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Melbourne

Pick 1. Dustin Martin

What could’ve been Melbourne fans…Fyfe AND Dusty!?

It was damn tough separating the star duo, but we went with the once-in-a-generation type talent. The face of this Tigers dynasty, Martin is close to winning every accolade a midfielder could dream of.

The two-time Norm Smith, two-time premier and two-time Gary Ayres medallist knows when to show up. September.

That’s not to say he hasn’t performed as consistently in the home and away season, as Martin broke the record for most Brownlow votes in a season with 36 in 2017.

Martin hasn’t played less than 20 games or dropped below an average of 20 disposals a game in each of his 10 seasons with Richmond, stacking up to 5,707 touches and 251 goals from his 225 game career. Dusty is our pick of the 2009 AFL draft.

Melbourne

Pick 2. Nat Fyfe

Look away now Dees fans. The steal of the draft at pick 20, Fyfe has fashioned a career like no other.

Fyfe’s debut season was off to a flyer, having polled five Brownlow votes from his 18 matches in 2010.

The Freo skipper soon went onto with the AFLCA’s Young Player of the Year award and a spot in the All-Australian squad in the following season after averaging 25 touches and four tackles per match.

From then on he has won two Brownlow medals, three All-Australian selections and three Best and Fairests at Fremantle.

Fyfe has polled a staggering 174 votes from 162 eligible games and sits eighth overall for three-vote performances.

He boasts career averages of 25.7 disposals, 4.5 marks, 4.0 tackles, 5.7 clearances and 14.4 contested possessions a game. Simply amazing.

Richmond

Pick 3. Max Gawn

One of the biggest risers in our list, Gawn comes into third overall after originally being selected by the Demons at 34th in the draft.

The 208cm tall bearded ruckman was another to slowly bloom into their stride, Gawn spent seven years in the system before collecting any major accolade.

Come 2016, he was given All-Australian honours and would eventually find himself within the side on two more occasions.

Gawn also went on to win back-to-back best and fairests for Melbourne between 2018 and 2019, with the former year also seeing him crowned as the AFLCA’s Player of the Year.

Gawn currently holds the record for most hitouts in a season with 1,119 in 2018 and holds the top three hitout seasons in Demons history.

Fremantle

Pick 4. Jack Gunston

North Melbourne

Pick 5. Daniel Talia

Sydney

Pick 6. Ben Cunnington 

West Coast

Pick 7. Mitch Duncan

Port Adelaide

Pick 8. Ben Stratton

Port Adelaide

Pick 9. Davis Astbury

Essendon

Pick 10. Lewis Jetta

Melbourne

Pick 11. Brad Sheppard 

Originally taken one selection after Rohan at 7th overall in 2009, Sheppard holds the bragging rights in our list after a prolonged career with the Eagles so far.

A season-ending hamstring injury meant Sheppard missed his side’s Grand Final victory in 2018, but he looked to bounce back the next year with a selection in the All-Australian 40-man squad.

Carlton

Pick 12. Tom Scully

The first name called out on draft night, Scully looked prepared to lead his draft class after his debut season.

Having polled the most votes in the rising star award between the 2009 selections and falling second overall to Dan Hannebery, Scully looked a great chance to be the new face of the Demons.

Scully’s highly-anticipated move to the then-newcomers in Greater Western Sydney sparked an uproar from Melbourne fans after he departed at the end of his two-year contract.

He has since shown why he was so rated highly for his run and carry game and silky delivery of the ball for both the Giants and Hawthorn.

Adelaide

Pick 13. Jake Carlisle

Sydney

Pick 14. Sam Reid

Western Bulldogs

Pick 15. Gary Rohan

Port Adelaide

Pick 16. Allen Christensen

Geelong

Pick 17. Jamie Macmillan 

 

 
11 hours ago, whatwhatsaywhat said:

$cully? silky delivery? sickly deliverance i'd believe...

I was about to write something. Similar he can run all day but he’s not a great kick.

 

There were no Luke Molan moments in this draft. IIRC all our own pundits and the press thought we picked correctly.

We used the same strategy in picking Trengove as we did with Clarry a couple of years later.i.e. A late bolter. Rear view mirror stuff.


14 hours ago, Demonland said:

Melbourne

Pick 1. Dustin Martin

What could’ve been Melbourne fans…Fyfe AND Dusty!?

It was damn tough separating the star duo, but we went with the once-in-a-generation type talent. The face of this Tigers dynasty, Martin is close to winning every accolade a midfielder could dream of.

