Steele Sidebottom: How he has only one All-Australian jumper to his name beggars belief. Photo: FAIRFAX SYNDICATION
We close out the 2019 series of “Redrafts” with one of the toughest revisions ever undertaken by Footyology.
The 2008 draft produced so many quality players so evenly-matched that you could throw a blanket over almost the entire revised top 10.
But after much deliberation and toing and froing, the mantle of No.1 goes to Collingwood star Steele Sidebottom, originally taken by the Magpies just outside the top 10 at No. 11.
In a decade at top level, Sidebottom has been criminally underrated. How he has only one All-Australian jumper to his name beggars belief, and the fact it only came last year makes it even more bewildering.
One of the classiest and best users of the ball of the last 25 years, Sidebottom at times resembles a magician out on the park as he clinically tears the opposition to ribbons – and he always seems to do so with a smile on his face.
He hardly ever plays a bad game and has been one of the cornerstones of the Magpies’ engine room for a decade now. It certainly isn’t lost on Collingwood how good the premiership player is given he has won a pair of best-and-fairests, including their grand final year of 2018, which so easily could have finished with a flag.
At No.2, after plenty of thought, is former Sydney wrecking ball Dan Hannebery, who was originally taken at pick 30.
Given how badly his last three years have been marred by injury, the last of which was played at St Kilda after he crossed to Moorabbin at the end of 2018, it’s easy to forget just how brilliant Hannebery was at his absolute prime.
Recency bias may judge Hannebery harshly, but not here at Footyology. Prior to the 2017 season, Hannebery, at just 25 years of age, was quite simply an elite midfielder.
Tough as nails and extremely influential, he was arguably the centrepiece of Sydney’s midfield during a golden run which yielded a premiership and three grand final appearances.
Between 2012-2016, Hannebery averaged 27 touches per game and breached the 40-possession barrier on seven occasions. During that period, he picked up three All-Australian jumpers and an AFL coaches Player of the Year award to go with his 2012 flag. He also finished in the top seven of the Brownlow three times.
When it comes to draft bargains, they don’t get much bigger than Hawthorn sharpshooter Luke Breust. After being selected with pick No.47 in the rookie draft, the 29-year-old now finds himself at No.3 upon revision – that’s an upgrade of 135 spots, if you don’t mind.
What a crucial part he played in the Hawks’ recent “three-peat”, too, kicking 40, 57 and 52 goals in 2013, 2014 and 2015 respectively.
Known as one of the best shots for goal in the AFL with 392 career majors at an accuracy rate of 68 per cent, Breust took it to another level in Hawthorn’s last two premiership years with 57.12 (83 per cent) and 52.19 (73 per cent). In 2014, the two-time All-Australian equalled the great Tony Lockett’s record for most goals in a row without kicking a behind (29).
As a sidenote, the Hawks also managed to snare triple premiership player Liam Shiels with pick 34 and dual premiership star Matt Suckling (now at the Doggies) with pick 81 in the rookie draft, which essentially amounted to pick 172. That’s some A-grade recruiting right there.
If this was an exercise in who you’d pick first if you were building a team from scratch, then exhilarating West Coast big man Nic Naitanui would easily come in at No.1.
But unfortunately injury has restricted him to just 35 games in the last four years, robbing the footy world of countless electrifying moments in the process and putting the brakes on him realising his full potential.
Still, the one-of-a-kind freak-of-nature has done enough in his 166 games to hang on to fourth spot. Rounding out the top five is Naitanui’s teammate Luke Shuey, who gets upgraded from 18.
Another Collingwood premiership star in Dayne Beams moves up from 29 to six, and dual All-Australian Essendon defender Michael Hurley slides ever-so-slightly from five to seven.
Fremantle livewire Michael Walters zooms up the charts from 53 to eight, Adelaide co-captain Rory Sloane also enjoys a sizeable upgrade from 44 to nine, while GWS co-captain Phil Davis stays put at 10, where he was originally taken by Adelaide.
Naitanui, Hurley and Davis were the only ones to retain their status as top-10 players.
There were plenty of players who could have considered themselves at least a bit unlucky to miss out on cracking the top 10, such as ball magnet Tom Rockliff (pick five – pre-season draft), Bulldogs premiership hero Liam Picken (30 – rookie draft), Jack Ziebell (nine), Neville Jetta (51), Matt De Boer (19 – rookie draft), Canadian sensational Mike Pyke (57 – rookie draft), Stephen Hill (three), Adelaide’s Tom Lynch (13) and Essendon’s David Zaharakis (23).
