reckon you have to look at each draft differently each yr. some are full of top end talent and drop away quickly some run deep.
i still think you can pick up good talent anywhere in the draft if you have the right criterias set in place.
2006 id say about half of the 3rd rounders could be described as servicable at worst.
mark austin, alwyn davey, goldstein, nathan krakouer went okay until he lost interest at gc, josh kennedy, tom hawkins, houli, houlihan. garland, reimers, mckay schofield.
2008 shiels, smith, zac clarke, broadbent, steven motlop, mitch robinson, banfield , sloane, stanley, t hunt, lisle.
of course the backend of the third round is harder the further you go into any draft it is harder.
just my opinion but i reckon theres enough talent in most third rounds to warrant participation. 1st 2nd and 3rd rounders should be reserved for mainly kids.
not certain but 1st rounders go at over 75% 2nd 60 and third round is about 50%
. the overall succees rate for drafts is over 60% that was a fair while ago. could be higher now days as drafts and clubs and junior systems become more and more refined.
just to show how picking individual drafts can skew things just look at 2004. you would be lucky to depending on opinion find 15 good players give or take a few in the entire first 3 rounds of that draft. the whole draft in fact.
yet we as a club invested heavily in that draft and continued after to trade for payers from it.
imo the worst draft for talent in the last 15 yrs at least and 2003 wasnt far behind it.
finally i dont think we can lose sight of the fact that more and more kids are playing the game and like i said above the systems for identifying kids gets better and better 3 rd rounders will become more and more important. failing to regularly participate in the third round ids fraught with danger.
