Searching For The Boom Recruit

I was asked the other night to write something on the AFL National Draft. Since others have already looked at the average number of games that each number draft pick can be expected to play, I thought I would look at the immediate impact that each of the top 10 draft picks can be expected to have. Here is a summary of what the top 10 draft picks over the past decade have done in the season after they were drafted:

Pick	Average Games	Median Games	Best
1	15.2	16.5	Brett Deledio/ Bryce Gibbs - 22
2	12.4	15.5	Paul Hasleby - 21
3	9.4	7.0	Chris Judd - 22
4	6.5	6.5	Matthew Pavlich - 18
5	10.0	9.0	Leigh Brown - 21
6	3.9	4.0	Steven Salopek - 9
7	7.0	4.5	Joel Selwood - 21
8	4.6	3.5	James Bartel/ Chris Tarrant - 11
9	3.5	2.0	Caydn Beetham/ Mark McVeigh - 9
10	4.1	4.0	Chris Egan - 13

Judging from these stats, Matthew Kreuzer (Carlton, No.1) and Trent Cotchin (Richmond, No.2) would be expected to be solid contributors next season. (Also, it's probably fair to say that the higher you are drafted, the lower the quality of competition there is at your club for senior places.) Picks 3 to 5 would be expected to be useful contributors, while picks 6 to 10 will probably only play a handful of games. As for the rest, while I imagine there will be your Alwyn Daveys and so forth, you can probably draw a line through most of them in 2008. But one can always hope that your team has the bolter.