This is spurred on by the farkwit Essendon supporters at the game on Sunday, calling us a bunch of over-rated number one draft picks. They were quite vocal and deliberate in targeting several St Kilda players - to which I responded, I'd do the same to them if I knew who their team of nobodies were!
I've collated the draft history of our 22 from Sunday. For traded players, I've used the number that WE used to obtain said player, what WE gave up. In some cases - for example, Gardiner and Ray - this works in our favour. In others - eg, Schnieder and McQualter - it doesn't.
For rookie drafted players I've simply added 70 draft picks to their figure. That is, 13 in the rookie draft equals 83 overall. The addition of 70 is arbitrary but if used as a constant when comparing with other teams, sound.
I realise there are a few methods you could use go about this, but this is my preliminary attempt.
RESULTS:
Blake – 24
Dawson – 83
Ball – 2
Goddard – 1
Roo – 1
Kosi – 2
Joey – 37
Hayes - 11
S Fisher – 55
Gilbert – 33
Gardiner – 43
King – 94
Jones – 79
McQualter – 17
Baker – 27
Milne – 93
Schnieder – 26
Geary – 128
Gwilt – 63
Dal – 13
Ray – 31
Gram - 23
Now, the math.
The average draft pick AGE of our team on Sunday - according to the above figures, divided by 22 - was 40.27.
I would suggest a combination of very smart recruiting and a few early draft picks is in combination here, resulting in a team that is travelling pretty bloody nicely.
Interesting to see the results of similar survey from other teams - especially ESSENDON, Carlton and Hawthorn.