The two-time Norm Smith, two-time premier and two-time Gary Ayres medallist knows when to show up. September.

That’s not to say he hasn’t performed as consistently in the home and away season, as Martin broke the record for most Brownlow votes in a season with 36 in 2017.

Martin hasn’t played less than 20 games or dropped below an average of 20 disposals a game in each of his 10 seasons with Richmond, stacking up to 5,707 touches and 251 goals from his 225 game career. Dusty is our pick of the 2009 AFL draft.

Melbourne

Pick 2. Nat Fyfe

Look away now Dees fans. The steal of the draft at pick 20, Fyfe has fashioned a career like no other.

Fyfe’s debut season was off to a flyer, having polled five Brownlow votes from his 18 matches in 2010.

The Freo skipper soon went onto with the AFLCA’s Young Player of the Year award and a spot in the All-Australian squad in the following season after averaging 25 touches and four tackles per match.

From then on he has won two Brownlow medals, three All-Australian selections and three Best and Fairests at Fremantle.

Fyfe has polled a staggering 174 votes from 162 eligible games and sits eighth overall for three-vote performances.

He boasts career averages of 25.7 disposals, 4.5 marks, 4.0 tackles, 5.7 clearances and 14.4 contested possessions a game. Simply amazing.

I was led to believe that we picked the two standouts from this draft.

 

19 minutes ago, Ron Burgundy said:

I was led to believe that we picked the two standouts from this draft.

 

So was I, all the phantom drafts said so! And isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing, Max would have been a tiger, the team he supported as a kid!
Seriously, hang around for a decade or so and re do any draft, you’ll get a different result!

1 hour ago, Nelo said:

Gee we stuffed this draft up big time. 

Did we really? Every club passed on Fyfe not just us.   Martin is a miss but Gawn was an exceptional pick up. 

 

Scully and Trengove were an absolute lock; as certain a top two as Rowell and Anderson last year.
I challenge anyone to find a source from 2009 that says otherwise.

 


3 hours ago, Demons11 said:

Did we really? Every club passed on Fyfe not just us.   Martin is a miss but Gawn was an exceptional pick up. 

I'm not sure with our culture and player development at that time and all his off field issues that we wouldn't have stuffed Martin up. Doubt three rebuilds later he would be the player he is now if we'd recruited him. 

Edited by It's Time

1 hour ago, It's Time said:

Doubt three rebuilds later he would be the player he is now if we'd recruited him.

Agree to an extent, but Richmond were every bit as much of a basket case as us (both on and off field) in 2009. I'd doubt even Melbourne could have stuffed up a talent like Dusty (although we sure would have given it a good crack).

To Trengove's defence he couldn't run after all his foot injuries.  Prior to that he showed enough, we did completely stuff him up though.  Pick 8 was the one we really stuffed up.   

6 minutes ago, drdrake said:

To Trengove's defence he couldn't run after all his foot injuries.  Prior to that he showed enough, we did completely stuff him up though.  Pick 8 was the one we really stuffed up.   

Trengove wasn’t that quick before his leg breaks sadly. 
$cully was an athlete much more than a footballer 

Performances went that way


9 hours ago, Damo said:

There were no Luke Molan moments in this draft. IIRC all our own pundits and the press thought we picked correctly.

We used the same strategy in picking Trengove as we did with Clarry a couple of years later.i.e. A late bolter. Rear view mirror stuff.

Trengove also played like Clarry in his first year. 

I’d love to see his draft camp numbers over 20m sprints.

He seemed to lose all his power and pace after injury.

The re-draft would be more interesting with a short writeup on why the original player drafted was no longer in that position in terms of value.

It was a really shallow draft that year, it seems so.  

Trengove  would have been a great player without his foot injury, till then he was tracking very nicely in terms of quality.  Scully, could run and it comes back to athlete vs footballer. With the rate of rotations today, I think the footballer wins again.   During our dark period we focussed on athletes who couldn't play the game and count learn in a poor team for someone to cover them as they did.  

As it turned out 2009 was a wasted draft.

I was always on the Trengove wagon after i'd watched him a few times.  Scully, I couldn't fathom what the attraction was by most across the footy world.  But i thought,  what do i know. So I stayed mostly quiet,  thinking i must be wrong and missing something with him.

 

Now in hindsight,  scully is exactly the mature version I what I imagined he would be, Pre his injury.

