Kevin Sheehan called it first and called it correctly. The AFL draft is about looking into the future, and he knew what was waiting there.

"This, we believe, in our terms would be a super draft," the league's talent manager told The Age on the eve of the 2001 draft, and he wasn't only talking about the ranking and re-ranking of picks one, two and three, Luke Hodge, Luke Ball and Chris Judd, which started then and has never really stopped.

"It looks to be the best group of players entering the draft with fewer compromises involved and it will, down the track within one to two years, prove to be potentially the best bunch of young talent entering the competition."

Was he right? Fifteen years later, it's a hard point to argue against. The 1999 draft produced some iconic players who have played a lot of games over a very long time: there's 26 200-gamers in there. The 2006 and 2007 groups are strong, too. The 2013 class has made a promising start.

But there is something special about the 2001 crew, and what they have achieved, particularly given the hope and expectation that surrounded them before any names had even been called.

Five club captains got their start on that November day: Hodge, Ball, Judd, Sam Mitchell and Gary Ablett. There are 300-gamers: Nick Dal Santo and Mitchell, with Hodge and Ablett inching close. There are Brownlow medallists - Judd, Ablett, Jimmy Bartel and Dane Swan - and Norm Smith Medal winners, too: Hodge, Judd, Bartel, Brian Lake and Steve Johnson. Together, the players drafted that day have won 41 All-Australian spots, 22 club best-and-fairest awards and 34 premiership medallions.

It's not just Hodge, Judd and Ball whose careers have been compared and whose lives have been linked from the day the Hawks opted for the Colac kid, a decision former coach Peter Schwab believes cost recruiting manager John Turnbull his job two years later, such was the impatience within the club at Judd's fast start at West Coast and Hodge's slower development.

Before even being able to draft Hodge, the Hawks traded Trent Croad to Fremantle as part of a deal for the No. 1 pick, a decision that created some nervousness at board level and prompted more than 200 supporters to protest outside Glenferrie Oval in support of Croad, a talented 21-year-old who had just signed a new contract and who had helped almost win them a preliminary final just a couple of weeks earlier.

Croad played some good games for the Dockers - the last team to trade a No. 1 pick - but never really settled and made his way back to Hawthorn just two years later, becoming an All-Australian and playing his last game for them in the 2008 grand final where he badly injured his foot. Fremantle traded him for pick 10, which became eight-game player Ryley Dunn.

But back to Hodge. "People make decisions in footy clubs and you hope they always make them for what they think is better for the club, but at that point in time I didn't think that was fair to John," said Schwab. "You couldn't accurately assess what had happened, and it hinged pretty much on Luke. I hate Luke feeling that pressure, but it did."

Hawthorn drafted five kids that day, plus former Bulldogs defender Simon Cox. Four of them - Hodge, Mitchell, Rick Ladson and Campbell Brown - won the 2008 flag together. St Kilda drafted six teenagers, bringing Ball, Xavier Clarke, Dal Santo, Matt Maguire and Leigh Montagna together. Maguire is now Ball's brother-in-law. Having drafted Joel Corey, Corey Enright, Paul Chapman and Cameron Ling with four of his seven picks in 1999, Geelong recruiting manager Stephen Wells found Bartel, Johnson and James Kelly while adding one more name to a growing collection of father-son selections: Gary Ablett jnr.

Before Bartel retired a few weeks ago, he hadn't found it weird to watch Johnson, Kelly and Ablett move away and play for other clubs. Having grown up with them, part of a group that had competed with each other in almost every single thing they did and knew each other so intimately, it was strange to be the one left behind. Johnson can understand why.

"When you catch up with players or have a conversation, there's so many things you've got to talk about," he said. "You feel like you know each other better than your mates you went to school with, because you've spent so much time with each other over the years. You just know by the look on someone's face the way he might be feeling, or what he might be thinking. You can basically talk a different language."

There was one other father-son player picked that day: Carlton's Jarrad Waite. There's Mark McGough, who won an Anzac Medal in his second game. There's Graham Polak, at one point considered right in the pick 1 mix, who Hodge remembers being as imposing as Lance Franklin was at under-18 level. His career started with the Dockers,who would probably have taken him with pick 1 had they kept it, and was horribly interrupted years later, when he was hit by a tram after moving to Melbourne to play for Richmond.

There are late picks who came very good - Brian Lake, Adam Schneider and Swan all played in premierships, Lake having worked in an abattoir while suffering from undiagnosed sleep apnoea before making it all the way to pick 70 - and there are stories from off the field, too. Paul Connors was a brash young player agent who had just split from Ricky Nixon and started his own business when he signed Hodge, Ball and Judd as clients, and competition for the best young kids has only grown since.

Then there are those who didn't work out. Of the first 10 players picked, eight played more than 100 games and five played more than 200. Of the first 23 players called, 16 have passed the 100-game mark.

But chosen by Melbourne at pick 9 was Luke Molan, a key defender from the Geelong Falcons, who Hodge also played for. He broke his leg twice, did his knee and was never able to play a single game.

Barry Brooks was drafted at No. 15, didn't play a game in his first year for Port Adelaide, then was traded to St Kilda for an even better pick: 6. Chosen much later was Marty McGrath, who kicked five goals in his first game for Richmond but only ever played three more.

Even though the story keeps coming back to Hodge, Ball and Judd, there is one last part of it to tell. In 2001, 17-year-olds could still be drafted. Hodge was one of them and so was Ball, who wanted to finish year 12 at Xavier College before he joined his new club for good.

He played 16 games in his second season, but took a long time to settle in at first, dropping in after school during his first year as all the other players were finishing up for the day. But before even reaching that point he thought a lot about whether he should even nominate for the draft, or wait 12 more months and get school out of the way first. "I certainly wasn't physically ready that year," Ball said. "I was probably guided by my parents a bit on that, they were obviously keen for me to finish school. I certainly thought about it."

He's glad he took the chance, grateful for what he has become part of. "Every draft from now on is going to be a Superdraft, I think, because they just get it right by virtue of how many resources are dedicated to drafting kids these days," he said. "It wasn't as much back then, it was still a bit of a risk. Now, they shouldn't stuff it up. So I think, all things considered, we're happy with the Superdraft tag. I'm happy to jump on the back of the bandwagon, for sure."

The Croad trade

Hawthorn received: picks 1 (Luke Hodge), 20 (Daniel Elstone) and 36 (Sam Mitchell)

Fremantle received: Trent Croad and Luke McPharlin

Pick 1: Luke Hodge (Hawthorn)

286 games

Captain, since 2011

Premierships: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2015

Norm Smith medallist, 2008 and 2014

Pick 2: Luke Ball (St Kilda)

142 games for St Kilda, 81 for Collingwood

St Kilda captain, 2006-07

Collingwood premiership player, 2010

Pick 3: Chris Judd (West Coast)

134 games for West Coast, 145 for Carlton

West Coast captain 2006-07, Carlton captain 2008-2013

West Coast premiership player, 2006

Norm Smith medallist, 2005

Brownlow Medal: 2004, 2010

AFLPA MVP: 2006, 2011