Aaron Cadman will forever be the number one pick in the 2022 AFL Draft. What a moment it was for himself and his family Monday night; an achievement nobody can take from him.
But the Giants did the wrong thing.
The club in Western Sydney is facing something of a rebuild after an active Trade Period, forward half contributors re-homed and key cogs of the engine room sent to Punt Road in an asset liquidation. And of course the Leon Cameron era ended last season as well.
New coach Adam Kingsley takes the reins and it’s expected, at least externally, they’ll be heading down the ladder before up it. There’s no shame in that; the AFL is a cyclical competition.
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But while consistent wins might be a couple of years off, fans should expect standards and culture to evolve and grow instantly. That’s not to say it was broken, but there are certain laurels no club should ever rest on.
A certain ruthlessness is required to succeed in sporting leagues as competitive as the AFL. Empathy and compassion for those in the building has never been more front-of-mind. Rightly so; it’s not all data and digits. The human element of decisions is no doubt a factor. But GWS made an over correction to kick off the 2022 AFL Draft.
For a fair while, Will Ashcroft had been the consensus top talent available; albeit tied to the Brisbane Lions as a father-son prospect. It was on the Giants, who recently acquired the top pick during the Trade Period, to make sure its rival Queensland club paid top dollar to match a bid on Ashcroft. There was zero doubt as to whether the Lions would fork out the required 3,000 Draft value index points to claim their prize. They sure as hell would’ve planned accordingly.
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But the Giants ultimately decided that the pageantry of pick one being their own was a greater priority. They gave Cadman the honours, plus the $10k portfolio from NAB that came with it. They gave him a moment, an unforgettable one at that. But Cadman now enters life as a professional footballer with the leverage that comes with being the first overall pick, plus the greater pressure and higher expectations. He’s not shaking the Jeremy Cameron comparisons any time soon, an unfair proposition for any rookie player. And the Giants also handed out one more thing: a competitive advantage to a rival club.
Brisbane also left the Draft with Jaspa Fletcher, matching a bid at the 12 selection of the first round. The Lions were celebrating. They avoided a post-Draft value index points deficit, which was an outcome they were very much preparing for entering the night.
North Melbourne went the whole prestige route with Jason Horne-Francis last year, too, when Collingwood should’ve been made to pay full tilt for Nick Daicos; a gun father-son prospect that unanimously became the Rising Star winner in season one recently. Look how Horne-Francis handled it. And look how that all turned out for the Kangaroos, less than a year later.
GWS overthought it. Or maybe they didn’t put enough thought into it. Either way, it wasn’t the ruthless move that could’ve set a hard-nosed tone for the Kingsley era. And literally about one hour later their crosstown rival showed them exactly what not giving an inch looks like.
