Just as a point of interest, 1990 was a lean draft for the Swans. Their 6 selections in the national draft that year (not including pre-draft picks or pre-draft trades) played a total of 1 senior game between them! Hope the recruiters weren't on an incentive based contract that season!
I've looked to this before. Early drafts were unsuccessful for most clubs in comparison to recent years, but we had some shockers! I'll go into it later when I dig up my notes!
Please, update the Wiki when you do ... pretty please?
Alright. This is equally interesting and depressing. What I did a while back was go through each draft to see who we picked up and how successful they were (and we were, I guess). It was quite astonishing to see how many players never actually played a game for us from those early drafts. I also looked at which players were selected after our first pick each year to see who we could have had instead. Anyway...
1986 - first ever draft. We selected John Brinkkotter (5 games), Lionel Dakin (none), Donald Thompson (none), Craig Elias (none) and Laurie Menhenut (none). Brinkkotter was taken at pick 10, meaning players such as Matthew Febey (16), Matthew Armstrong (24), Darrin Pritchard (26), Craig Kelly (34), Simon Minton-Connell (38), Anthony Lovell (42), Alistair Lynch (50), and Darren Jarman (selected at pick 55 by Melbourne, although he didn't go) could have been ours instead.
1987 - Michael Parsons (pick 10, 25 games), Scott Salisbury (none), Tony Virgona (none), Jim Silvestro (8), David Querzoli (none); missed Andrew Jarman (pick 15 but didn't go to Brisbane), Brendon Gale (27), Andrew Obst (37), David Kernahan (39), Liam Pickering (48) and others.
1988 - Dion Scott (pick 8, 6 games), Paul Holdsworth (6), Nick Chigwidden (none), Jim West (37), Andrew Bishop (none), Gareth John (21); missed Darren Bennett (13), Anthony Stevens (18), Michael Long (23), Richard Champion (30), Daryn Cresswell (originally drafted by Geelong at pick 34), Chris Grant (105!)
1989 - Brad Tunbridge (pick 8, 50 games), Rohan Smith (not the same one, none), Steven Bozicevic (none), Scott Tomlinson (none), Gary Stevens (brother of Anthony, 5), Craig Budarick (none); missed Dale Kickett (pick 9), Gavin Wanganeen (12), Ben Allan (14), Wayne Campbell (29), Shaun Hart (33), Paul Williams (70)
1990 - Dale Hall (pick 26, none), Mark Collins (none), Brian Stanislaus (1), Adrian Goldup (none), Leigh Campbell (none). That year we also had some pre-draft picks, in which we selected Ben Aulich (none), Justin Clarkson (another brother, this time of Alastair, 3 games), Jason Love (23), Darren Morgan (none), Robert Neill (21), and Brad Sparks (none); notable miss in this draft was a player from our own zone, James Hird (pick 79).
1991 - Andrew McGovern (pick 4, 20 games), Paul Burton (none), Anthony Cole (none), Peter Freeman (none), David Strooper (32), Andrew Dunkley (FINALLY a good one!, 217 games), Matthew Bell (0); missed Shane Crawford (13). Last one...
1992 - Jason Spinks (pick 5, none), Scott Robinson (none), Andrew Donnelly (none), Matthew Aston (none), Scott Direen (52), Troy Hull (none), Michael Gaffney (none); missed Martin Pike (pick 9), Nick Holland (14), Leigh Colbert (18), Scott Cummings (20), Scott Burns (90).
Depressed? No wonder we won three consecutive wooden spoons!
probably a few issues affected the drafts such as if we had gone say a jarman brother, they would of just told us to get nicked, given the rubbish facilities we had. Some of the players we did get werent that bad. Dion Scott wasnt too bad really when he actually played, holdsworth was a gun in the TFL, Jim west won the goal kicking, Gareth john was unlucky, Jason Love- kicked a few goals didnt he, didnt robert neil get traded? Anthony Cole was good for north hobart and could of been ok i reckon and Strooper was good just alwasy injured, direen wasnt too bad
ok yeah its pretty @@@@house
Theres not much left to say
Loved to watch Scotty Direen kicking out from FB. He was the only Swan with good foot skills. I reckon he was underrated.
Unfortunately, Scott Direen got knocked rotten during a match in mid-1996 and was never the same when he returned.
Yes, that is just registering on my faded memory. I think he wore a helmet for a while after that?
It was the Richo/Dunkley match v Richmond.Originally Posted by old blood
We've got Troy Gray to thank for that, nice hospital pass buddy...
Driver of the Dan Hannebery bandwagon....all aboard. 4th April 09
Yes, very depressing.
Strangely enough, I can't remember what I did last week, but do remember many of the names to not play a game.
After each of those drafts, I would've read summaries of each of those players and got excited about their prospects for the coming season. How wrong was I.
Yes, those summaries always make for a fun read and always include such gems as "good decision maker" (skills aren't up to scratch yet), or "a hard, in and under player" (ie. skills arent up to scratch as well as not much between the ears), etc. But my favourite is always the coach's comment about how delighted/surprised that the "bargain/gem/loads of promise" player was still available at pick No. 50, etc.
Didn't know we picked up Andrew Donnelly. He must have played 50 or so game for the Eagles.
Bloods
"Lockett is the best of all time" - Robert Harvey, Darrel Baldock, Nathan Burke, Kevin Bartlett, Bob Skilton
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