St Kilda 2007 List + Rookies + Departures - Recruiting Story

[SaintBot]

Given all the debating about how good or bad our recruiting has been over the years iv decided to put down the list and let everyone see just how bad/good we have drafted/traded over the years.

The players are listed in numerical order, the rookies are not included.

Each player has their own little profile, they work like this.

Players Name - When and How Selected - The five next draft selections from the pick in question + the next best player within eleven picks of the selection in question (optional) - Summary - Verdict

This took me quite a few days to do so there may be a few mistakes, please dont hesitate to point them out.

The point? How do you think we have done in recruiting? The facts are in front of you.

Enjoy and please discuss...


Main List

Jason Gram – Traded by Brisbane in 2003 for Draft Selection #23 – Matthew Moody (#23), Chad Jones (#24), Harry Miller (#25), Daniel McConnell (#26), Adam Campbell (#27) & Jed Adcock (#33) – The quality of the draft picks throughout the second round were quickly diminishing and luck was really the only way you were able to get a kid who would become a good player. Jason Gram, despite taking a year or two to finally hit it, is now one of St Kilda’s most valuable and exciting players. Excellent Trade.


Aaron Hamill – Traded by Carlton in 2000 for Sam Cranage and Draft Selection #4 – Luke Livingston (#4), Andrew McDougall (#5), Dylan Smith (#6), Laurence Angwin (#7), Daniel Motlop (#8) & Shaun Burgoyne (#12) – The Saints had already had two very early picks in #1 and #2 with Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke already joining the team so it made sense to trade an un-needed early pick for one of the better and stronger players in the league. Hamill went on to captain the Saints for a year and was considered one of the toughest players in the league before injuries cut him down. The quality after pick #4 was pretty inconsistent. Sam Cranage wasn’t any sort of loss either. Very Good Trade.


Xavier Clarke – Picked with Draft Selection #5 in 2001 – Ashley Sampi (#6), David Hale (#7), Jimmy Bartel (#8), Luke Molan (#9) and Sam Power (#10) – Having already picked Luke Ball the Saints perhaps wanted to secure some x-factor in Xavier Clarke. Having so much potential adds up to nothing if you are unable to keep injury free and in six seasons Xavier has still yet to reach 100 games. There were still some quality players available, most notably Jimmy Bartel (#8). Average Pick.


Andrew Thompson – Picked with Draft Selection #62 in 1996 – Jason Baldwin (#63), Darren Collins (#64), Brad Cassidy (#65), Paul Hills (#66), Byron Pickett (#67) and Russell Robertson (#68) – Thompson was a very mature recruit at 24 years of age which makes it even more astounding that he lasted a good 6 years and 61 Draft Selections until the Saints picked him up. Ended up going on to play 221 games and retired in round 22 this year after ten years of service. Had we not picked Thompson the only players with any sort of value left were Byron Pickett and Russell Robertson. Excellent Pick.


Fergus Watts – Traded By Adelaide in 2005 for Draft Selection #17 – Darren Pfeiffer (#17), Max Bailey (#18), Coutenay Dempsey (#19), Paul Bower (#20), Danny Stanely (#21) and Cleve Hughes (#24) – Watts was recruited as the replacement for Gehrig, now that that time has arrived it is time to see whether this trade was a worthwhile risk. Even if Watts doesn’t work out we didn’t lose much, as the 2005 draft was one of the weakest in a while. Ok Trade.


Leigh Fisher – Picked with Draft Selection #46 in 2002 – Bill Nicholls (#47), Greg Edgcumbe (#48), Cameron Wright (#49), Josh Thewis (#50), Tim Boyle (#51) and Adam Selwood (#53) – Fisher despite missing two years of footballs with one of the worst possible injuries, the hamstring being torn off the bone, has been an above average back pocket for the Saints. Apart from Tim Boyle and Adam Selwood the talent was begin to subside when Fisher was picked. This year he added to the midfield rotation as a tagger. Good Pick.


