Revisiting the 2003 draft 5 years later....No dodging 2003 draft
Herald-Sun | April 04, 2008
There is at least a five-year latent period for drafting, and as Cooney enters his fifth year it is worth looking back on that 2003 draft to see what it tells us about the players involved in the most inexact science in football.
To do so, the 2003 draft picks have been re-rated in the "hindsight, 20-20 vision draft", and that has unearthed as many questions as answers.
The hindsight draft rates the players on what they have achieved, not what they are going to do, much to the relief of some recruiting staff.
My retrospective No. 1 of the 2003 draft based on performances so far St Kilda defender Sam Fisher is a whisker in front of Cooney and represents one of the recruiting coups of the decade, taken at No. 55.
THE UPSIDE-DOWN DRAFT
The 2003 draft was a blight on the recruiting industry.
Their strike rate has proved to be embarrassingly low. It is the upside-down draft with the top 16 rookie picks dramatically outshining the 16 club No. 1 picks.
REVOLUTION
Soon mistakes of the magnitude of 2003 simply won't be tolerated.
More emphasis will be put on getting both the top and bottom selections right; there's no point finding a good rookie if your first pick is a dud.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE...
2. Clubs won't be intimidated by a false sense of loyalty to make a poor decision. In 2003, Richmond took Tom Roach and passed on Sam Fisher, Ben Hudson, Amon Buchanan, Brent Stanton and others. The same could be said of Melbourne with Chris Johnson and Collingwood with Brayden Shaw.
Simply put, father-sons can be as big a disadvantage as an advantage if your recruiting staff get it wrong.
Full article at:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,23480037-19742,00.html
