SYNDROME # 47 AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT by Whispering Jack

Gone are the days when we could debate for hours on end about who would be Melbourne's first draft selection knowing we were dealing with a small, discrete group of possibles at the pointy end of the draft pool.

The Demons have gone through the last couple of drafts with two top ten picks but things are much different this year. 

Suddenly, we have to learn to deal with the fact that our first pick is way down in the middle of the third round at number 47. Last year, our fourth pick was taken at 46 (Liam Hulett). 

The last time the Dees were close to that lowly figure was five years ago in the 2011 rigged draft in which GWS Giants had the first five and 11 of the first 14 selections. Melbourne traded out its first pick to get Mitch Clark and was therefore left with 36 as its first selection, used to get Rory Taggert. It was not a good year for drafting and fittingly it was Barry Prendergast's last as our recruiting manager which I suppose goes a long way to explaining why Josh Tynan and James Sellar didn't quite work out either.

There's not much room for optimism about your draft prospects when you look at the players selected with 47 in recent years:-

2006 Essendon Kyle Reimers (Peel Thunder WA)
2007 Collingwood Toby Thoolen (Bendigo Pioneers)
2008 St Kilda Rhys Stanley (West Adelaide SA) 
2009 Brisbane Lions Ryan Harwood (Glenorchy TAS)
2010 Richmond Bradley Helbig (West Adelaide SA) 
2011 Brisbane Lions Patrick Wearden (Murray Bushrangers)
2012 North Melbourne Mitchell Wilkins (Norwood SA)
2013 North Melbourne Ben Brown (Werribee VFL)
2014 Geelong Cory Gregson (Glenelg SA)
2015 Brisbane Lions Sam Skinner (Gippsland Power)

The list does little to inspire. Brown is the best of the lot and Stanley at his second club is getting some games. Gregson is smallish but might eke out a career with the Cats and Reimers had his moments, once booting eight goals in Essendon's 139 point win over the Gold Coast Suns in their early days in 2011 but after he left, he caused a stir in an interview about the club's drug saga:-

"After a couple of months away from it (the club), it does seem very odd the type of stuff we were taking."

The rest certainly didn't set the world on fire. Poor Sam Skinner, recruited while recovering from ACL surgery, was just getting over it this year when he broke down and required a second operation.

On the above facts, we Demon fans will have to deal with a malaise I call "Syndrome # 47". It won't be easy but I'm sure that if we face facts, accept that it's not a life threatening illness and be optimistic, then we can overcome the symptoms of irritableness and anxiety over the next five weeks.

As a starting point, I recommend looking at the bright side and understand that # 47 today might not be as bad as it was in the days of yesteryear. I've heard it said that one of the consequences of the points bidding system for academy players and father/son selections is that draft places will be eaten up a bit like a human body suffering from the Ebola virus. As a result our choice might end up in the early rather than the late forties. 

I've therefore taken a phantom draft at random off the authoritative bigfooty website and listed picks 41 to 50:-

Chris 25

41 Dylan Clarke - 187cm, 85kg midfielder from Eastern Ranges

42 Jake Pitman - 177cm, 77kg midfielder from Norwood

43 Jake Waterman - 191cm, 82kg forward from Claremont (West Coast*)

44 Kym LeBois - 175cm, 66kg forward/midfielder from North Adelaide

45 Callum Brown - 177cm, 69kg midfielder from Eastern Ranges (Collingwood*)

46 Jack Maibaum - 193cm, 90kg defender from Eastern Ranges

47 Cedric Cox - 184cm, 70kg defender from North Ballarat Rebels

48 Jordan Gallucci - 183cm, 75kg midfielder from Eastern Ranges

49 Ryan Garthwaite - 192cm, 84kg defender from Murray Bushrangers (GWS**)

50 Willem Drew - 188cm, 78kg midfielder from North Ballarat Rebels

* father/son

** academy

Among that lot you have a couple of father/sons and an academy pick but there's no doubt about the quality of some of the others available in this range. Clarke won the Eastern Ranges B & F in the footsteps of his brother who is with North Melbourne. Maibaum, Cox, Galluci and Drew are all highly thought of prospects. If they're in the mix when Melbourne's time to take pick # 47 comes, then it will ease the syndrome dramatically.

After that, we can start worrying about a condition described by the number 69. No scratch that!