Another year and Dees fans enter yet another draft day full of hope. But this one matters more than most.
In an effort to get two top 10 picks in Tuesday’s draft, Josh Mahoney and his team have traded away Melbourne’s first round pick next year. The strategy is sound, but if the Dees blow their selections this year and fail to turn those picks into two quality players, the long rebuild at Melbourne may not amount to much more than a pile of rubble.
In footy terms it may be the difference between a Top 4 list, capable of challenging for a premiership during their peak window, and a list whose ceiling is to battle away in and out of the bottom half of the 8. The difference, say, between Hawthorn 2012-2015, and North Melbourne or Richmond over the same period. While it is true that North have made two preliminary finals in the last two years from outside the top four, even the most one eyed North fan would acknowledge they were some way off a team capable of beating Hawthorn in the big dance.
Top 10 selections that don’t go to plan is something that Dees fans are familiar with. Poor selections? Poor development coaching? Or just plain bad luck?
Long suffering fans may take you all the way back to the most famous draft of them all – the 2001 ‘Superdraft’. The Dees drafted Luke Molan at pick 9, behind Luke Hodge, Chris Judd and Luke Ball, David Hale (pick 7) and Jimmy Bartel (pick 8). Molan broke his leg badly playing for VFL affiliate Sandringham in his first year, before missing 5 weeks early in his second year due to torn cartilage.
Then, while diving to make a spoil at North Ballarat he broke his collarbone, was concussed, and ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament on landing. He was delisted before being redrafted by Melbourne as a rookie, but was cut at the end of 2004. Molan is the only Top 10 pick since 2000 (excluding recent draftees) that has failed to play a single senior game.
The Dees took picks 3 and 5 into the 2003 draft, where they selected Colin Sylvia and Brock McLean. McLean played 94 games, including two top three finishes in the best and fairest, before being traded to Carlton in 2009 for pick 11 because of a perceived lack of pace. That pick was used on Jordan Gysberts. More about him later.
Sylvia at his best was a match winner, but sadly his career will be looked back on largely as an unfulfilled disappointment. Reportedly a chain smoker throughout his career, he never finished higher than fifth in the best and fairest and after 167 games, he was courted by Fremantle as an unrestricted free agent. Not even Ross Lyon and the carrot of a premiership tilt was able to get Col to change his ways. In two years, he failed to play a single game with the Dockers.
From 2004-2006, the Dees were able to deliver with picks just outside the top 10. Lynden Dunn (pick 15, 2004), Nathan Jones (pick 12, 2005) and James Frawley (pick 12, 2006) have all delivered on or above expectations for picks in that range. While Frawley is no longer at the club, the Demons did receive pick 3 in 2014 for him – the pick used on Angus Brayshaw.
In 2007, the Dees used pick 4 on Cale Morton. Despite being ranked much lower in the draft order early in the season, Morton vaulted into top 10 contention on the back of a scintillating U/18 Championships for a dominant Western Australian team featuring Chris Masten, Rhys Palmer, Daniel Rich, Chris Yarran, Alex Rance and Nic Naitanui.
Morton won the Larke medal for the best player in Division 1, and won the beep test at the Draft Combine. Some recruiters had him rated even higher than pick 4. But despite a promising first year in which he won the Best First Year Player award and finished sixth in the Best and Fairest, Morton was traded to West Coast in 2012 for lowly pick 88, after 73 unspectacular games in five seasons with the Dees.
West Coast delisted him at the end of 2013 after just three more games in two seasons. For many fans, he will be best remembered as a youtube hit following his on-field altercation with Brendan Lade in 2009.
With Pick 1 in 2008, the Demons selected Jack Watts. A consensus number 1 selection across the board except perhaps for the West Australian clubs (Nic Naitanui was pick 2), it is doubtful if any number 1 pick has endured as much scrutiny as Watts.
Melbourne needed a messiah and Watts was the man in the right place at the right time. The Dees needed him to become a key forward colossus but his body has never filled out enough to enable him to play that role. Thrust into the limelight as a marketing stunt for his debut in the 2009 Queens Birthday clash against Collingwood, Watts’ gangly frame was famously rag dolled by Nick Maxwell, Heath Shaw and Shane O’Bree as he attempted to gather his first touch.
