Down the Guts Season Finale 2024 - What a draft to finish on!

Down the Guts Season Finale 2024 - What a draft to finish on!

Summer is almost here and for many of us, there's a few months off before the next AFL season roars back into life - but the latest draft period has many wondering what 2025 will bring. Who got what they needed in the AFL National Draft? Is there a clear strategy for clubs like North Melbourne, St Kilda and GWS? Did Carlton overplay their hand by moving to pick #3 to take Jagga Smith? And did Essendon play it too safe in not wanting to trade up in the draft? And a bg thank you to everyone who contributed and tuned in at some stage throughout this season. Your support is invaluable - with big thanks from Adam and Joe.

Down the Guts - Decade draft: The best players drafted from 2000 to 2010

If you're a long time listener to Down the Guts, you will have heard the boys' redraft series, where Adam and Joe have re-examined and re-drafted the years 2000 to 2010. Now comes the mega-draft - ranking the best players of a decade, the decade which dramatically shaped modern football. A decade which started with an unbelievable and almost unbeatable Bombers outfit, and ended with a drawn Grand Final, a feat we'll never see repeated. It saw a three-peat, dour defence, and birth of Hawthorn and Geelong dynasties. So who are the best players, and which draft classes were they from? Plus a quick preview of the 2024 AFL draft, and getting hyped for the AFLW Preliminary finals.

Down The Gut - What Gold Coast's inaugural national draft in 2010 will teach Tasmania

How to build a list like Gold Coast? In their first 14 years, the Suns are yet to play in the finals, while fellow expansion club GWS have played in multiple campaigns and even made it to the Grand FInal. Although, that's not exactly comparing apples with apples. Adam and Joe go back to 2010 and examine what the Suns did well and the picks they'd like again, plus the lessons learned for Tasmania when they head to their first draft.

Down The Guts - What have Richmond learned from their last mega draft hand of 2004?

At the end of the 2004 season, Richmond were one of three clubs which had priority picks, having just won the wooden spoon. They also had 5 of the first 20 picks - not too dissimilar to what they have in 2024. Adam and Joe cast their eyes over the 2004 draft, redrafting the first round, and see what could have been for the Tigers as well as what lessons they could learn as they look to rebuild for the 2025 season and beyond.

Down the Guts - What would Carlton have been if they had the 2002 top draft pick?

At the end of the 2002 AFL Season, Brisbane has completed back-to-back flags, and thanks to a shrewd trade shipping Des Headland off to Fremantle, jag pick #3 in the following draft. That pick was supposed to be pick #4, had it not been for Carlton paying a hefty price for breaching the salary cap and being stripped of their #1 draft pick, which cost them Carlton supporter Brendan Goddard. This was also the same draft period that Adelaide tapped out of, having traded Kane Johnson to Richmond, only to use the majority of that trade haul for a 32 year old Wayne Carey. In this edition of Down the Guts, Adam and Joe try reshuffle the picks and reassign the first round of the 2002 AFL draft, trying to find the top 15 players of this year's draft class featuring the likes of Daniel Wells, Jobe Watson, Craig Bolton, Andrew Mackie, Brad Sewell and Nick Maxwell.