We can have all the high draft picks in the world I gurantee they will still become avearge players becuase of how ■■■■ our culture and player development is
I give it a year or 2 before we reuin Kako
Because Dodo had NFI
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Thats true but can the club actually develop the players we draft which im not confident about look at Perkins and Cox both high picks yet average players
Maybe, just maybe it’s best to have a good culture and good draft picks.
Think of any top side that didn’t bottom out - how do you think they’d be faring if they also had a heap of top ten picks?
No, you don’t need high draft picks. Helps, though.
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Yep they help but its not the be all and end all
Lots of Blitzers write things along this lines. I’m not sure why this is considered an out. Being young only matters if they’re talented enough and players who are key aren’t so old you can afford to wait.
We are very short of draft picks from recent years from the pointy end of the draft. Only Tsatas is top 5 in the last 8 years.
For a team who hasn’t finished above 7th in those 8 years and have lost 3 players who have subsequently been in the AA squad or team, we’ve had 5 top 10 picks. 3 in a very weak draft.
So yes, we are short of high draft picks. Development and culture should be better, but we’ve not had great picks.
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Has a club had a worse output from our first round draft picks over the last 10 years than us?
Since 2014:
Langford: success, but bad injuries
Laverde: bust
Parish - 2 good seasons, then injured
Francis - bust
McGrath - average player
Smith - 1 good season, then injured
Shiel - some ok footy, but the price was horrible
Cox - injured
Perkins - average to poor so far
Reid - injured, but showing signs
Hobbs - average to poor so far
Tsatas - poor so far
Caddy - too young to tell
Kako - too young to tell
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Not sure where else to put will work closely with Gresham and Davey good pick up imo
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How on earth is Tsatas poor so far? Or Hobbs or Perkins? I swear expectations for draftees are way too high.
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Their output, to date, has been minimal at senior level. Plenty of draftees from the Hobbs and Perkins drafts have now delivered good output at senior level.
I think it’s fair to have higher expectations on midfielders 3+ years into the system. Less so for talls, obviously
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Perkins isn’t a midfielder, Hobbs has contributed plenty when played (2023 & 2025) and Tsatas has barely started his third season!
To date, they haven’t contributed much to the senior side though. Hobbs was the same draft as Daicos, Callaghan, Wanganeen-Milera, Horne-Francis, Rachelle etc.
Tsatas is playing VFL this week!
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Taking stock of our best or most important players and how they came to EFC
- Zerrett- compromised draft, we traded Crameri for the pick, rumours that Dodo wanted Lobb instead
- Langford- same as above, but traded Ryder for the pick who forced his way out in a turbulent situation
- Martin- SSP
- Durham- mid-season draft
- Draper- rookie selection
- Caldwell- trade
- McGrath- first overall in a compromised situation, broadly believed to have been the wrong choice (Clug)
- Ridley- late first/early second round selection in the same compromised situation as McGrath
What I’m trying to illustrate here is that Dodoro’s record in the draft has been diabolical. Our best players have come here through unorthodox or unusual situations where we were either lucky or extra work was required. The national draft is the deepest well of talent available, and we’ve barely been able to extract any of remote significance. The cornerstone talents in our list right now were obtained through the means in which most clubs top up or fulfill fringe list positions.
Such a dramatic failure to utilise these resources will take a long time to recover from.
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Not disagreeing with your premise but unless you gut your list and genuinely bottom out then I’m yet to be convinced the difference between finishing 12 and 14th is worth wetting your panties over.
Especially when we can’t even nail the picks we do have.
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Let’s have a look.
Two years in a row we have finished 11th under Brad. In both years, we were one result off 14th. So let’s compare outcomes across recent drafts
2013
Pick 5: Kolodjashnij
Pick 8: Freeman
2014
Pick 5: Marchbank
Pick 8: Cockatoo
2015
Pick 5: Francis
Pick 8: McKay
2016
Pick 5: Petrevski-Seton
Pick 8: Brodie
2017
Pick 5: Cerra
Pick 8: Coffied
2018
Pick 5: King
Pick 8: Caldwell
2019
Pick 5: McAsey
Pick 8: Flanders
Pretty even overall actually.
Basically the takeaway is pick 5 doesn’t often actually end up as the 5th selection on draft night because of academy and compensation picks.
In order to reliably get in to the first 5 picks of the draft you need to finish bottom 3
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I think a version of this is a good idea. Bottom teams need access to more quality picks to fast track improvement.
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Lets see if he lasts any longer than Farkryder or Rioli
The one question I have is how are we going to fit in all the potential players into the list with most of the list contracted.
We now have 3 long term injuries, plus 4 draft picks in the first two rounds. How do we find space for them all (if they are worthy) given the current contract situation.
As a result I don’t expect them to fill all 3 long term injuries. There is likely to be one ruckman, who we can sign and they will only be offered a spot if Draper or Bryan leaves, but as for the other picks it would be hard to keep the players if we want to find space for 4 new draftees on top of keeping the current young players. Creating 4 spots will be tricky enough, creating 5-6 will be much harder.
The most obvious at risk are: Goldstein, Lual, Laverde. That’s only 3. But at the start of next season we might need the security of Goldstein. 
Those not in the AFL are: Davey, Day-Wicks & Visintini of which Davey is the only one at any risk of delisting.
The rest of the uncontracted players are all in the AFL team (apart from Bryan & Edwards who are both injured but played until injury). This is the issue with creating spots for new players.
Quite a few players are uncontracted.
Seems inevitable that we will move on one, maybe even two of Shiel, Parish, Hobbs, Tsatas and Setterfield
Surely Guelfi is moved on too.
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