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What Could’ve Been

One of our friends, MJ Want, wanted to look at how Melbourne would look if they got their drafting right. Not so much DT related, but this is a very interesting read and deserves a place. Cheers MJ!

For the past few season we have heard media commentators and fans alike bang on about the recruiting of the Melbourne Football club. How their early draft picks “haven’t worked out” or “failed to live up to promise.” So I decided to quickly (did this all within an hour) troll through the drafts from 2007 – 2012 and see whom they could’ve picked instead. Now I’ve done this on the assumption that every other AFL club would pick the same player in their original position (eg if a club selected someone at 10 I couldn’t select them with pick #12.)

As you’ll see hindsight is a beautiful thing. Just ask the Melbourne football club recruiting team. In fairness, if we did this exercise with every club over the past 10 years we’d be able to find some player selections that just didn’t work out. So lets see how the past few drafts could’ve ended out for the Melbourne Football Club.

Year 2007 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked
Selection #4 Cale Morton Patrick Dangerfield
#14 Jack Grimes Harry Taylor
#21 Adam Maric Scott Thompson
#53 Kyle Cheney Tom Bellchambers
Rookie Draft Trent Zomer
Austin Wonaeamirri
Jake Spencer
Shane Velenti
Nathan Grima
Jared Petrenko
Pierce Hanley
Shane Mumford

 

Year 2008 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked
Selection #1 Jack Watts Nic Naitanui
#17 Sam Blease Dayne Beams
#35 Jamie Bennell Rory Sloane
#51 Neville Jetta Tom Rockliff
Rookie Draft Jordan McKenzie
Daniel Hughes
Jarryd Blair
Matthew Suckling

 

Year 2009 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked
Selection # 1 Tom Scully Dustin Martin
#2 Jack Trengrove Nathan Fyfe
#11 Jordan Gysberts Lewis Jetta
#18 Luke Tapscott Luke Ball
#34 Max Gawn Allen Christensen
#50 Jake Fitzpatrick Kyle Hardingham
Rookie Draft Michael Newton
John Meesen
Michael Barlow
James Podsiadly

 

Year 2010 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked
Selection #12 Lucas Cook Jack Darling
#33 Jeremy Howe Luke Parker
#50 Troy Davis Paul Puopolo
#53 Tom McDonald Alex Johnson
Rookie Draft Dan Nicholson
Michael Evans
Kelvin Lawrence
Cameron Johnston
Robert Campbell
Tom McNamara
Luke Dalhaus
Nick Lower
Ian Callinan
Jonathan Simpkin
Pass
Pass

 

Year 2011 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked
Selection #36 Rory Taggert Jack Newnes
#52 Josh Tynan Jackson Paine
#54 James Sellar Tory Dickson
Rookie Draft Jai Sheehan
Tom Couch
James Magner
Leigh Williams
Lee Spurr
Campbell Heath
Mark Baguley
Sam Gibson

 

Now imagine being Mark Neeld and knowing that last weekend if the Dees had drafted this way, then they’d line up something quite possibly along the lines of this, thery are all amazing players, according to the review PhenQ they have knowledge of how they stay fit.

B:        Lower, Thompson, Johnson
HB:     Hanley, Taylor, Suckling
C:         Ball, Beams, Fyfe
HF:      Martin, Podsiadly, Jetta
F:         Blair, Naitinui, Darling
R:        Mumford, Rockliff, Dangerfield

Int: Sloane, Barlow, Christensen, Parker

Players on the Fringe: Bellchambers, Grima, Dalhaus, Gibson, Spurr, Hardingham, Petrenko, Puopolo

Co-captain of DT Talk since we started this thing in 2007. Best finish was 13th in 2009... that was a long time ago. Follow on Twitter: @WarnieDT




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