Missed recruiting opportunities

[Harrysz]

Much has been made in the last couple of days in Collingwood's "mistake" in not drafting Patrick Cripps, who Carlton took at #13. Instead Collingwood took Scharenberg at 6 and Freeman at 10. In retrospect this was a big mistake. Cripps is a brilliant champion and we missed out.

I'll tell you of a bigger recruiting mistake. The player I'm referring to was on "Open Mike" this week. He may not have been a better player than Cripps, but our failure to recruit him had more significant consequences. I'm referring to Steve Johnston.

At the end of 2006, Stevie J was out of favour at Geelong. Collingwood was interested. Malthouse wanted him. the club doctor said he had significant medical issues, so we passed. What happened in 2007? We got to the Preliminary Final and lost an epic battle by 5 points. One of the best on the ground was Steve Johnston. Take him out of Geelong and put him into the Collingwood side/ Who then wins that match? Of course that's speculation, but I'm sure we would've won that game and the 2007 flag. The next week Steve won the Norm Smith Medal. He played in 3 premierships including 2011, when he was close to winning a second Norm Smith Medal AGAINST US.

Ok, some recruiting decisions have been good, such as taking Pendles at 5 when most pundits expected him to go at around 15. Still, the Stevie J decision hurts.

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

Tony Lockett he should not have gone to Sydney we had him on our radar but a missed opportunity at the time.
Other missed opportunity was Fraser Gerick he went on to west coast and won a premiership medal for the eagles.

[23 YIPPEE!!!]

I think there was talk at the time for buddy franklin to play for the pies after his time at hawthorn also.

[inxs88]

Great call on Stevie. Also what isn't remembered is that the Cats would have taken a second round draft pick which at the time was pick 28 (Chris Dawes). In eras of close margins between teams, you could argue that:

* 2007: Stevie
* 2011: Stevie
* 2019: Tom Lynch

would have tipped the scales. Then again, you could go back to 1979 and argue Bernie Quinlan would have been a handy get after we relented on his pay demands post leaving the Bulldogs.

[inxs88]

[Dave The Man]

We Picked Shannon Cox instead of Kurt Tippett

[inxs88]

We picked Steve McKee/Danny Roach ahead of Matthew Pavlich

[Jezza]

Drafted Richard Cole instead of Nick Dal Santo in the 2001 draft.

At least we got Swanny at #58 in the same draft.

[Harrysz]

The purpose of my post was not to criticise Collingwood's recruiting. Recruiting is as much an art as a science and all clubs have had hits and misses.

It's just that the Steve Johnston miss was fairly recent and undoubtedly cost us very dearly.

[5 from the wing on debut]

[E]

[Dave The Man]

[Pies4shaw]

We had pick one. Pavlich was only about 10 times as good as Fraser.

Face it, if we wanted Pav, we could have had him. Probably cost us three flags, at least.

[SteveH67]

[Dave The Man]