were the drfat concessions the eagles received too generous?

[plays tall]

it is a widely accepted view over here in melbourne that the eagles were given extremely generous draft concessions when they formed and that is the only reason they won the flags.

i thought i'd have a look at the background. i have tried to ascertain when the eagles premiership players were drafted and what sort of draft selection was used to draft them.

i couldn't locate details right back to inception but this is what i did find;

Concession picks

Don Pyke
Peter Sumich
Craig Turley
Scott Watters
Glen Jakovich
Mitchell White
Jason Ball

Normal draft

Peter Matera (no.4)
Tony Evans (No 64)
Brett Heady (no 92)
Ashley McIntosh (no 112)
Dean Kemp (additional draft pick ie at end of draft)
Peter Wilson (trade)
Paul Harding (trade)
Drew Banfield (can't remember if he played in a flag but he was a number 1 draft pick in exchange for a traded player)

Others (ie not sure how they arrived but i suspect they were inception squad members)

John Worsfold
Guy McKenna
Chris Lewis
Dean Laidley
Michael Brennan
Karl Langdon
Chris Mainwaring
Chris Waterman

What does this mean? Well it means that 7 of the better eagles of '92 were taken in the normal draft.

6 of the '92 eagles were concessionary picks but of those i'd say watters was just another player, not a big influence. turley had been playing in the wafl for a few years at the time so other vfl/afl clubs had had the opportunity to draft him.

obviously there's some quality players in what appears to be the inception squad. was it fair to give the eagles access to all those players?

i think so. the afl wasn't to know that so many quality players would come out of wa in the space of one year. i doubt you could point to many (if any) other years in which so many quality afl players came from wa.

if my memory serves me correctly wa won the then teal cup that year and the so-called "magnificent seven" were in that teal cup team. i think mckenna, worsfold sumich, waterman, watters, lewis and peos were among them (and i think allen jakovich was in that team too).

in essence then i think the eagles had the good fortune of being formed at the perfect time. as a new club they had to be given the opportunity to put a team together and it just so happened that there was some awesome talent in wa at the time. they also drafted very well, as indicated by the names listed above in the normal draft.

in what other year has wa produced anywhere like this amount of talent? we won the u/19 championships again a few years ago. i think the star players for wa that year were hasleby, headland and longmuir. i'm not aware of any others from that team making a significant impact at afl level and hasleby is the only star (as yet) in this group. this seems to support the view that the eagles timing was perfect.

 

[jod23]

I dont think so at all. Jako, Turley, Suma and Pyke were the only real contributors of the concession picks as Watters wasnt that good and White and Ball came later and werent part of the premierships were they?

But i too am not sure how your third list of players came to play with us. There is no way they were concession picks too. The AFL isnt stupid, they wouldnt have given us all the best players in the country for nothing.

Anyway its just victorian jealousy.

 

[Visro]

Well I know the Vics complained about us getting draft concessions in the early years but enough's enough, NOW they are COMPLAINING about us getting drfat concessions as well, some made up concession to go criticise us again. BLOODY HELL, TRUST THE VICS TO COME UP WITH SOME NEW COMPLAINT!!

 

[Mr Eagle]

Umm...who is Dr Fat, and why was he giving the Eagles "concessions"? Are you suggesting our premierships are drug tainted or something???

 

[daddy_4_eyes]

Geez, 10 years on and you people still can't get over the fact that the eagles won the premiership.

 

[Captain Random]

Our pre-draft selections in 1988 were Stevan Jackson, Don Pyke, Peter Sumich, Craig Turley and Scott Watters. In 1989 we got Peter Mann and Ryan Turnbull. Of that lot, Suma and Turley were great, Pyke had to turn his career around to get a premiership medal, Watters was just okay (and frankly he needs to lose the chip on his shoulder about the Eagles, but I digress) and Peter Mann never played for the Eagles.

We got 3 additional selections in 1989 for (as I understand it) some Vic clubs not taking a WA player. Two no-names and some guy named Dean Kemp. In 1990, we got Mitchell White (Jod23, he played in the 1992 premiership team) and Glen Jakovich as zone selections, and in 1991 our zone selection was Jason Ball who, frankly, lucked into a premiership medal in 1994.

So for all of our lauded pre-draft concessions, we got two great players (one of whom - Suma - was bagged in the Vic media until the day he retired) , three good players, one player (Jackson) who had a brilliant first game and little else, and a wasted pick in Mann. We really got it cushy, hey?

PS: 1989: Tony Evans at 64, Brett Heady at 92, Milly at 112 ... wow, I still can't get over that

 

[ptw]

compared to Port......Luxury !!!

we got 4 pre draft concessions and the pick of a r*ped SANFL.

makes it feel all the better to do well

ptw

 

[pauljam]

Carneagles,

I feel the same way about Scott Watters, he played a few good games for the Eagles (one good final I remember in 1990) but didnt quite make the grade. Not sure how many games he played for Freo but he acts as if he is a life member of the Shockers or something. He is obviously still very bitter that Malthouse dumped him and gives the Eagles Sh*t every time he can.

 

[Captain Random]

He seems to forget that Sydney dumped him as well
Geez I laughed when he was up on the screen bagging the Eagles at the second Derby last year. He's got issues, that's for sure

 

[Voice of Reason]

When we were walking out of Victoria Park in 98 or 99 after our annual away victory over Collingwood, some obese drunken foul-mouthed yobbo wearing black and white was whinging about our concessions. He made little sense as it was many years later and Collingwood had regularly had huge concessions in the intervening years for being crap and being coached by Tony "Clueless" Shaw.

I now realise this was the mysterious Dr Fat. Thank you for notifying me of this.

You are a bozo. Why don't you read "Soaring" - the history of the first 10 years of the West Coast Eagles by Geoff Christian. Then talk to me about how easy it was in the national competition. Tell me about biased umpires, a ludicrous travel regime after reports, an unfairly small list relative to the competition, the weekly trips to Melbourne for every Final in 1990 in the "national" competition, and I could go on but I won't.

 

[ONE EYE]

I hope I am not too far off track here. I will mention just a few things about the Vics that currently give me the irrits:

- Their current squeeling about income equalisation. They should get the hint and realise that there are too many Victorian Clubs in the AFL.

- WA had to join the AFL. The Vics pillaged our finest young footballers reducing the WAFL to a second class competition. They blackmailed us to give them squillions that did not go to the betterment of the game but bailed out the broke Victorian Clubs. This has a familiar ring to it doesnt it?

GO EAGLES!

 

[Frodo]

Very fair to have a few west aussies back, particularly at a time when the Eagles were naieve and Vic clubs were rorting the salary cap right left and centre. Wasn't it so bad that an amnesty had to be declared in 95 with the cheats largely getting off free?