All smiles. The top 10 picks at the AFL draft enjoy a lighter moment in front of the cameras after being selected last Thursday night. Photo: AFL MEDIA
The AFL draft has changed complexion a lot over the years, from a very low-key affair conducted on pen and paper in the league’s own offices when it started more than 30 years ago to the two-day extravaganza of Thursday and Friday last week.
There were mixed reviews about the entertainment factor of Thursday evening’s prime time televised first-round selections, one obvious issue that while a small group of hard-core fanatics understand the complexities of bidding and points systems for father-son and academy picks, the rank and file footy fan still finds them mystifying.
Live pick trading added another dimension still, Sydney seeming to outsmart most of the football world with some wheeling and dealing with West Coast giving the Swans a solid draft hand.
One thing that shone through when it was all finally done on Friday afternoon, however, was that the 2018 draft said more about football’s big picture than individual clubs or players. And from a national perspective, the message was encouraging.
Take Tasmania, for example, the subject of much angst in recent times as an example of a heritage football state withering on the vine.
Only two years ago, Tassie was unable to have a single player selected in an entire draft. Last week, there were two taken in the top 10, North Melbourne academy product Tarryn Thomas and Launceston midfielder Chayce Jones going to Adelaide.
Tasmania hadn’t had a player taken top 10 in a draft for five years. And 1996 was the last time the Apple Isle had two kids go that early.
Junior football in South Australia, meanwhile, delivered a bumper draft crop. Young SA stars Jack Lukosius, Izak Rankine and Connor Rozee all found places within the top five picks, with Jackson Hately making it four in the first 14.
All four have already played plenty of senior football at SANFL level, and having looked very comfortable mixing it with the men, you’d think would be at shorter odds than many of their draft peers to be playing AFL at their new homes sooner than later.
Ditto the 13 players taken from Victoria’s state league the VFL, half-a-dozen in the national draft, four more in the rookie draft and another three pre-listed before draft day.
Gold Coast remains at its lowest ebb since entering the AFL in 2011, having lost three captains in Garry Ablett, Tom Lynch and Steven May over the past two off-seasons. But last week, the Suns were at least able to start virtually from scratch again in list terms, with three picks in the first six, Lukosius, Razine and highly-rated Victorian Ben King.
AFL recruiting is so professional now there’s fewer and fewer surprises sprung each year come draft time. Last week, Fremantle’s selection of Sam Sturt, who had until recently concentrated on cricket, was the first pick which even remotely raised eyebrows.
And the strike rate with most of the top picks in the modern era is high indeed. Champion Data released some interesting statistic concerning draft picks between 2000-10 which confirm as such.
Over that period, the No.1 picks have averaged no fewer than 238 games each for their AFL clubs. Players picked between Nos. 2-5 have generally been able to muster around 180 games, and from Nos. 6-20 the average is still well over 100 at 115.6 games.
Yet there’s also a greater sense of realism about how much of a difference these talented junior products can make within the confines of a list of 40-odd players, the vagaries of AFL development, coaching and the various twists of fate which accompany an AFL career.
Carlton’s No.1 pick Sam Walsh was singled out very early in the football year as the likely No.1, hailed almost universally as the best player in the TAC under-18 competition, the Blues’ decision to go with him almost a fait accompli.
But there’s been no great hyperbole since the draft about Walsh being any kind of saviour for his new club. Carlton knows the reality better than most, its previous No.1 picks over the past 15 years, Bryce Gibbs, Marc Murphy, Matthew Kreuzer and Jacob Weitering all having had their share of ups and downs over the journey.
Conversely, there’s still plenty of justified optimism that a player taken with a low pick can still give a return far exceeding his initial rating, regardless of how refined recruiting is now.
In the lead-up to the draft, the Footyology website ran a “redraft” series in which we took random years from the draft’s inception in 1986 and re-ordered the top 10 picks based on the careers that particular draft crop ended up having.
In 10 years studied, and a total of 100 top 10 picks, only 32 held their spots as one of the best 10 players of that year’s influx. The most in any one year was five, in 1997. Even with the sharper recruiting sensibilities of 2014, only four players remained top 10.
In contrast, the revised top 10s featured a retrospective No.1 (Jeremy McGovern in 2010) taken at No.44 in a rookie draft, thus effectively the 162nd player selected, another (in Footscray’s Chris Grant), who’d originally been taken at No.105 in 1988, three dual West Coast premiership players taken at No. 92 or lower, and former Essendon champion James Hird (No. 79 in 1990).
So much water has to go under the bridge and so many elements are beyond any one player’s control between the time he’s drafted and when he hangs up the boots that unequivocal judgements about this club or that having “won” or “lost” in a draft are now, more than ever, ridiculous.
The big picture, though, is another story. And while it’s something of a cliché, in the 2018 draft, given the performances of various states, state leagues and continued hope that comes with the first pick to the very last, there actually was a winner. The game of football as a whole.
*This article first appeared at SPORTING NEWS.