The one I'm sad about is Trenners. I think we miss handleable his career badly.

My other preferences have briefly watched them were Gary Rohan,  and Daniel Talia was a standout for me,  when I saw him play, one night that season.

3 hours ago, Sir Why You Little said:

Trengove wasn’t that quick before his leg breaks sadly. 
$cully was an athlete much more than a footballer 

Performances went that way

Thank you Captain Obvious!

14 minutes ago, dworship said:

Thank you Captain Obvious!

No. It’s not what i thought yesterday 

got nothing to do with being obvious 

neither of those players were ever going to be Gamebreakers

 


It's interesting people remember Trenners pre-injury as being slow anyway, I certainly don't. I'm not saying he was going to win any 10m sprints but I felt he had enough power out of his first 5 steps to get away quick enough.

I remember a tigers game in particular (I think it was his second year) where he was a powerhouse. He had the attributes to be a gun, he lost them from the injuries (and I also join the "miss-management" group as well).

Scully was always seen as number one, and really we saw enough to suggest it was the right move. For me the debate was always Trenners vs Dusty, I think we went for better character over raw talent (not that JT was talentless). Nobody picked Fyfe to become the player he has.

14 hours ago, Pates said:

It's interesting people remember Trenners pre-injury as being slow anyway, I certainly don't. I'm not saying he was going to win any 10m sprints but I felt he had enough power out of his first 5 steps to get away quick enough.

I remember a tigers game in particular (I think it was his second year) where he was a powerhouse. He had the attributes to be a gun, he lost them from the injuries (and I also join the "miss-management" group as well).

Scully was always seen as number one, and really we saw enough to suggest it was the right move. For me the debate was always Trenners vs Dusty, I think we went for better character over raw talent (not that JT was talentless). Nobody picked Fyfe to become the player he has.

100% agree with this. Trengove was the pick of the bunch in my eyes, and all draft rankings had Scully and Trengove as undisputed number 1&2. Our issue wasn't getting the picks wrong, it was development.

Trengove wasn't slow pre-foot injury. His draft class 20m sprint was 2.95 seconds, which was in the top 20% of underage players tested for speed. Statistically, Trengove and Martin were near identical for their first two seasons. If anything, Trengove was more impressive as he had the same output as Martin whilst also being a leader in a struggling club with a poor environment and little support around him. He was the closest thing I'd seen to James Hird at a similar age - he was excelling all over the ground and oozed leadership and class. Once he got made the youngest AFL captain in history and suffered injuries, his output dropped off and statically he actually became worse than his debut year and never recovered. It's proof that injuries and poor development meant he didn't get the best out of himself. I truly believe had he not suffered those debilitating injuries and had better development by the club, he would've become a great of the club and likely one of the best players in the game.

There have been rare cases of poor drafting - Lucas Cook for example - but reality is the main issue for our club is development, and we still haven't got development right decades later. Guys like Petracca should be stars of the game instead of just flashes.

24 minutes ago, Lord Travis said:

100% agree with this. Trengove was the pick of the bunch in my eyes, and all draft rankings had Scully and Trengove as undisputed number 1&2. Our issue wasn't getting the picks wrong, it was development.

Trengove wasn't slow pre-foot injury. His draft class 20m sprint was 2.95 seconds, which was in the top 20% of underage players tested for speed. Statistically, Trengove and Martin were near identical for their first two seasons. If anything, Trengove was more impressive as he had the same output as Martin whilst also being a leader in a struggling club with a poor environment and little support around him. He was the closest thing I'd seen to James Hird at a similar age - he was excelling all over the ground and oozed leadership and class. Once he got made the youngest AFL captain in history and suffered injuries, his output dropped off and statically he actually became worse than his debut year and never recovered. It's proof that injuries and poor development meant he didn't get the best out of himself. I truly believe had he not suffered those debilitating injuries and had better development by the club, he would've become a great of the club and likely one of the best players in the game.

There have been rare cases of poor drafting - Lucas Cook for example - but reality is the main issue for our club is development, and we still haven't got development right decades later. Guys like Petracca should be stars of the game instead of just flashes.

And what of Scully?

 

The impact of Trengove's foot injury was starkly apparent the day that old concrete boots Brock McLean ran away from him.

Edited by demonstone
.

If it had only been 2009 we could be excused but we all know the list goes on and on.

Even the present bunch who are the best in a long time seem to be under-performing relative to what we know they can do.


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