It seems that hair and fame are sometimes more important than results, and there is nothing wrong with that. They only had that one really great year when they reached the top, but it was a big year and is still talked about today.
Sydney - Van Halen
Always changing their frontman, but still having success.
West Coast - Motorhead
It's a surprise that some members are still performing.
Western Bulldogs - Screaming Jets
Keep hanging around but struggle to fill the larger venues.
Van Halen, they have shown that even if a lead singer is fired in an angry dispute that there is a good chance they will return to the band in the future. You Really Got Me - Van Halen
Both have gone a bit soft despite being at the top in the past.
North Melbourne - Krokus
They have a few fans, who are loyal and loud, but there isn't a big rush for tickets when they go on sale.
Port Adelaide - Slayer
Can play at a fast and frenetic pace.
Richmond - Whitesnake
Their fans are happy to see them perform, but their best work was quite a while ago.
It is metal Michael Bolton, he could have been the King Of Hair Metal but decided to instead turn down the volume and he made plenty of money playing to a new crowd. Everybody’s Crazy – Michael Bolton
It was more about the person in charge. The identity for more than the past two decades was all about one individual, which means Essendon are in some trouble as they try to find a new direction.
Fremantle - Deep Purple
They both like purple.
Geelong - Slade
While appreciated by many, it seems that their fans from the local area are the ones who are really fanatical about what they do.
Hawthorn - Metallica
Most thought that their best work was a decade or two ago, but have made an impact again recently.
Twisted Sister, Dee Snider was the main reason for their success, that and their funny music videos. I Wanna Rock – Twisted Sister
They had a lot of success in the past, and still fill venues because of it. They are very even, nobody really does more than the next person and there isn't one superstar that takes the spotlight away from the others, but they have success and it is in part because of that.
Brisbane - Guns N' Roses
They came into being due to a merger, which was more of a takeover. At their peak they were very successful, but now there is always the chance that they could disappear. Without their frontman, they could be in trouble.
Carlton - Winger
Their frontman gets all the attention, and seems to be a bit opinionated and rude, but they are not as good as they tell everyone they are.
Collingwood - AC/DC
They could have one hit in the past few decades and still sell every seat at every venue that they play at. They also continue to play the same way year after year, even when they bring in someone new it doesn't change how they go about their business.
One day the guitarist will graduate from school, or maybe not. Heatseeker – AC/DC
The idea is to rearrange the letters in the possible draftees’ names to find a word or phrase that could describe them and how they play football. That doesn’t usually happen, but some interesting answers do appear. Below are some of the anagrams.
Today is all about people asking when there will be trades made, while earlier in the week it was about people asking who had actually won for best mark and goal of the year.
Here is another question, what happened to the sesquicentennial for Australian football?
A couple of TV commercials, a Melbourne versus Geelong game that started early so people could watch a fire being lit in a Chinese stadium, putting a 1 in front of the 50, is that all there was?
Maybe they could have released a list of the 150 greatest Australian footballers, covering all the leagues during that time. That would have educated people about the history of the game, and brought needed recognition for the past stars of many leagues and teams.
Not the most important area to address for football, but it still would have been good if some effort was put in to make the sesquicentennial more memorable.
1 Luke Hodge - Hawthorn
2 Luke Ball - St Kilda
3 Chris Judd - West Coast
4 Graham Polak - Fremantle
5 Xavier Clarke - St Kilda
6 Ashley Sampi - West Coast
7 David Hale - North Melbourne
8 James Bartel - Geelong
9 Luke Molan - Melbourne
10 Sam Power - Western Bulldogs
The 2001 "Super Draft" had a lot of super players in the top 10, and a few draft mistakes too. Three premiership players, three players called Luke, probably at least three busts, so good things and bad things come in threes in this top 10.
Hodge, Judd and Bartel all won with the teams that drafted them, and that is the definition of a successful pick. But for the Eagles, they no longer have the player they selected. The Cats and Hawks still have Bartel and Hodge and also a chance to win more premierships.
Hodge, Ball and Molan have probably been told, "Luke, I am your father." They don't have a lot else in common. Hodge is a top overall pick that won a premiership, Ball seems to be injured too often but when healthy he is one of the Saints' most important players, Luke Molan is just an answer to football trivia questions about players who went high in a draft but never did anything but a leg injury was one reason for this.
