The Roar
The Roar

AFL
Advertisement

2001: A Football Odyssey

Roar Guru
16th April, 2014
13

As we wait for another blockbuster meeting between Geelong and Hawthorn this Easter Monday, I can’t help but be reminded of the super draft of 2001.

It will surely go down as the greatest draft year in the history of the game. We could debate the second best draft class (Probably between year 2006 and year 2008) but for number one there is no question.

Year 2001 has so far produced a whopping 29 premierships, 5 Norm Smiths and 4 Brownlow medalists.

To put that into comparisonm the two drafts either side of 2001 don’t have any Brownlows or Norm Smiths and have 31 premierships combined.

And It was Geelong and Hawthorn (along with St. Kilda) who benefited most out of this draft.

The Hawks picked up two premiership winning captains in Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell, while also adding Campbell Brown.

The Cats did even better.

They picked up a bloke by the name of Gary with the help of the father/son rule (father also named Gary) while also managing to pick up Jimmy Bartel, Steve Johnson and James Kelly.

Advertisement

That is an unfathomable result from one draft.

They weren’t however the only teams to strike gold that year.

Check out these names all from 2001 – Chris Judd, Dane Swan, Luke Ball, Nick Dal Santo, Leigh Montagna, Brent Reilly, Jarrad Waite, Jason Gram and Brian Lake.

The rookie draft produced Aaron Sandilands, Matthew Boyd and Ben Rutten, just to name a few.

One could argue that the five most influential players of the past decade were all taken in the draft class of 2001 and they would be in my opinion Ablett, Judd, Swann, Bartel and Hodge.

Even before the draft , 2001 was widely thought of as being a very special year. But somehow the Fremantle Dockers thought it was a good idea to trade away the number one pick that year for Trent Croad.

That is a truly mind boggling decision and one that still haunts them to this day.

Advertisement

But the majority of clubs came away feeling pretty good after the draft of 2001 and Hawthorn and Geelong continue to reap the rewards.

So while we enjoy no doubt another thrilling encounter between the two giants of our sport, let’s take a second to ponder just how significant 2001 was for both clubs.

For what it’s worth here is my best 22 from the draft class of 2001:
FB: B.Reilly B.Lake N.Bock
HB: J.Gram B.Rutten L.Hodge
C: N.Dal Santo C.Judd L.Ball
HF: D.Swan J.Waite S.Mitchell
FF: S.Johnson J.Podsiadly L.Montagna
F: A.Sandilands G.Ablett J.Bartel
Bench: J.Kelly D.Hale A.Carrazzo M.Boyd

close