Drafting elite AFL players

[Pies4shaw]

We all know that the last young player drafted by Collingwood who is by now already obviously "elite" was taken in 2008. I say "Sidebottom", most of the rest of you say "Beams" but, no matter, I think we can (almost all?) agree that no-one we have drafted since 2008 is an "elite" player of the competition, yet. Some of them may be but they aren't, yet.

We also know why Collingwood didn't draft young "elite" players in 2009 - we took two "elite" stars, instead, with picks 14, 30 and 46 and our real "young draft" started with Ben Sinclair with our 4th-round pick at pick 62, followed by Josh Thomas (77).

Similarly, in 2010, we traded our pick 25 for the then and there, taking Krak (and Jonathan Ceglar for the future). We also did a trivial trade of draft picks with Fremantle to get Tarrant back and moved from pick 44 to 45, with which we selected Fasolo. (For the record, Viv Michie was taken by Freo with our original pick 44 - he's currently at Melbourne and it's fair to say that I had never heard of him until I did the research for this post.) With our other picks, we took Farmer (46), Ugle (66), Seedsman (76) and Stubbs (77).

In 2011, we again traded pick 25 - this time for Elliott and Marty Clarke. We also did a trivial trade of draft places to secure Peter Yagmoor (Yagmoor and pick 50 in, pick 47 out). Thus, our first live pick in the draft was 50. We took Jackson Paine with that and Corey Gault with pick 65.

From 2012, as we know, Collingwood implemented a strategy of getting into the earlier part of the draft and, to a large extent, we still wait to see whether that strategy will prove to have been a successful one.

That raised in my mind the question of how to assess comparative drafting of "elite" players by clubs since 2008.

However, when I look at the draft lists since that time, I don't identify too many players that I think of as "elite" drafted by any club.

So, the purpose of this thread is to generate some discussion about who really are the players taken in the drafts from 2009 on that we would say are already "elite" players. I'll give my tentative list for a start but I should say that I only do it to kick things off - I don't really want to defend my list; rather, I want to see if I can generate enough responses to get a feel for what being an "elite" player really means.

2009
Martin
Fyffe
Maybe Stratton?

2010
Gaff
Heppell
Parker
Maybe Isaac Smith?
Maybe Caddy?

2011
Wingard
Lachie Neale

2012
Wines

2013
Josh Kelly?
Bontempelli?

2014
???

[John Wren]

of that list only fyfe is elite. the rest may be heading that way. bontempelli would be the one i'd pencil in for such a status. wingard is very talented but i wouldn't consider him elite.

[Pies4shaw]

Mike Sheahan already had Heppell in his end of 2014 "Top 50". And I guess I was motivated by thinking - every time Collingwood has played Essendon since Heppell debuted - that he's the one player on the entire Essendon list I'd like to see in a black and white jumper.

Putting that aside, are there other players drafted from 2009 on that you think of as elite but I haven't mentioned, JW?

[Pies2016]

That's interesting reading. There aren't as many as I would have thought if that's accurate.

Elite is a big wrap, so I am excluding Stratton, Caddy and Smith who are important but not elite. If you say Caddy is elite, its not much different to what Adams has achieved this year. Josh Kelly hasn't achieved much yet which is completely understandable. Wingard is more icing on the cake for mine.

Im happy to go early and add Jesse Hogan and Isaac Heeney into that list.
The Kolodjashnij twin at GCS is going very nicely and O Meara's debut season was ridiculous. Having said that, it is just to early to call any of them elite just yet.

Its just all so subjective at this stage but it shows that most kids need time to develop. If we were to revisit this list again in three years, you can guarantee there would be more to add. I also think finding players with natural leadership qualities is even harder than finding elite talent at a draft but that's for another thread.

[thompsoc]

At last a decent and reflective thread by you.

[Dave The Man]

The Club Rates Scharanberg to be an Elite Player.

De Goey and Moore could come Elite Players

[mattys123]

No player is drafted elite, I mean how many players have actually walked into AFL football and played at an elite level in their first 2 seasons?

It's only been the last few seasons where we've had first round picks too, we traded them out when we were in contention to get the likes of Ball, Jolly and then Elliott (with Clarke).

We won't know how good our drafting of recent times will be for a few years yet.

[Dave The Man]

[HAL]

Where did [quote] None take about 4-5 seasons to get a Player to the Elite Level?

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies4shaw]

[Pies2016]

[inxs88]

Good thread. Champion data tend to have a rule especially when predicting the J curve effect of a draftee and that is to add 5 years from their debut season and that's when a "breakout" or push to elite status should start to materialise.

Ps: Sinclair was drafted in 2008 not 2009. Minor detail

[swoop42]

[Pies4shaw]