After Jack Watts, Luke Hodge and Bryce Gibbs trades, 16 of 31 former No.1 picks have swapped clubs

WHEN a club holds the No.1 draft selection it gets the best player available, but is that really the case? After Jack Watts, Bryce Gibbs and Luke Hodge were traded this year, that makes a staggering number of former No.1 picks swapping clubs.

Of these former No.1 draft picks, only Matthew Kreuzer and Marc Murphy haven’t swapped clubs.

KEVIN Bartlett believes the only place more dangerous than Carlton’s forward line is Murder She Wrote’s Cabot Cove.

He argues in Cabot Cove there is a murder for Jessica Fletcher to solve every week, while at Carlton the leading goalscorer is almost always traded.

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Is it time to add the AFL’s No.1 draft pick to the list of places that is likely to get you traded?

For the next month we will speculate over the likely top draft selection — is it Cam Rayner? — and wonder at his potential to transform a football club.

But take a deeper dive and you wonder if pick No.1 remains a poisoned chalice all these years on from Anthony Banik and Richard Lounder.

Jack Watts with Melbourne legend Ron Barassi soon after joining the Demons with pick No.1 in the national draft.

As pointed out by Herald Sun reader John Iozzi, more than half of the AFL’s 31 No.1 picks have eventually moved clubs — 16 in all.

Last week three of them moved in the space of 72 hours — Jack Watts, Bryce Gibbs and Luke Hodge.

From players selected in 1991 to 2009, 15 of 19 players moved clubs or were traded, with only a failed medical keeping Matthew Kreuzer at Carlton.

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Even some players who became stars like Hodge, Tom Scully and Jon Patton had to deal with a turbulent apprenticeship and savage early criticism.

Jack Watts and Nick Riewoldt are very far apart in achievements and temperament.

But both have provided a jarring reminder this week about the price you pay as a No.1 pick.

Watts, traded to Port Adelaide after nine years of mediocrity, goes without ever living up to that tag.

Of these former No.1 draft picks, only Matthew Kreuzer and Marc Murphy haven’t swapped clubs.

“I have heard him say, ‘I wish I was pick 48 sometimes,’ a typically blunt Demons chief executive Peter Jackson told SEN on Tuesday.

“And that’s the calibre of player he’s been. He hasn’t been the No.1 draft pick. His performances and stats don’t indicate he was a No.1 draft pick and if he wasn’t there wouldn’t be that pressure on him.”

Nick Riewoldt speaks in his biography of the suffocating spotlight that came with being a young star and No.1 pick.

He says to avoid interacting with people he would pull up at the traffic lights half a car-length back from the next car to avoid eye contact.

He received death threats, had his house egged and found he was totally uncomfortable in many group situations.

Nick Riewoldt is one of the few former No.1 picks not to switch clubs.

Nick Riewoldt retired at the end of the 2017 season a one-club player.

He would leave via the back entrance to avoid signing autographs after training, overwhelmed by the burden.

“I find it really hard to be in a group of people I don’t know. I saw someone for a while about helping me through that stuff,” he writes.

As drafting has become a more exact science, the glare of being the first pick has never dulled.

Tom Boyd and Patrick McCartin will spend the summer with questions over their ability to carry or contribute to improving forward lines.

David Swallow has never quite lived up to his early promise, injury contributed to Jacob Weitering’s second-year blues.

The best No.1 picks are exceptional, but history shows you the player Brisbane calls out on November 24 is very much a 50-50 proposition.