SA Footy

On my way to the zephyr club tonight I was listening to 5AA and a question was put to listeners, I didn't get to hear the answer and am hoping someone in here may have or knows the answer anyway!

The question was, "Which is the most recent player to make it at AFL level that came through the Juniors at Central"?

Complete Guess......

Daniel Menzel ? Travis Varcoe ?

Menzel?

Think Menzel was a Port junior

Benny Nason was a Port junior.......but wasn't good enough

Answer is Daniel Menzel, who was drafted to Geelong last year...

Daniel was a Golden Grove junior and came through the Central Underage and reserves system (was close to making his league debut in 2009) and made his AFL debut this year.

Was the question make it onto a list, or make the grade?

Ben Nason, will make it smart ass, God some of you lot need to pull ya pants down so we can hear what your saying.

John Platten.

Strange question. Normally those sorts of questions asked on 5aa are motivated by ulterior motives, but the club has a reasonable recent record of their juniors making it as AFL players. Far from the best in the SANFL, but certainly not bad. Menzel the last to make it onto a list that I can think of, but if you mean made the grade as in performed at the level then Hurn and Varcoe could both fit the bill.

Other Central players that have come through the Doggies Underage system and have gone on to play and have varying levels of success at AFL level in the last decade include:

2000 - Paul Thomas (Adelaide*)
2001 - Adam Switala (Essendon*)
2002 - Cameron Faulkner (Western Bulldogs)
2003 - Brad Symes (Port Power), Jay Nash (Essendon), Sam Butler (West Coast), Eddie Sansbury (Kangaroos)
2004 - Paul Thomas (Essendon)
2005 - Shannon Hurn (West Coast), Travis Varcoe (Geelong), Jon Giles (Port Power)
2006 - Alan Obst (Adelaide*), Justin Westhoff (Port Power)
2007 - Matthew Westhoff (Port Power), Alan Obst (Kangaroos)
2009 - Daniel Menzel (Geelong)


A few other Central players drafted but failed to play a senior AFL game include:

2003 - Dylan Pfitzner (St Kilda*), Adrian Wilson (Essendon*)
2007 - James Moss (Adelaide*)
2008 - Adam Varcoe (Geelong*)

* Rookie listed

Also, Central had a couple of other players drafted into the AFL after playing league football for the Dogs without coming through their underage systems:

2004 - Elijah Ware (Port Power) - Elijah didn't play Underage with the Dogs, starting in the reserves initially when he came down from Port Pirie back in 2003. He then forced his way into Central's league which led to him beingf drafted, making his AFL debut for the Power in 2006 although he only played 2 games.

2007 - Nathan Grima (Kangaroos*) - After playing in a league Premiership for the Dogs in 07, his first season with the club after being recruited over from Tasmania, Nathan was rookie listed by North Melbourne eventually being promoted to their senior list and making his AFL debut in 2009 with 13 games and 17 this year.

2009 - Ben Nason (Richmond) - As Mr Irate mentioned above, Ben was to by the Magpies that he wasn't good / big enough to play league football, Ben transferred to the Dogs at the start of 2009 and was then obviously drafted to Richmond this year where he played 19 games in his debut AFL season.

Adam Switala was also on Essendon's rookie list for 00-01.

Jon Giles.

The majority answer is surely .. "Who cares"??

The business of winning premierships is the highest priority by a mile .. If you can elevate a squad member here and there thats all nice and fluffy, but it's the business of winning flags that should count.

SpionKopster wrote:Was the question make it onto a list, or make the grade?

Ben Nason, will make it smart ass, God some of you lot need to pull ya pants down so we can hear what your saying.

As usual you completely miss the point.......Ben Nason wasn't good enough for Port Adelaide, hence why he went to CDFC (read it a few times so you can digest it )......

In terms of being a smart arse you're about 50% there.......

Constance_Perm wrote:The majority answer is surely .. "Who cares"??

The business of winning premierships is the highest priority by a mile .. If you can elevate a squad member here and there thats all nice and fluffy, but it's the business of winning flags that should count.

Yep, it sounds like a sour-grapes question to me...

fish wrote:

Constance_Perm wrote:The majority answer is surely .. "Who cares"??

The business of winning premierships is the highest priority by a mile .. If you can elevate a squad member here and there thats all nice and fluffy, but it's the business of winning flags that should count.

Yep, it sounds like a sour-grapes question to me...

I wish I heard the context as to how and why it was raised.

sjt wrote:

fish wrote:

Constance_Perm wrote:The majority answer is surely .. "Who cares"??

The business of winning premierships is the highest priority by a mile .. If you can elevate a squad member here and there thats all nice and fluffy, but it's the business of winning flags that should count.

Yep, it sounds like a sour-grapes question to me...

I wish I heard the context as to how and why it was raised.

Fair call, I was making a bit of an assumption that the context wasn't a positive one toward the Dogs, who imho, clearly have their priorities in the right order.

Constance_Perm wrote:Fair call, I was making a bit of an assumption that the context wasn't a positive one toward the Dogs, who imho, clearly have their priorities in the right order.

My reading of the question was that it was being implied that Central are successful in the SANFL because they only focus on mature aged players and yes I did take the comment as being a slight towards the CDFC and a suggestion that all the other clubs should do likewise! - If you can be bothered its likely on the podcast from yesterday between 6 & 7pm

Sojourner wrote:

Constance_Perm wrote:Fair call, I was making a bit of an assumption that the context wasn't a positive one toward the Dogs, who imho, clearly have their priorities in the right order.

My reading of the question was that it was being implied that Central are successful in the SANFL because they only focus on mature aged players and yes I did take the comment as being a slight towards the CDFC and a suggestion that all the other clubs should do likewise! - If you can be bothered its likely on the podcast from yesterday between 6 & 7pm

Cheers mate, I'll try and squeeze in a listen (which I prob should have done before making any assumption)

Sojourner wrote:

Constance_Perm wrote:Fair call, I was making a bit of an assumption that the context wasn't a positive one toward the Dogs, who imho, clearly have their priorities in the right order.

My reading of the question was that it was being implied that Central are successful in the SANFL because they only focus on mature aged players and yes I did take the comment as being a slight towards the CDFC and a suggestion that all the other clubs should do likewise! - If you can be bothered its likely on the podcast from yesterday between 6 & 7pm

I'll email them my post from another thread. I can't find the podcast.

"Just out of interest, given all the draft talk, I compiled some draft figures (as accurately as I could).

From 2000-2009 I came up with the following number of players drafted (all drafts) from each club. I've tried not to double count players like Paul Thomas that went from Adelaide rookie list to Essendon, or Brad Symes, Scott Welsh types that went from one AFL club straight to another.

The results were:

South 6, Sturt 11, Norwood 15, WWT 17, Glenelg 18, North 18, Port 20, Central 23, West 24.

**The figures are incomplete as I'm not sure about the rookie drafts in 2007, 2001 and 2002. 2007 I accounted for WWT1, 2002 -Norwood 2, WA 1 Pal 1 and CD1, in 2001 CD 2. As it didn't list where the players were from, so it would require updating.
Now if 2010 is included after Norwood "lost" 8, I get

South 6, Sturt 14, WWT 20, North 20, Glenelg 20, Norwood 23, Port 24, Central 24, West 26.

I attempted to cross check with the SANFL benchmark doc. but it didn't include rookies only elevated rookies. I'm sure Norwood believe a rookie listed player is still a loss."