#48), R.O'Keefe (#56), Bruce (#64), Hargrave (#66)

Then there were Rhyce Shaw, Biglands, Whelan, Shirley, Ben Johnson, Ryan Houlihan, Makepeace, hell even Leigh Brown who have played a fair bit of footy.

 

[ozpie]

Then there were Rhyce Shaw, Biglands, Whelan, Shirley, Ben Johnson, Ryan Houlihan, Makepeace, hell even Leigh Brown who have played a fair bit of footy.

hell even leigh brown? well, id say Leroy has had a better career than every player u mentioned in that last paragraph except perhaps Johnson

 

[yaco55]

The 1994 Draft is often overlooked.

 

[TradeDraft]

The 1994 Draft is often overlooked.

What makes the 1994 Draft Special?

 

[GabbaMan]

greatest draft class:

2008
this lot will rewrite the stats book!

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Carlton don't have a gun draft to their credit. Some potential from the last couple but everybody has that. By and large, we avoided the draft and traded away our picks. We do have several good gets in the rookie draft however.

 

[yaco55]

What makes the 1994 Draft Special?

A pretty average lot

J.White 268
A.Rocca 242
S.Grant 301
S.Lucas 270
J.Smith 221

That is only the Top 5

Further from the Top 10

B.Caracella 187
T.Brown 109
D.Harford162

And selected others

S.Camporeale 262
A.Yze 271
B.Holland 191
M.Nicks 172
W.Abraham 110
J.Torney 195
S.Sziller 148
M.Robbins 146
M.O'Loughlin 303
A.Jones 226
B.Scott 156
J.Blumfield 148
T.Luff 122
B.Dixon 203
A.Hamill 190
J.Rowlings 148

And from the Pre-Season Draft

J.Romero 122
T.Edwards 311
R.Taylor 136
P.Vardy 137
T.Woods 142
P.Dimattina 131
G.Manton 157

Then again, if anything is more than 10 years old, it doesn't exist on BF.

 

[yaco55]

What makes the 1994 Draft Special?

Forgot about the Pre-Draft selections

D.Bandy 150
S.Parker 237
M.Burton 147
P.Bell 286
S.McManus 228
C.Callaghan 124
J.Norrish 128
S.O'Reilly 110
J.Farmer 249
A.McLeod 328
D.Wakelin 261
J.Akermanis 315
L.Barry 237
M.Lloyd 270
S King 234
A.cochrane 104
C.Morrison 169

This is a combination of Fremantle, Brisbane, WC concessions and clubs being reimbursed for losing players to Fremantle.

My counting suggests that a mere 47 players from the 1994 Draft played 100 games.

 

[bombermick]

Forgot about the Pre-Draft selections

D.Bandy 150
S.Parker 237
M.Burton 147
P.Bell 286
S.McManus 228
C.Callaghan 124
J.Norrish 128
S.O'Reilly 110
J.Farmer 249
A.McLeod 328
D.Wakelin 261
J.Akermanis 315
L.Barry 237
M.Lloyd 270
S King 234
A.cochrane 104
C.Morrison 169

This is a combination of Fremantle, Brisbane, WC concessions and clubs being reimbursed for losing players to Fremantle.

My counting suggests that a mere 47 players from the 1994 Draft played 100 games.

That is an amazingly good draft. You have younger players like Lloyd (and ??) King who would have come in the following year, but there is barely a bust in that draft class. 2008 is so far looking very good, but it was a LONG way to go to beat that. 2001 doesn't come close.

 

[Lord_Travis]

greatest draft class:

2008
this lot will rewrite the stats book!

Agreed. Going to be a ripper of a draft looking back in a few years time.

 

[yaco55]

That is an amazingly good draft. You have younger players like Lloyd (and ??) King who would have come in the following year, but there is barely a bust in that draft class. 2008 is so far looking very good, but it was a LONG way to go to beat that. 2001 doesn't come close.

The elite players are right up there with the best drafts.

The VG players may be a touch down on the best drafts.

The good players are well represented in this draft.

And the amount of games played is very high.

 

[bombermick]

Certainly. When you have the first 5 players all playing at least 200 games, with amazing depth you have to be happy. Other drafts like '01 have more quality at the very top, but looking at your list it doesn't bat as far down.