Lenny Hayes – Picked with Draft Selection #11 in 1998 – Adam Ramanauskas (#12), Chris Lamb (#13), Luke Penny (#14), Brady Rawlings (#15), Brett Burton (#16) and Nick Davis (#19) – Arguably the best player picked in the 1998 National Draft, amazingly Hayes was outside the top ten. Was the Saints captain during the 2004 season when they won ten games straight and is currently one of the three co-captains. One of the Saints best midfielders. Would at least be one of the top 5 players from the 1998 National Draft, which was no weak draft either. Excellent Pick.


Max Hudghton – Picked with Draft Selection #15 in 1996 – Pat Steinfort (#16), Rowan Warfe (#17), Gerrad Bennett (#18), Brent Tuckey (#19), Matthew Dent (#20) and Josh Wooden (#24) – As you can see, Hudghton has clearly turned out the best out of all the picks that were immediately after him. Has been the best fullback we have had since Frawley. Excellent Pick.


Fraser Gehrig – Traded by West Coast in 2000 for David Sierakowski and Draft Selection #18 – Daniel Kerr (#18), Kane Cornes (#20), Nick Ries (#21), Richard Hadley (#22), Drew Petrie (#23) and Mark Coughlan (#25) – Daniel Kerr/Kane Cornes/a fit Mark Coughlan or Fraser Gehrig? Gehrig is finished after seven years of excellent service but Cornes and Kerr have also been extremely valuable for their respected clubs and will continue to be for another 5+ seasons. You could argue however that a key position player is more valuable than a midfielder and that the Saints may not have been able to cover the key forward post without Gehrig. This deal is a great example of both sides winning. Great Trade.


Steven Baker – Picked with Draft Selection #27 in 1998 – Heath James (#28), Tyson Stenglein (#29), Gary Dhurrkay (#31), David Gallagher (#32), Craig Bolton (#33) and Brendan Fevola (#38) – You can’t lose with a guy like Baker. He can hold his head high for being picked as a 2nd rounder in a very strong draft. Great Pick.


Leigh Montagna – Picked with Draft Selection #37 in 2001 – Ashley Hansen (#38), Justin Davies (#39), Henry Playfair (#41), Kieran McGuiness (#42), Mark McGough (#43) and Andrew Welsh (#47) – Now looks to have been a great pick with Montagna really showing his worth in the midfield. The remainder of round 3 in the 2001 draft was fairly weak so to have landed Montagna is a terrific get. Excellent Pick.


Nick Riewoldt – Picked with Draft Selection #1 in 2000 – Justin Koschitzke (#2), Alan Didak (#3), Luke Livingston (#4), Andrew McDougall (#5) and Dylan Smith (#6) – Clearly the best player taken in the draft, yet alone in the top ten. Riewoldt was a safe selection which has worked out brilliantly. Excellent Pick.


Brett Voss – Picked with Pre-Season Draft Selection #1 in 2001 – Chad Rintoul (#2), Troy Wilson (#3), Simon Eastaugh (#4), Chris Ladams (#5), Stephen Tingay (#6) and Nick Gill (#10) – Voss had an excellent restart to his career at the Saints, distinguishing himself as a courageous half back flanker. With no other talent left up for grabs Voss was a pretty obvious pick for the Pre-Season Draft. Excellent Pick.


Luke Ball – Picked with Draft Selection #2 in 2001 – Chris Judd (#3), Graham Polak (#4), Xavier Clarke (#5), Ashley Sampi (#6), David Hale (#7) and Jimmy Bartel (#8) – Whilst no St Kilda supporter should be complaining about the selection of Luke Ball at #2 there is some questions as to why he was selected before Chris Judd. The news at the time was that the Eagles were set on picking Polak, Fremantle on Sampi which would’ve left Ball for selection #5. Never the less apart from Hodge, Bartel and Judd, Ball has been the best performing player selected in the top ten and this is with an on going battle with injuries. Great Pick.


Michael Gardiner – Traded by West Coast with Draft Selection #59 for Draft Selection #43 – Tim Houlihan (#43), Brad Dick (#44), Brennan Stack (#45), Colin Garland (#46), Kyle Reimers (#47) and Brock O’Brien (#52) – StKilda desperately needed a ruckman and the disgruntled West Coast Eagle former All Australian ruckman answered. Considering the Saints received a slightly later pick with the trade they didn’t lose anything. Good Trade.


Raph Clarke – Picked with Draft Selection #8 in 2003 – David Trotter (#9), Ryley Dunn (#10), Beau Waters (#11), Ryan Murphy (#12) and Brent Stanton (#13) – I do wonder whether Raph would’ve still been selected even if we didn’t have Xavier on our list. Beau Waters and Brent Stanton have both been solidly in their team’s first 22 for a few years now where else Raphael is still struggling to keep both his legs attached to his body. Average Pick.


Aaron Fiora – Traded by Richmond in 2004 for Heath Black– Considering StKilda had no input in the trade as Heath Black was walking anyway we were lucky to have received anything at all. After a few years of frustration, Fiora seems to have finally begun to click. Good Trade.


Brendon Goddard – Picked with Draft Selection #1 in 2002 – Daniel Wells (#2), Jared Brennan (#3), Tim Walsh (#4), Jared McVeigh (#5), Steven Salopek (#6) and Hamish McIntosh (#9) – Easy choice at first pick which for a few years seemed like a disaster but Goddard has eventually started to live up to his potential and is now a required player by St Kilda. Great Pick.


Sam Gilbert – Picked with Draft Selection #33 in 2005 – Matthew Spangher (#34), Stephen Owen (#35), Jake Edwards (#36), John Anthony (#37) and Travis Casserly (#38) – Clearly one of John Beveridge’s brightest moments, spotting out Gilbert in a rather talent-less field. After taking only one year to develop, Sam Gilbert has become one of the Saints favourite players and most important. Excellent Pick.


David Armitage – Picked with Draft Selection #9 in 2006 – Nathan Brown (#10), Andrejs Everitt (#11), James Frawley (#12), Jack Riewoldt (#13) and James Sellar (#14) – Yet to find his spot in the senior side but he is not alone, most of the second half of the first round selections have yet to really hit it on with their respected clubs. Armitage however has shown more than Sam Gilbert in his first year so there is a good chance that the fellow Queenslander could have a “Gilbertâ€

[Mr Magic]

Congrats SaintBot.
A very detailed and informative post.

[older saint]

Very harsh on some:
* You rate Howard an Below Average pick after 1 year when the boy weighs 70 Kilo dripping wet, yet after 3 seasons McQaulter is listed as Average . Give the boy some time please
* You are very kind on Sweeney too

Otherwise a very detailed review.
Do you have too much spare time on your hands?

[plugger66]

You cannot be serious about Jason Blake. Rate it as a terrible pick and he has played about 100 games. Dont worry who was picked after him. Did all the guys before play as many as Blakey. I doubt it very much. Not very nice to a loyal Saints player who puts in every week even if he is no star.

[Bowey Boy]

Excellent Post this one !!

Actually puts the recruitment dept in a pretty good light. I think Blake should have been rated as an "Average" (in the true sense of the word), pick. He is no champion but he really is no dud either (true!!).

I think Fergus Watts may become another Brooks. The Saints should tell him to perform this year or Bye Bye. I don't want him taking up a spot for years but recognise his need for recovery from injury.

Raph Clarke - 2008 will determine, we may all be pleasantly surprised if he stays injury free.

I am not sure that Luke Ball would be classed as a "great" pick but clearly still very good.

Gardiner - stay tuned - I presume that he has signed his new contract??

[Oh When the Saints]

Outstanding post.

Really it is only Mini and Ferguson who have been disappointing as high picks, and there is still certainly time for Mini to come good.


What it says is that everyone on our list, apart from a couple, were pretty good draft/trade selections.

Would be interested to see how the "much talked about" Ackland, Guerra and McGough stack up in the same way SaintBot.


Good post.

[meher baba]

Excellent post.

It would be good if it could be expanded to include the ones who have been and gone in the last 6 or so years (Guerra, Powell, Penny, Murray, McGough, Ackland, etc. If I get time in the next day or two, I will do this myself.

It puts the whole recruitment story in the right perspective. Really, as I have been saying for months, those who keep bleating on about how bad our recruitment has been over the past few years just don't have a clue IMO.

Bevo has done, on the whole, an excellent job. You wouldn't find a better net result by trawling through the same history at other clubs.

Indeed, I think you have been too harsh at various points: eg, passing over Kerr and Cornes to recruit Gehrig was not just maybe the right choice, it was definitely so. The sons of SA and WA legends are always going to be hard to keep at a Vic club: the risk is not worth the effort IMO.

Likewise: seriously, what could we have done with picks 63 and 71 in 2005 except use them for Raymond and Sweeney? We presumably couldn't have traded those picks, and we were obliged to recruit two players, so what on earth were we to do? Having to pick these two players up was simply a case of our being penalised for our success: which is fine, given how well we had previously done in the draft out of our earlier failures. Like you, I think we might have made a mistake in letting Sweeney go: time will tell.

Re Brooks: yes, the decision looks bad with the benefit of hindsight, although people at the Kangas would have been saying the same thing about McIntosh until quite recently. People forget that Brooks looked really good before he injured himself badly in 2003: it isn't true that he had never done anything when we recruited. He has never been the same since that terrible injury.

But these are minor quibbles about a post that is on the whole very thoughtful and balanced. Well done.

[markinUSA]

Thank you for this post. It was really interesting and informative. I didn't know a lot of the details you discussed; and it was obvious you've done a lot of hard work and research on it.

Thanks!

[Trunch]

Excellent post! Thanks for your hard work and research on this topic. Just when I was feeling so down and jealous of Geelong. The Brooks selection stands out for me. Given the weeks events Bartel ahead of X.Clarke would of been nice too.

It appears Bevo has done an extremly good job given the resources he has had at his disposal.

Thanks again.

[saintsRrising]

Nick Riewoldt – Picked with Draft Selection #1 in 2000 – Justin Koschitzke (#2), Alan Didak (#3), Luke Livingston (#4), Andrew McDougall (#5) and Dylan Smith (#6) – Clearly the best player taken in the draft, yet alone in the top ten. Riewoldt was a safe selection which has worked out brilliantly. Excellent Pick.

A good read.....and good information.

However I am not sure about all the all the ratings realative to the worth of the pick.

The rating as I read it is the rating of how much value we achieved for a pick....ie the performance of our recruiting.

ie Roo...yes is an excellent and oustanding player.

But if we are rating the actual pick....based on where the pick was and what it was worth. Then with pick 1....Roo was an obvious pick...It was not an excellent pick as it should always have been the pick. So this gets a pass mark.

History tells us that the sam Fisher pick was by contrast an excellent pick because we obtained a player of much greater worth than the pick position.


History also tell us now that with Ball ( even ignoring his injury) that we erred. We knew Judd was the better player at the time and tried to be too smart and it backired. so this should rate asa poor pick.

Some try and justify the selection by saying that WC did not pick as we wnated to...and that WC had said that they would take Ball..and not Judd.

WTF...WC right royally suckered us and we stuffed up big time.



Also with Mini...why is he an average pick???? At present he is not AFL standard...and fora pick 17 this reads =failure.

Pick for the moment would have to be rated as poor.


Now with Mini....i think he is symptomatic of a lot of our young recruits...NOT NOUGH player development has been undertaken. The gifted players like Sam Fisher have come through....whereas the ones that really need to work at their game and be developed have not.

I would also put X in this basket...he is much more talented than Mini...but dsperately needs more player development and confidence.


Fiora is rated as a good trade. Now yes he is starting to bloom. but we lost Heath Black....so this as a TRADE surely could only be rated as a fair to below average trade if you are examing the pros and cons of the trade...and not just looking at the player.

blake should not be rated asa terrible pick......should be rated an average pick, or slightly below avearge...ceratainly nota terrible pick.

[SaintBot]

Very harsh on some:
* You rate Howard an Below Average pick after 1 year when the boy weighs 70 Kilo dripping wet, yet after 3 seasons McQaulter is listed as Average . Give the boy some time please
* You are very kind on Sweeney too

Otherwise a very detailed review.
Do you have too much spare time on your hands?

had howard been a later selection, which i believe he couldve been, then pehaps i would be more lenient - really, to be selected around names such as petterd and davey, and to show less than every single one of our rookies i consider that to be below average - im not so much disputing the player, but more the pick that he was taken with...


i believe sweeney has showed great signs, especially for someone selected with the final selection in the draft...kicks 2-5 goals in pretty much every game in the vfl but has robbed himself with poor attitude


to much time on my hands? probably...beats studying i must say!

[Falchoon]

Aaron Hamill – Traded by Carlton in 2000 for Sam Cranage and Draft Selection #4 – Luke Livingston (#4), Andrew McDougall (#5), Dylan Smith (#6), Laurence Angwin (#7), Daniel Motlop (#8) & Shaun Burgoyne (#12) – The Saints had already had two very early picks in #1 and #2 with Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke already joining the team so it made sense to trade an un-needed early pick for one of the better and stronger players in the league. Hamill went on to captain the Saints for a year and was considered one of the toughest players in the league before injuries cut him down. The quality after pick #4 was pretty inconsistent. Sam Cranage wasn’t any sort of loss either. Very Good Trade.

Bear in mind we traded D Wakelin for pick 4.

Wakelin has been more than servicable at P.A.

[SaintBot]

You cannot be serious about Jason Blake. Rate it as a terrible pick and he has played about 100 games. Dont worry who was picked after him. Did all the guys before play as many as Blakey. I doubt it very much. Not very nice to a loyal Saints player who puts in every week even if he is no star.

maybe a tad harsh as im absouletly no fan of blake...

but

can you imagine if we hadve selected some of the other names that were still available: Chapman, Giansiracusa, Ling, Hille, Gilbee, Enright, Bateman, O'Keefe, etc - there was still plenty of talent left in that draft yet we end up with a guy with no real clear skills and doesnt add much to the team

pehaps to harsh but it certainly isnt a selection to write home about

this will hopefully answer the other blake posts

[SaintBot]

It would be good if it could be expanded to include the ones who have been and gone in the last 6 or so years (Guerra, Powell, Penny, Murray, McGough, Ackland, etc. If I get time in the next day or two, I will do this myself.

Would be interested to see how the "much talked about" Ackland, Guerra and McGough stack up in the same way SaintBot..

give me a bit of time today and ill try to give it a shot

[bigcarl]

fantastic post saintbot. must have taken you a lot of research to go into such detail.

on the whole our recruiting/trading has been good.

sure there have been some mistakes but the same could be said of every club because no-one can tell the future.

there is an element of lottery with every choice.

imo you were a little hard on blake. been a solid regular contributer for several years now. a durable and under rated player

[vacuous space]

had howard been a later selection, which i believe he couldve been, then pehaps i would be more lenient - really, to be selected around names such as petterd and davey, and to show less than every single one of our rookies i consider that to be below average - im not so much desputing the player, but more the pick that he was taken with...

It's hardly surprising that our rookies outperformed Howard in 07. They were better players than Howard in 06 as well. The thing is that Howard has a combination of elite speed and elite endurance that nobody in the draft had, let alone Eddy and Geary. JB obviously thinks his footy will improve enough to make him a better player than anyone available at that point. It was never going to happen in one season though.

[SaintBot]

Indeed, I think you have been too harsh at various points: eg, passing over Kerr and Cornes to recruit Gehrig was not just maybe the right choice, it was definitely so. The sons of SA and WA legends are always going to be hard to keep at a Vic club: the risk is not worth the effort IMO.

Likewise: seriously, what could we have done with picks 63 and 71 in 2005 except use them for Raymond and Sweeney? We presumably couldn't have traded those picks, and we were obliged to recruit two players, so what on earth were we to do? Having to pick these two players up was simply a case of our being penalised for our success: which is fine, given how well we had previously done in the draft out of our earlier failures. Like you, I think we might have made a mistake in letting Sweeney go: time will tell.

Re Brooks: yes, the decision looks bad with the benefit of hindsight, although people at the Kangas would have been saying the same thing about McIntosh until quite recently. People forget that Brooks looked really good before he injured himself badly in 2003: it isn't true that he had never done anything when we recruited. He has never been the same since that terrible injury.

Yes, i agree that Gehrig was absouletly the correct decsision but kerr, cornes, coughlan and even charman will have at the very least 5 more seasons in the afl, whereelse gehrig is finished after seven seasons - i agree that we wouldve been trash in the past few years had we not had gehrig so i rate the trade highly


as for the late picks, i can hardly rate Raymond as 'good' can i? yes he was taken extremly late and yes we lost nothing except a spot on the list for him but he has shown nothing to rate him on


true, brooks showed good signs before his injury but surely an injury doesnt damage the brains of a footballer...sure he might have a little less confidence but what he showed us in his game in tasmania against port adelaide was the most depressing thing i have ever seen...at one stage he was sheparding one of our players out of a marking contest to allow matt primus to take an uncontested grab - one of my worst memories as a saint supporter

[sasaint]

SaintBot, a very good post. Support your comments on Howard 100% and no doubt like you hope that Bevo is proved right and he becomes a steal ay pick 2.

[saintsRrising]

SaintBot I realise that you probaly excluded Rookies as time was short.


But as we were about the worst performing club in this reagrd this by itself skews the assessment of the recruiting.

Remember that WC in their last GF win had I think about SEVEN players from rookies system in their team including two that have won AA honours.


Add say that SEVEN players into our current team.......minus say Milne...and the quality and depth of the team would be substantially better.

Now admitedly WC are top of the pile in this regard.... but even with say 3 or 4 rookies our list COULD have beena lot better.

[SaintBot]

ie Roo...yes is an excellent and oustanding player.

But if we are rating the actual pick....based on where the pick was and what it was worth. Then with pick 1....Roo was an obvious pick...It was not an excellent pick as it should always have been the pick. So this gets a pass mark.


History also tell us now that with Ball ( even ignoring his injury) that we erred. We knew Judd was the better player at the time and tried to be too smart and it backired. so this should rate asa poor pick.



Also with Mini...why is he an average pick???? At present he is not AFL standard...and fora pick 17 this reads =failure.


Fiora is rated as a good trade. Now yes he is starting to bloom. but we lost Heath Black....so this as a TRADE surely could only be rated as a fair to below average trade if you are examing the pros and cons of the trade...and not just looking at the player.

i have to rate Riewoldt's selection as an excellent pick, even though it was common sense...the recruiting team couldve tried and been different and gone for didak instead so we have to applaud the fact that riewoldt has become the best player from that draft


I agree we made a mistake with the ball selection however it isnt so much the selection of ball that we erred with...its more the fact that we passed on judd - compared to the likes of fremantle (who selected polak) we did alright with ball...and imagine if he had remained injury free, he could easy have been as good as judd

maybe i was a tad to nice on mini...there wasnt a whole lot of talent still remaining but there were some names who i would rather, most notably rosa, prismall and polo

i agree fiora for black was a rightly screwed trade for us but we were lucky to have got anything for black as he was set to just walk off to fremantle...hopefully fiora can continue to improve and eventually over take black

[SaintBot]

SaintBot I realise that you probaly excluded Rookies as time was short.


But as we were about the worst performing club in this reagrd this by itself skews the assessment of the recruiting.

Remember that WC in their last GF win had I think about SEVEN players from rookies system in their team including two that have won AA honours.


Add say that SEVEN players into our current team.......minus say Milne...and the quality and depth of the team would be substantially better.

Now admitedly WC are top of the pile in this regard.... but even with say 3 or 4 rookies our list COULD have beena lot better.

im willing to do a bit of work on that also...the rookie drafts are a bit harder to find info on and if you look at the time that i posted the o.p i was pretty keen just to finish it and post it up

will look at rookies and other recent trades/recruitments that have happened

[saintsRrising]

The other point I would makes is that if you look at our recruiting in periods of time..then you get a different perspective.

Look at it after Blightlotto (GTrain , Hamill etc), Draftlotto ( Roo, Kosi etc) and Cheatlotto (BJ) and you enter a period of underperformance on recruiting.

We had an outstanding list...but then frittered it away rather than continue to build it.

This is why many really question how good our recruiting has been...it is beacuse we squandered what should have been.

We should have had the best list in the competition....but do not.


in life many Lotto winners squander what they have won and end up often no better off.


We were like most Lotto winners....we thought that we would be (player) rich forever......and squander some of player capital.

Now luckily we still have much of it...but with Gtrain, Powell, Thommo, Hamill, Penny, Jones...all gone we have to work hard and smart to rebuild our player cpaital....and to work very hard our existing player capital (player development and conditioning).

Ross has a hard task...and not the gimme" that some mistakenly believe.

[skeptic]

Jason Gram – Traded by Brisbane in 2003 for Draft Selection #23 – Matthew Moody (#23), Chad Jones (#24), Harry Miller (#25), Daniel McConnell (#26), Adam Campbell (#27) & Jed Adcock (#33)

Clear winner

Aaron Hamill – Traded by Carlton in 2000 for Sam Cranage and Draft Selection #4 – Luke Livingston (#4), Andrew McDougall (#5), Dylan Smith (#6), Laurence Angwin (#7), Daniel Motlop (#8) & Shaun Burgoyne (#12)

I like Hamil but ouch

Xavier Clarke – Picked with Draft Selection #5 in 2001 – Ashley Sampi (#6), David Hale (#7), Jimmy Bartel (#8), Luke Molan (#9) and Sam Power (#10)

Bartel would be nice

Andrew Thompson – Picked with Draft Selection #62 in 1996 – Jason Baldwin (#63), Darren Collins (#64), Brad Cassidy (#65), Paul Hills (#66), Byron Pickett (#67) and Russell Robertson (#68)

Done well but Pickett would have been better

Fergus Watts – Traded By Adelaide in 2005 for Draft Selection #17 – Darren Pfeiffer (#17), Max Bailey (#18), Coutenay Dempsey (#19), Paul Bower (#20), Danny Stanely (#21) and Cleve Hughes (#24)

I'd still say we're the winners there

Fraser Gehrig – Traded by West Coast in 2000 for David Sierakowski and Draft Selection #18 – Daniel Kerr (#18), Kane Cornes (#20), Nick Ries (#21), Richard Hadley (#22), Drew Petrie (#23) and Mark Coughlan (#25)

Fair enough but in hindsight both Kane Cornes and Kerr would be of more use to us

Steven Baker – Picked with Draft Selection #27 in 1998 – Heath James (#28), Tyson Stenglein (#29), Gary Dhurrkay (#31), David Gallagher (#32), Craig Bolton (#33) and Brendan Fevola (#38)

Big win, prefer Baker to that lot

Raph Clarke – Picked with Draft Selection #8 in 2003 – David Trotter (#9), Ryley Dunn (#10), Beau Waters (#11), Ryan Murphy (#12) and Brent Stanton (#13)

Could very well be the best of the lot

Aaron Fiora

Much better player than Heath Black

Matthew Ferguson – Jared Rivers (#26)

That stings

Jason Blake – Picked with Draft Selection #24 in 1999 – Brett Johnson (#25), Cain Ackland (#27), Brent Guerra (#28), Adam Hunter (#29), Paul Chapman (#31) and Daniel Giansiracusa (#32)

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Matthew Clarke

would have preferred Cloak

[Ghost Like]

Absolutely fantastic post SaintBot, a power of work for a great read. I'll admit I may have been a tad harsh on Beveridge in the past, especially after last season when my mate's son (a mad saints supporter) was overlooked...but I'm slowly building my bridge. He has done alright with a few anomalies and I'm sure quite a few less anomalies than some othet clubs, so thanks JB.

We can imagine what it would be like to have our list filled with players we overlooked in the belief we were picking the right player at the time but as the reference to 'lotto' suggests it is an exercise in frustration and one of life's great teases, not a lot unlike 'Goldfingers'!

[SaintBot]

ok im going to add Jayden Attard, Robert Eddy, Jarryn Geary, Clinton Jones, Luke Van Rheenen, James Wall as rookies - are there any delisted rookies anyone would like looked at? chris oliver, brett moyle? ill only do those two if anyone asks...dont hesitate to

and of the former players ill look at: mark mcgough, cain ackland, craig callaghan, brent guerra, stephen powell, luke penny, trent knoble, heath black, josh houlihan, steven laurence and matt capulano...any others of interest?

let me know