So Molan leads the busts from this top 10. Other contenders for being a draft bust are Power, Sampi, Clarke and Polak. Sampi is a definite bust. Power and Polak were busts for the teams that drafted them, X Clarke is another oft-injured Saint from this draft.
Hale has needed a few years to develop and is now a very imposing key forward. The Kangaroos made a good pick but had to wait for their big investment to achieve its potential, compared to the onballers in this top 10 who didn't take as long to make an impact.
That is the end of the top 10 rankings. The 2008 draft should provide enough talent to be one of the best ever, and in a few years it could be ranked in the top 5 of all the AFL drafts.
1999
1 Josh Fraser - Collingwood
2 Paul Hasleby - Fremantle
3 Aaron Fiora - Richmond
4 Matthew Pavlich - Fremantle
5 Leigh Brown - Fremantle
6 Damian Cupido - Brisbane
7 Danny Roach - Collingwood
8 Joel Corey - Geelong
9 Caydn Beetham - St Kilda
10 Luke McPharlin - Hawthorn
A very good top 10 for the 1999 AFL Draft, as the amazing quality of some of the picks more than compensates for a few who were busts.
Pavlich and Corey are close to being among the top 5 players in the AFL, Pavlich is certainly in the top 5. Joel Corey was judged by those at Geelong to be their best player this season, so that means he is up there with the very best. Josh Fraser is a top 5 ruckman. It was an acceptable pick up the top of the draft, going with the best tall prospect available.
Luke McPharlin probably makes it into the top 5 for the AFL's key defenders, although when it comes to the club that first drafted him he helped them more by being part of a trade for draft picks which turned into Hodge and Mitchell. Luke McPharlin was also one of the few "unknown" prospects of recent drafts, and that does add to the excitement of the drafts, but obviously those in the West didn't hide him well enough at the time. Hasleby will return from injury next season, and be back in the middle for the Dockers as one of their most important players.
Fiora and L Brown are probably in the journeyman category, and they can contribute to wins for their AFL clubs but are also capable of putting in performances that send them to the VFL to play. Fiora and Brown are not at the clubs that originally drafted them, and might move again this week.
The Saints, Magpies and Lions did not use their picks wisely. So Brisbane missed out on being an even better team than they were when they won three consecutive premierships, while Collingwood missed out on some help for when they played against the Lions in the big games.
There were great players that went in the top 10 of this draft, and also with later picks. The Cats picked Chapman and Ling with picks in the 30s. Essendon went with Hille at 40. Melbourne selected Bruce at 64, and a lot of teams want Ryan O'Keefe right now but in this draft they all let him go by until Sydney used pick 56 to draft him.
2004
1 Brett Delidio - Richmond
2 Jarryd Roughead - Hawthorn
3 Ryan Griffen - Western Bulldogs
4 Richard Tambling - Richmond
5 Lance Franklin - Hawthorn
6 Tom Williams - Western Bulldogs
7 Jordan Lewis - Hawthorn
8 John Meesen - Adelaide
9 Jordan Russell - Carlton
10 Christopher Egan - Collingwood
A simple idea for how to build winning team, with two early picks just draft two big forwards. Hawthorn are now at the top of the AFL, which is better than being top of the draft.
Franklin, Roughead and also midfielder Lewis are very important to Hawthorn, without them they don't win a premiership, so to say the Hawks did well in this top 10 is an understatement.
Deledio is a very good player, so it isn't like Richmond came out of the draft with nothing. Tambling actually improved a lot in 2008, he stopped tumbling like he used to and had a lot more of the football.
The Bulldogs have been afflicted with the constant unwarranted need to draft small. Like Deledio, Griffen is a very good player, but of course he isn't as good as Lance Franklin. The Bulldogs did go a bit taller with the oft-injured Williams, who they now believe could become the AFL's best "Franklin Stopper".
The other clubs drafting in this top 10 probably hear the word "bust". Meesen is now at Melbourne, and Adelaide don't seem to miss him. They actually used a couple of moves to turn Meesen into Moran, which is an improvement. Egan and Russell were not the best that Collingwood and Carlton could have done in this draft.
Trade week news and analysis is being posted at AllFooty.Info so visit there for all the trade week information, as well as a new mock draft after trade week moves the picks around.
