Hawthorn not first club to make future draft pick trade error after giving away 2017 pick

HAWTHORN isn’t the first club to make a future draft pick trade blunder and it’s St Kilda gleefully holding the Hawk’s golden ticket, writes Jon Ralph.

St Kilda recruiter Tony Elshaug.

TONY Elshaug is the AFL’s Charlie Bucket.

The veteran St Kilda recruiting manager finds himself gleefully grasping the golden ticket as Hawthorn’s season implodes.

Charlie eventually got himself a chocolate factory and Elshaug hopes the gift he unwraps in November will be the AFL’s No.1 overall pick.

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In their haste to make a deal for Jaeger O’Meara the Hawks gave up everything in a draft-pick fire sale, including their 2017 first-round selection.

By rights they should have the first pick of the best young kids in the land, a privilege not afforded them since Luke Hodge in 2001.

That they have already given it away to St Kilda is more sobering than any other aspect of their era-ending losses.

St Kilda’s recruiting team (from left) Ameet Baines, Alan Richardson and Tony Elshaug with 2014 No.1 draft pick Paddy McCartin. Picture: Stephen Harman

It is so un-Hawthorn-like.

This is the club that tricked the Dockers into giving up their No.1 pick for Trent Croad, then got Croady back to play in a flag a few years later.

And recruited Shaun Burgoyne for pick nine and Mark Williams, then saw him turn into a superstar while Williams wasted his talent.

If this game is all about selling hope — as Gill McLachlan reinforced at this year’s season launch — how can clubs be allowed to repeatedly hand over their future first-round pick?

Because the plain facts are that every club that gives away a future first-round pick does so hoping their next season will be so brilliant it will minimise the damage.

And instead clubs like Hawthorn find that instead of giving away a pick somewhere around 15-18 it turns into a top-three pick.

Hawthorn recruit Jaeger O'Meara. Picture: Michael Klein

Hawk, turned Docker, turned Hawk Trent Croad.

Which club ever backs itself in to fail the next year?

The same ones that have pink unicorns and the Abominable Snowman playing in the midfield.

The AFL revealed recently that what had been thought a cut-and-dried rule — clubs using two first-rounders every four drafts — was in fact much more relaxed.

In effect there is nothing preventing them from trading future picks away every year.

A better rule would be allowing clubs to hand over a future first-round pick only once every three years.

Allow a club to package a future pick up if it will secure a once-in-a-generation player, but not just throw it at a flight of fancy.

The Hawks’ O’Meara deal isn’t the first real stinker of the future picks era.

The Tigers handed over a future second round-round pick in their haste to trade Chris Yarran in 2015, then plunged down the ladder last year.

Richmond gave up a future second-round pick for Chris Yarran. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

Yarran was gone by the time Gold Coast used that pick in the 2016 draft.

Collingwood gave up multiple picks for Adam Treloar — including a future first-rounder — then watched as that pick turned into the sixth selection of the 2016 draft.

The Suns also cashed in by handing over a second-rounder for Fremantle’s future second-round pick, then watched on in glee as Fremantle slumped down the ladder.

All the trading of future first-round picks does is push quick-fix solutions when playing the long game makes so much more sense.

Especially when Hawthorn’s last top-15 pick was a kid called Cyril Rioli (pick 12, 2007) and their past three top-five picks are Hodge, Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead.

The prospect of securing the colt in the top paddock has sustained the supporters of crap teams for decades.

Now the Hawks face the prospect of a year of turmoil and pain and no real way to change their fortunes in November’s national draft.