Watts has shown glimpses of his brilliance over his seven seasons to date – a good decision maker and kick, he has had his moments when thrown forward too – proving a match winner as a pinch hitter in a number of games. But where to play him? He will never become Jonathan Brown now so what can we hope for? A Brendan Goddard type? Or could Watts be his most effective as third forward in a Jack Gunston type role?
In 2009, the Dees took three picks inside the top 11 into the draft, including selections 1 and 2, which were used on Tom Scully and Jack Trengove. Both players debuted in Round 1 and Scully finished second in the AFL Rising Star award to Daniel Hannebery in 2010. The speculation about Scully’s “godfather offer” from GWS emerged very early in his second season and he was gone at the end of the year. Melbourne received two compensation picks for Scully – pick 4 (used on Jimmy Toumpas) and pick 13 (which was part of the package used to secure Jesse Hogan).
The Demons have probably finished out winners in this deal as it currently stands. In four years at the Giants, Scully has just two top 10 best and fairest finishes. Matching GWS’s offer for Scully would also have caused considerable problems for the club’s salary cap down the track.
Trengove finished inside the top eight in the Best and Fairest in each of his second, third and fourth seasons before stress fractures of his foot cruelled his 2014 and 2015. In among that, he was thrust into the captaincy, and almost traded to Richmond in 2014, a move that was only scuppered when Trengove failed a medical. The jury remains out on Trengove – hopefully he can fully recover from his injuries and deliver on the promise he showed in his early career. However navicular bone injuries have ended careers in the past – most notably Geelong’s All Australian centre half back Matthew Egan at just 24 years of age.
Just outside the Top 10 in the same year, the Demons took Jordan Gysberts with pick 11. Gysberts started like a house on fire, arguably the Dees best player on his debut, and leading the possession count in his first two matches for the club. He earned Rising Star nominations in both his first and second years, but after 19 games in three years he was traded to North Melbourne, where he was delisted just one year later without adding to his tally of senior games.
In 2010, the Dees first selection was again just outside the Top 10, with Lucas Cook taken at pick 12. Cook impressed at the U/18 Championships for the champion Vic Country team and was named All Australian Centre half forward. Sadly he could not translate that to VFL form that was strong enough to earn a senior game in a poor Demons side, struggling to add bulk to his lightly built frame. Cook is the only player in the top 40 of the 2010 draft that failed to play a single senior game.
In 2012, Jimmy Toumpas was taken with pick 4. Toumpas was captain of South Australia’s team and named All Australian at the U/18 Championships. After 27 games in three seasons in which he averaged just 13 disposals, Toumpas was traded to Port Adelaide for a handful of beans.
Christian Salem was taken at pick 9 in 2013 in a deal that also delivered Dom Tyson to the club in exchange for pick 2, which GWS used on Josh Kelly. An exciting start from Kelly at GWS prompted media hysteria that the Demons had once again blundered with an early selection, however two seasons down the track the deal appears to have worked well for both clubs so far. Both Salem and Tyson have been good contributors at Melbourne and look set for long careers. Only time will tell.
The Dees took picks 2 and 3 into the 2014 draft, which were used on Christian Petracca and Angus Brayshaw. While Petracca suffered a season ending knee injury in February, Brayshaw, who had been described as the most ‘bomb proof’ selection of the draft (implying a guaranteed 200 game player) showed great signs in a debut season in which he played 21 games.
In the draft on Tuesday, every Top 10 pick will be discussed as if it is a foregone conclusion that they will be a long term champion for their new club. Take the hyperbole with a grain of reality. History shows us there are no guarantees – even with top 10 picks. Even if you are a State U/18 Captain, Larke Medallist, or an All Australian. Even if you go on to become a Rising Star nomination. Twice.
Every club has had misses in the top 10, even Hawthorn. In 2005, the Hawks took Beau Dowler with pick 5 taking a risk on a fractured pelvis Dowler had suffered in a car accident in the lead up to the draft. He was delisted after just 16 games in five seasons. The Hawks had pick 7 the following year, with a Bendigo kid by the name of Joel Selwood still on the draft board.
The Hawks medical team had warned off on Selwood, worried about his chronic knee problems. Thank god for the rest of the competition we don’t have to deal with the current Hawks juggernaut with Selwood in the midfield as well. Frightening. Hawthorn chose Tasmanian forward Mitch Thorp. Foot injuries restricted him to just two games in three seasons before he was delisted.
A big day for the Demons looms on Tuesday. It will prove difference between being a genuine contender, or an also ran, in a few years time.
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