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Draft a sure path to success

Since it was introduced in mid 1980’s the national draft and salary cap have evened up the competition and made it more cyclical.

Clubs are setting new records on how quickly they can turn around a bad situation through smart drafting and development programs.

Looking through selections in the draft’s of the last ten years it tells a story of extraordinary hits and shocking misses and brave decisions that sometimes haven’t paid off for a long time afterwards.

However a pattern does emerge: if clubs have a decent number of quality picks within a few years they can build the core of a team to challenge for a premiership.

In the 2001 super draft Fremantle had a number of high picks including one and four.

Hawthorn decided to make the hard decision to rebuild from the bottom and offered up the high profile Trent Croad for picks 1, 20 and 36.

Hawthorn also lost Luke McPharlin in this deal although they were unhappy that he wanted to go home and gave him up unwillingly despite his injury woes.

Hawthorn recruited Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell with picks one and 36 respectively while Fremantle got only a few mediocre seasons out of Croad and are still enjoying the talents of McPharlin.

Mitchell and Hodge are two of the star players in one of the AFL’s top teams and last year competed for the captaincy of their star studded young line up.

In the very same draft another side quietly went about recruiting what we now know to be some key premiership players.

Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel, Norm Smith Medalist Steve Johnson, superstar Gary Ablett Junior and silky midfielder James Kelly all came from the class of 2001.

Another man picked up in 2001 arguably had a big say in West Coast’s 2006 premiership but Chris Judd was also joined that year by premiership players Mark Seaby and Ashley Hansen.

All clubs have misses in every draft but if you invest enough in young players the fruits of these labours will come.

Of course this draft is only part of the story for these teams for example Hawthorn again made a huge investment in the 2004 draft where picks 2, 5, 7, 21, 26, and 53 saw them grab Jarryd Roughead, Lance Franklin, Jordan Lewis, Thomas Murphy and Simon Taylor.

Having said all this our teams have a vital opportunity at the end of this disappointing season to invest heavily in a positive future with high picks in the last uncompromised draft.

Fremantle are already enjoying the fruits of a draft hits in team regulars Rhys Palmer, Garrick Ibbotson, Chris Mayne, Robert Warnock and promising prospect Clayton Hinkley.

West Coast too have found a new regular midfielder in Brad Ebert and promising prospects in Scott Selwood and Ben Mckinley.

Fremantle forfeited their extra priority pick with their win on the weekend which would have been incredibly handy but West Coast might still retain this extra pick giving them a huge number of picks in a two year period.

This two-year period of possible hits is sure to stand the club in good stead.

While the class of 1999 in Matthew Pavlich, Paul Haselby, Luke McPharlin, Darren Glass and Adam Hunter will continue to lead the way at their respective clubs it is the classes of 2007 and 2008 that will hopefully deliver WA its next premiership.

Perhaps this premiership is closer than we all think…