Depends on how late a draft pick has to be for it to be "late". Taking round three onwards, then players who have debuted in recent years and become regular members of the senior side include:
Papley (rookie)
O'Riordan (rookie)
Melican (rookie)
Dawson
Aliir
Plus the following have debuted and contributed some games (and are still on the list)
Fox
McLean
Stoddart
McInerney
Ronke
And we got some games (of varying quality) from the following
Robinson
Foote
Newman
Murray didn't play a game for us but was deemed good enough by another club to net us a decent draft pick.
There's probably a few more I've missed. I've done this off the top of my head. Suggests the club is still doing OK finding solid talent later in the draft and, more importantly, developing it.
There are still 9 active AFL players from the 2013 rookie draft. If a club can get 1 good rookie drafted player every 2 years, then they are doing okay. Over the 5 rookie drafts from 2012-2016, we still have 9 players on our list. That's an exceptional success rate. Even taking out 2012, we still have 6 players from 4 rookie drafts. This excludes Newman, who would also have to be considered a success.
From the past 2 drafts, Amartey, Bell and Wicks all look to be reasonable prospects with good chances to continue their careers next year. Amartey and Wicks should be certainties to get new contracts and I think Bell is very likely as well. We've already signed Reynolds to another year. Tucker is unclear, due to serious injuries.
I read that Brodie Kemp did his ACL last weekend playing school footy. According to many draft power rankings, he was a midfielder that would be in our 4-6 pick range. He’ll probably end up being a draft steal going late first round now but I’d say we’d be unlikely to take the risk with a high pick.
Not when there's so many other highly likely types at our pick, I watched a lot of the U18 Championships and would be very happy with Lachlan Ash or Hayden Young.
Kemp will get picked up late in the first round, maybe someone that has two first rounders like Crows or GWS where they take a very high draftee can then gamble with their later first rounder to pick up a top 5 talent cheap.
Last edited by 707; 23rd July 2019 at 07:09 PM.
Brodie Kemp might be worth St Kilda's 2nd round pick if he's still there. (Not forgetting all the live pick trading that makes the current positioning of all our later picks a bit academic.) Although that means we would have Maibaum, Tucker and Kemp all on the comeback trail from serious knee injuries and playing similar positions (2nd/3rd tall defender).
I like the idea of targetting Demons players. They have an immense amount of talent on their list, must have a tight salary cap, are underperforming and may have lower morale than other clubs for this reason. If the glam 4 (Viney, Brayshaw, Oliver, Petracca) are unattainable then Harmes has been having a great couple of seasons and only has year left to run on his contract after this one. Might be worth having a crack at him.
Other Vic clubs going after AMT, surely we should have a go too? A good small forward would be a huge in for us
Can anyone guess when an All Australian ruckman was last a premiership player (in the same year)?
A classy midfielder is a much greater priority given our current list state,
Apparently Ed Landon is a certainty to leave Freo at the end of the season, but will be going to Victorian club. St.Kilda, Melbourne and Collingwood are showing interest. How Melbourne and Collingwood would have any room in their cap is beyond me.
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