Best to worst: We grade your club's 2014 draft and trade haul
Five years on, how have the draftees turned out for each club? Our reporters run the rule over all 18 teams and grade them from best to worst
www.afl.com.au
this article inspired me to look into our recruiting in recent years and what better time to recap than the period where Graeme Wright took over as head of recruiting and at some point list manager, now we all praise GW for his trading ability which he is generally good at willing to trade away more to guarantee the player we want, we also have been appreciative of his late draft pick ups of recent times including Sicily and Lewis, but also have been disappointed with other draft decisions as well, so here is our trading, drafting, recruiting of cat b's and drafting of rookies and upgrading rookies, basically most things to do with our list in general.
it all started back in 2011
Trades In: Gunston, Boumann Trades Out: Sierakowski, Renouf, Lisle
Draft: Pick 33 B.Hill, Pick 38 J.Kelly, Pick 53 A.Woodward
promoted rookie - L.Breust
Rookie Draft: Pick 16 B.McCauley, Pick 34 A.Frank, Pick 52 A.Boseley, Pick 69 A. Pattinson
not a bad start, trading for Gunston a young medium forw who became a champion during the premiership years for us, also picking up B.Hill who had a good few years and 3 premierships before leaving to Fremantle and the upgrading of Breust another champion forward for us, i would say this was a good year for GW and his team overall.
2012
Trades In: Lake, Simpkin, Spangher, Anderson Trades Out: Gilham
Draft: Pick 28 T.O'Brien, Pick 66 K.Brand, Pick 70 redrafted M.Osborne
Rookie Draft: Pick 15 J.Ceglar, Pick 28 C.Kilkenny
here we have Lake being overweight at the Bulldogs and finally we get a chance at getting our man we have been trying for ages to trade for and boy did he deliver once we traded him in, we also got really lucky with Ceglar being such a good 2nd ruck for us over the years, the rest were part players and some misses, another good year overall in the scheme of things
2013
Trades In: McEvoy Trades Out: Savage
Draft: Pick 24 B.Hartung, Pick 38 D.Garlett, Pick 56 J.Sicily
promoted rookie - J.Ceglar, W.Langford
Rookie Draft: Pick 17 D.Willsmore, Pick 33 D.Wanganeen, Pick 48 Z.Webster, Pick 57 B.Ross (Cat B - K.Heatherley + S.Tatupu)
St Kilda gifted us McEvoy, cheers saints, we'll take a quality ruck from you guys, cost us a decent prospect in Savage, but 100% worth, would do again, the draft was nearly a waste until Sicily got picked up, Ceglar getting promoted onto the list.
2014
Trades In: O'Rourke, (Frawley FA) Trades Out: Hallahan, Cheney, Lowden
Draft: Pick 31 D.Howe, Pick 49 T.Miles, Pick 50 M.Pittonet
promoted rookie - D.Willsmore, Z.Webster
Rookie Draft: Pick 18 J.Hardisty, Pick 36 J.Miller-Lewis, Pick 53 L.Langford, Pick 65 S.Grimley
other than Frawley as a FA, what a disaster of a year, again nothing in the draft or rookie draft
2015
Trades In: J.Fitzpatrick Trades Out: Suckling, Anderson
Draft: Pick 19 R.Burton, Pick 22 K.Lovell, Pick 44 B.Hardwick
promoted rookie - K.Heatherley
Rookie Draft: Pick 18 L.Surman, Pick 36 K.Stewart, Pick 52 redrafted A.Woodward, (Cat B - C.Glass)
bad trades, but saved with 2 good youngsters in the draft, if not for Hardwick this would be another mess of a trade/draft period
2016
Trades In: T.Mitchell, JOM, Vickey FA, Henderson DFA Trades Out: B.Hill, S.Mitchell, J.Lewis
Draft: Pick 74 H.Morrison, Pick 77 M.Lewis
promoted rookie - K.Stewart
Rookie Draft: Pick 14 O.Hanrahan, Pick 31 redrafted J.Fitzpatrick, Pick 46 J.Cousins (Cat B - C.Nash)
this was the big transition year, where a bunch of our leaders got to the end of their careers and we needed to replace them, we got lucky with Tom Mitchell, Henderson and Lewis, we paid a price for JOM and he'll be a decent investment i hope, we traded out of the draft to fill needs.
2017
Trades In: J.Impey Trades Out: L.Hodge
Draft: Pick 45 J.Worpel, Pick 67 D.Moore, Pick 71 J.Ross
Rookie Draft: Pick 7 H.Jones, Pick 23 D.Mirra, Pick 34 redraftd D.Willsmore (Cat B - C.Jiath)
i think this is one of the better all round performances from our recruiting department, trade in Impey, pick up a champion in mid-draft and a couple of other exciting prospects.
2018
Trades In: Wingard, Scrimshaw, Scully, Minchington DFA Trades Out: Duryea
Draft: Pick 52 J.Koschitzke, Pick 63 M.Walker
promoted rookie - C.Glass, J.Cousins, D.Mirra
Rookie Draft: Pick 14 D.Greaves, Pick 30 W.Golds, Pick 43 T.Mohr, Pick 49 redrafted W.Langford (contract reasons)
this was a very exciting draft and we decided to go after Wingard instead which might work out in our favour as he is a champion, but missing out on the top end talent of this draft is unfortunate imo, Scrimshaw i was worried about after the O'Rourke situation burned us, but he looks a good player and both Kosi and Walker look likely to play AFL sooner than later.
Like i have said previously, i think GW is a good negotiator when trading, not that he gets the best price or deal, but that he gets the trades done and finalised, i think our clubs drafting could be a lot better, we have done well late a few times with some serious talent, but i would like more consistency at the draft and more rookies stepping up, it seems the vast majority of promoted rookies go nowhere which is a concern because staff see them more often and would have a better read on their talent, meaning these mistakes are from staff and recruiters because of the lack of talent coming in from the rookie draft in recent years.
our top 35 picks in this period is B.Hill@33, T.O'Brien@28, B.Hartung@24, D.Howe@31, R.Burton@19, K.Lovell@22, B.Hill and R.Burton are the only good players out of 6 high picks, thats a concern, then theres the D.Garlett mistake @38 and J.Kelly@38 also in the top 40, im hoping our recruiters do a better job at this draft with our early picks...
Last edited:
