For the past few season we have heard media commentators and fans alike bang on about the recruiting of the Melbourne Football club. How their early draft picks “haven’t worked out” or “failed to live up to promise.” So I decided to quickly (did this all within an hour) troll through the drafts from 2007 – 2012 and see whom they could’ve picked instead. Now I’ve done this on the assumption that every other AFL club would pick the same player in their original position (eg if a club selected someone at 10 I couldn’t select them with pick #12.)

As you’ll see hindsight is a beautiful thing. Just ask the Melbourne football club recruiting team. In fairness, if we did this exercise with every club over the past 10 years we’d be able to find some player selections that just didn’t work out. So lets see how the past few drafts could’ve ended out for the Melbourne Football Club.

Year 2007 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked Selection #4 Cale Morton Patrick Dangerfield #14 Jack Grimes Harry Taylor #21 Adam Maric Scott Thompson #53 Kyle Cheney Tom Bellchambers Rookie Draft Trent Zomer

Austin Wonaeamirri

Jake Spencer

Shane Velenti Nathan Grima

Jared Petrenko

Pierce Hanley

Shane Mumford

Year 2008 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked Selection #1 Jack Watts Nic Naitanui #17 Sam Blease Dayne Beams #35 Jamie Bennell Rory Sloane #51 Neville Jetta Tom Rockliff Rookie Draft Jordan McKenzie

Daniel Hughes Jarryd Blair

Matthew Suckling

Year 2009 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked Selection # 1 Tom Scully Dustin Martin #2 Jack Trengrove Nathan Fyfe #11 Jordan Gysberts Lewis Jetta #18 Luke Tapscott Luke Ball #34 Max Gawn Allen Christensen #50 Jake Fitzpatrick Kyle Hardingham Rookie Draft Michael Newton

John Meesen Michael Barlow

James Podsiadly

Year 2010 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked Selection #12 Lucas Cook Jack Darling #33 Jeremy Howe Luke Parker #50 Troy Davis Paul Puopolo #53 Tom McDonald Alex Johnson Rookie Draft Dan Nicholson

Michael Evans

Kelvin Lawrence

Cameron Johnston

Robert Campbell

Tom McNamara Luke Dalhaus

Nick Lower

Ian Callinan

Jonathan Simpkin

Pass

Pass

Year 2011 Who they Picked Who They Should’ve Picked Selection #36 Rory Taggert Jack Newnes #52 Josh Tynan Jackson Paine #54 James Sellar Tory Dickson Rookie Draft Jai Sheehan

Tom Couch

James Magner

Leigh Williams Lee Spurr

Campbell Heath

Mark Baguley

Sam Gibson

Now imagine being Mark Neeld and knowing that last weekend if the Dees had drafted this way, then they’d line up something quite possibly along the lines of this.

B: Lower, Thompson, Johnson

HB: Hanley, Taylor, Suckling

C: Ball, Beams, Fyfe

HF: Martin, Podsiadly, Jetta

F: Blair, Naitinui, Darling

R: Mumford, Rockliff, Dangerfield

Int: Sloane, Barlow, Christensen, Parker

Players on the Fringe: Bellchambers, Grima, Dalhaus, Gibson, Spurr, Hardingham, Petrenko, Puopolo