2006
1 Bryce Gibbs - Carlton
2 Scott Gumbleton - Essendon
3 Lachlan Hansen - Kangaroos
4 Matthew Leuenberger - Brisbane
5 Travis Boak - Port Adelaide
6 Mitchell Thorp - Hawthorn
7 Joel Selwood - Geelong
8 Ben Reid - Collingwood
9 David Armitage - St Kilda
10 Nathan Brown - Collingwood
A lot of this draft is still about potential, but there are also some players who have already proven they will be among the elite of the AFL.
At the time, there was plenty of talk that if Joel Selwood had healthy knees he could be the top pick. Everyone now knows that is correct, and Geelong have a couple of trips to the Grand Final to show that Selwood was a great pick.
Gibbs, it must be said, was terrible in his first year of AFL. It can now be said, to the relief of those who picked him up the top of the draft, he has turned things around. Gibbs can get the ball a lot, and use it well, and Gibbs has also proven that he can go against other star midfielders and beat them. Boak was a bit of a suprise when the Power took him earlier than expected but he is delivering for them.
Leuenberger, Hansen, Reid and Gumbleton are still all about potential. It won't be long before Leuenberger is Brisbane's version of Dean Cox. Hansen seems to have settled into a defensive spot. Reid will probably step up when Rocca retires. Gumbleton has been injured a lot and has also signed a new contract so he should be a big part of their forward structure in the next year or two.
Thorp's problem was he was drafted by Hawthorn, who already have Franklin and Roughead. Thorp may need a trade, or a shift to the back line at the Hawks. Armitage's problem may be the coach at St Kilda. Armitage is kicking game-winning goals one week, and is a Casey Scorpion back in the VFL the next. In 2009, the Saints probably play him every week so he should get a chance to show if he deserved to be a top 10 pick.
The early rounds of season 2008 were all about Collingwood's Nathan Brown, how he was containing the AFL's star forwards but not getting a Rising Star nomination. Brown was also capable of kicking goals when switched to the other end of the ground. Collingwood did the correct thing when they went tall in this draft, and also for trading to get another top 10 pick to use.
It can take ruckman four years to reach their potential, and for key forwards in can be three or four years, so when this draft is looked at in a couple of years the results could be even better than they currently are.
The SuperCoach and Dream Team AFL fantasy games take a break now but there are a few other games to play.
There isn't anything for the NBL, as there barely is an NBL at the moment. Soccer fantasy isn't a lot of fun, as a 0 - 0 game doesn't provide many statistics, and soccer fantasy games don't bother counting diving, spitting or punching the referee.
For those who play SuperCoach, and go to the horse racing, there is now the Herald Sun TAB SuperStable game. SuperStable
Yahoo Sports have introduced a brand new live draft program, which provides a lot of information and also has a sound warning so you don't miss your pick. The NHL and NBA are going to start their seasons soon. NBA NHL
2007
1 Matthew Kreuzer - Carlton
2 Trent Cotchin - Richmond
3 Chris Masten - West Coast
4 Cale Morton - Melbourne
5 Jarrad Grant - Western Bulldogs
6 David Myers - Essendon
7 Rhys Palmer - Fremantle
8 Lachlan Henderson - Brisbane
9 Ben McEvoy - St Kilda
10 Patrick Dangerfield - Adelaide
It is too early to evaluate this draft, but the signs are looking good.
Everyone except the Bulldogs has a reason to be optimistic, and the Bulldogs still have a couple of years to see if their investment in Grant was the right thing to do. Henderson or McEvoy were expected to be considered at the Bulldogs pick, so the Bulldogs may have done the wrong thing. At least they went tall and that is something they should be commended for.
Kreuzer is a future superstar, even without waiting the three or four years that it takes for many ruckman to show what they can do. Kreuzer has height, skills, agility, co-ordination, running ability, kicks accurately for goal, but he was the top overall pick so it is expected that he will be good.
Palmer, Cotchin, Morton, Myers and Masten are all in their team's best 22 players. It won't be long before some of them are among the core group of stars at their clubs.
Patrick Dangerfield needs to have a big 2009, not for him but for the Adelaide people who didn't want Ebert.
2007 was also when the Hawks picked Rioli, just outside the top 10, so it was a great draft for many teams.
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