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Luke Hodge and the super draft 2001 (not for us sadly)


Bobby McKenzie

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Gee, what a big time player is this guy. As number one draft pick in 2001 he has proved to be an outstanding success story with two Norm Smith medals to his name.

But what a super year it was for draft picks with Luke ball at #2 and Chris Judd at #3. I then looked at our choices. #9 Luke Molan who did not play one game although he was devastated by injury upon injury. Would you believe we could have had Nick del Santo who went to the Saints at #13.Also available when we chose Molan was Steve Johnson at # 24. Our next choice was Steven Armstrong at #25. Steven was serviceable but only managed 43 games with us. Then at pick #26 we chose Aaron Rogers who like Molan did not represent us once. Two of our first 3 picks did not get even one game for the Dees. How good is that for choosing talent? Of course, after we chose Rogers there was a guy called Sam Mitchell taken at #36. Imagine Mitchell,Johnson and Dal Santo in our line up for past 12 seasons.

But is it luck in making these choices or not?

Look at these names taken AFTER our picks in this year:

#44 F/S GARY ABLETT jnr,

# 58 Dane Swan

# 71 Brian Lake.

F/S is father son by the way for you naughty people who may have thought it was something else!

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Water under the bridge - drafting is a very inexact craft / science, but we didn't get much that time I have to agree.

Do remember that guys like Chris Grant and Jacques Merde were overlooked multiple times - as I recall picked in 70s, 80s or maybe 90s - by all clubs and both headed the Brownlow voting at the end of the night.

Edited by monoccular
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Water under the bridge - drafting is a very inexact craft / science, but we didn't get much that time I have to agree.

Do remember that guys like Chris Grant and Jacques Merde were overlooked multiple times - as I recall picked in 70s, 80s or maybe 90s - by all clubs and both headed the Brownlow voting at the end of the night.

Jacques Merde? Brownlow votes?

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Water under the bridge - drafting is a very inexact craft / science, but we didn't get much that time I have to agree.

Do remember that guys like Chris Grant and Jacques Merde were overlooked multiple times - as I recall picked in 70s, 80s or maybe 90s - by all clubs and both headed the Brownlow voting at the end of the night.

The mindd boggles if we by chance drafted Hird. Mixed feelings.

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Oh goody, another one of these threads. Ok I'll bite.

The 2001 draft wasn't that special. Certainly not a super-draft.

What is most interesting from it is just how much the 'successful' picks were concentrated in just three teams; St Kilda, Hawthorn, and Geelong.

Close to half of all long-term high-quality players were drafted to those three clubs.

West Coast, Freo and Adelaide also did well when you add a remarkably strong rookie draft.

So, we're now at 6 out of 16 clubs who would actually be happy with the 2001 'superdraft' results.

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I'm just saying in this draft with foresight we could have nabbed these particular players.

Indeed. We've had multiple exercises where people have done this for just about every year. What pick was Hird? 84 or something. Everyone passed on him 4 times.

You're never going to get perfect draft results. Our issues are caused by other things, like picking the wrong types then developing them badly.

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Early picks is one thing it's what culture & the ability to develop which our club has done very poorly..... When you look @ Geelong. & the Swans they had not many early picks but great culture & the ability to develop quality players... Until our club gets to that stage most players will struggle to develop...

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Luke Hodge can derelict my plums.

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The choice of Hodge or Judd etc... is only half the story.

What we all forget is that Hawthorn put their nads on the line to get pick 1 in the first place. Remember Trent Croad?

Using your picks well is half the battle. The other half is trading out overrated trade value, and having the balls to do so. Hawthorn got rid of Croad (for pick 1 for memory), Johnny Hay, Nathan Thompson etc...

Some smart people were demanding that this club do something similar with a Jeff White, Cale Morton (after year 1), etc...

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The choice of Hodge or Judd etc...

Using your picks well is half the battle. The other half is trading out overrated trade value, and having the balls to do so. Hawthorn got rid of Croad (for pick 1 for memory), Johnny Hay, Nathan Thompson etc...

Some smart people were demanding that this club do something similar with a Jeff White, Cale Morton (after year 1), etc...

So who had the "smart people" identified as the Clubs that were prepared to pay over the odds for White and Morton ( year 1)?

The Hawks should be congratulated for their success but have a number of things go uber right for them to get to the top. One of those was the incredibly overvalued lopsided deal that saw NQRs Thompson and Hay go to North for well above value. They got lucky with that. I don't recall those deals being to put to MFC back then.......

Edited by Qwerty30
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