 

[cmndstab]

The Crows' draft history is pretty poor until recently, at which point the games played stats don't look that good because they're all still midway though their careers.

2001 looks like our best effort so far.

Brent Reilly (113)
Trent Hentschel (68)
Nathan Bock (100)
Ben Rutten (126)

We also traded for Kris Massie (traded Andrew Eccles) who played 88 games for us, and also picked up Mattner who played 98 games for us before going to Sydney for pick 28 that we ontraded for Brad Symes.


Hopefully in the future 2007 will be recognised as our best draft. Dangerfield, Otten and Walker already look pretty good, and Istill have high hopes for Cook, Armstrong, Petrenko, Martin.

 

[HolyRioli]

Hard to argue with our 2004 draft of Roughead, Franklin and Lewis. Further down we drafted Murphy, Taylor and Little (delisted). While Murphy is probably at best a depth player, Taylor fills a role we really need at the moment.

 

[Wally Carter]

greatest draft class:

2008
this lot will rewrite the stats book!

100% agree.

 

[Wally Carter]

Hard to argue with our 2004 draft of Roughead, Franklin and Lewis. Further down we drafted Murphy, Taylor and Little (delisted). While Murphy is probably at best a depth player, Taylor fills a role we really need at the moment.

Easy to argue that it is the "Greatest Draft Class".

 

[Tulip]

Then again, if anything is more than 10 years old, it doesn't exist on BF.

Good thing most posters are under 10 then





Wow this forum's turned to shit

 

[00Stinger]

I think Geelong in 2001 would have to be close to the best of all time

J.Bartel,J.Kelly,S.Johnsonn and G.Ablett

 

[estibador]

So, give us your best draft class... for your team...

1999 - M. Pavlich

But seriously, besides the 94 draft where we selected half our start up team, the 08 draft is shaping up to be possibly our best ever.

Hill
Suban
Broughton
Ballantyne - all look to be pretty much guaranteed AFL quality

DeBoer
Pearce - both looked comfortable enough at AFL level

Zac Clarke
Michael Walters
Tim Ruffles - all debuted and showed good signs for the future

Casey Sibosado
Jay van Berlo
Hamish Shepheard

Still early days of course but the initial impressions are we snared more long term players for the club than we have in any other single draft - and the first 4 players I listed look to be gems.

 

[Underdog]

We've never really nailed a particular draft. Our best 2 would be;

1999
Glass (188)
Cox (180)
Hunter (151)

2001
Lynch (150)
Judd (134)
Seaby (102)
Sampi (78)
Hansen (76)

I've avoided recent drafts.

 

[hawk life]

I agree our 2004 draft was very kind to us but I still think 2001 is hard to go past as well.

We got our Captain Sam Mitchell, Vice captain Luke Hodge, premiership backman Rick Ladson, Tough nut Campbell Brown,

There were two others who didnt do much but when you get your premiership captain and vice captain in the same draft it does take some beating.

I think most clubs did pretty well in 2001.

 

[Enviable Tradition]

2000- S Burgoyne, K Cornes, Cassisi

2006- Boak, Stewart, Krakour, Gray, J Westhoff, D Rodan.

2000 is probably the best so far but i would expect 2006 to go past it.

 

[Collingwood42]

2005 is shaping nicely for us...
2 Thomas
5 Pendlebury
37 Anthony
Toovey (rookie)

2008 is looking the goods too...
11 Sidebottom
29 Beams
45 Blight
46 Rounds
Reed (rookie)

and 1999 had a few too.
1 Fraser
18 R Shaw (f/s)
34 Davis
62 Johnson
O'bree (Pre-Season)

 

[Long time fan]

2006 is already an outstanding draft for North in terms of quantity, but the jury is still out on the quality. To have 9 players actually make it for AFL games and still at the club 4 seasons later is notable:

National draft: Hansen, Urquhart, Goldstein, Thomas, Warren and Edwards
PSD: Ross
Rookies: Adams and Campbell

The potential is there for this to be outstanding, and with good drafting in the last 2 years gives us the base for an outstanding team in tne next few years