Brock McLean QUITS the Dee's!

[Bulldog Revolution]

How can anyone complain about our drafting when you pick up guys like Morris, Harbrow and Picken on the rookie list?

So some of our early picks were flops. Big deal, that's drafting, all teams have their 1st round misses.

Clearly we've had some great rookie draft picks

But I guess the questions with our first rounders is

a) Are we picking the right players?

b) Are we developing them as well as we could?

Now we have a new recruiting chief in Simon Dalrymple, but I would have thought these were essential questions for the club in its quest to improve on 3rd place

[Sockeye Salmon]

Agreed, but we've probably got more misses than most other clubs since the turn of the decade. File McMahon, Power, Walsh and Ray under the 'misses' file, and Williams, Everitt, Cordy and J Grant under the 'in question/too early to call' file. Cooney, Griffen and Higgins are the only bonafide success stories from our 1st round selections since 2000 - by contrast a team like Hawthorn has 3 successful 1st round selections in the 2004 draft alone (Roughead, Franklin, Lewis).

We've been the best in the business at unearthing pure gold at the back end of the draft/ rookie draft - thank Christ we've been able to. It's not a stretch to suggest that had we nailed two of our three 1st round selections between 2000-2002, we probably would have already celebrated a premiership.

Mitch Thorp, Luke Brennan, Daniel Elstone, Nathan Turvey, Michael Collica, Nick Ries and Harry Miller were all either 1st rounders or early 2nd rounders after they traded their 1st rounders away.

Every club has misses on early picks.

[Sedat]

Mitch Thorp, Luke Brennan, Daniel Elstone, Nathan Turvey, Michael Collica, Nick Ries and Harry Miller were all either 1st rounders or early 2nd rounders after they traded their 1st rounders away.

Moving the goal posts - I could have included Jesse Wells and Cam Faulkner in my list

[mighty_west]

Mitch Thorp, Luke Brennan, Daniel Elstone, Nathan Turvey, Michael Collica, Nick Ries and Harry Miller were all either 1st rounders or early 2nd rounders after they traded their 1st rounders away.

Every club has misses on early picks.

I reckon we stack up pretty well compared to most clubs, and it's not just the high picks, tthe 4th rounders, the rookies etc, and like you mentioned with our success with rookies [Morris, Picken, Boyd, Harbrow], given our situation before the AFL evened up things somewhat for clubs like ourselves, we would only have what, 1 or 2 rookies? We have done extremely well considering.

If we just look at our first rounders:
Robert Murphy - still playing and has been a very good player
Jordon McMahon - still playing [for another club] was servicable at our club
Sam Power - was still playing, might get another shot - played 70 something games at our club
Tim Walsh - didn't work out, but injuries played a major part [fail]
Adam Cooney - DexterT wanted to delist him 2 years ago [sorry Dex]
Farren Ray - still playing
Ryan Griffen - he's doing alright
Tom Williams - bar injury, will be our CHF for the next 8 seasons
Shaun Higgins - he's goes alright
Andrejs Everitt - we see the talent, but we might just be a bit to frustrated, i have no doubt he will be a very good player
Jarrad Grant - way too early to call
Ayce Cordy - way way way way too early to call

So going by that, i reckon we have done ok with the first rounders, only really one fail, 3 have been ok, but traded and still playing.

[mighty_west]

Drafting and subsequent delisting of Kmac, Cam Faulkner, Dmac, Jesse Wells and Tim Walsh and "mature" age drafting of Daniel Bandy, Adam Morgan, Stephen Koops, Scotty Basset and*cough* Jade Rawlings has kind of taken the shine off the rookie list elevations

Apart from Bandy [who was servicable at our club], all of those other matures are from "cheap as chips", the very creative work from Peter Rhode & Stephen Newport, the less we talk about those names the better.

KMac was a 3rd or 4th rounder, so what?
Cam Faulkner was pick 18, had the talent, we all saw that, but just couldn't produce on a consistant level, he was one i really hoped would make it.
Dmac also had talent, but was just a bit slow, was also apparently a gun junior, he was taken around pick 28/29?
Jesse Wells - what Clayton saw in him i'll never know, EPIC FAIL.

There are so many other players we have drafted that didn't work for various reasons, yet so many have worked, it's part of the game, not too sure why a few that didn't make it would take shine off any rookies, a very bizarre call, from a VERY bizarre individual!

[Topdog]

Mitch Thorp, Luke Brennan, Daniel Elstone, Nathan Turvey, Michael Collica, Nick Ries and Harry Miller were all either 1st rounders or early 2nd rounders after they traded their 1st rounders away.

Every club has misses on early picks.

You forgot Beau Dowler at pick 6.

Williams is good but injury prone and Everitt will be a very good player. If he doesn't do it at our club that is purely down to Rocket (differences in attitude) but he will be a very good player.

Really as long as we don't get pick 4 or 10 we are fine.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Moving the goal posts - I could have included Jesse Wells and Cam Faulkner in my list

I only included their 2nd rounders in the years when they traded their 1st picks away.

[AndrewP6]

I reckon we stack up pretty well compared to most clubs, and it's not just the high picks, tthe 4th rounders, the rookies etc, and like you mentioned with our success with rookies [Morris, Picken, Boyd, Harbrow], given our situation before the AFL evened up things somewhat for clubs like ourselves, we would only have what, 1 or 2 rookies? We have done extremely well considering.

If we just look at our first rounders:
Jordon McMahon - still playing [for another club] was servicable at our club
Sam Power - was still playing, might get another shot - played 70 something games at our club
Farren Ray - still playing
Tom Williams - bar injury, will be our CHF for the next 8 seasons


So going by that, i reckon we have done ok with the first rounders, only really one fail, 3 have been ok, but traded and still playing.

Don't think we can say we've done OK with players that wouldn't stay...not interested in a player playing well/reasonably well for another club... jury's out on Williams, IMO. I was really keen at the start of this year, but the guy just can't stay fit. I hope he proves me wrong.

[mighty_west]

Don't think we can say we've done OK with players that wouldn't stay...not interested in a player playing well/reasonably well for another club... jury's out on Williams, IMO. I was really keen at the start of this year, but the guy just can't stay fit. I hope he proves me wrong.

The point i was getting at, was that those players at least showed something, and are still in the system, compared to ALOT of other clubs having quite a few first round picks that didn't even crack 10 games in the AFL what so ever.

Alot of people seemed to bag Clayton, for the high end draft picks that "he got wrong", yet fail to recognise the players he did strike with later on in the draft, and if you compared the top pics from other clubs, he stacks up pretty well.

[AndrewP6]

The point i was getting at, was that those players at least showed something, and are still in the system, compared to ALOT of other clubs having quite a few first round picks that didn't even crack 10 games in the AFL what so ever.
.

Fair enough...

[Doc26]

Could be a lot worse. Terry could've left us in the state that he left Richmond with after 5 years. Just go through their trade failures. McMahon for Ward must've been an insightful apology to us.