Which clubs have the best and worst father-son strike rates?

Father-son selections provide footy fans with large amounts of hope while also bring a little bit of romance to our great game.

Some sons of well-known fathers take to the competition like a duck to water whereas some find it difficult to live up the hype of their old man.

Clubs have more success the others when it comes to father-son selections while some clubs - naturally Gold Coast and GWS - are yet to even experience having the progeny of a past player come through the ranks.

But which club has the highest quantity of quality from their father-son picks?

According to data compiled by SEN’s Andy Maher, the Western Bulldogs head the success strike rate with five of the club’s eight father-sons receiving the tick of approval.

It places the Bulldogs ahead of renowned father-son club Geelong.

“You could argue that Geelong has had the best cluster of players taken,” Maher said on SEN’s Bob & Andy.

“It would be hard to go past Matthew Scarlett, Gary Ablett Junior and Tom Hawkins.

“They’ve had 13 father-sons in history and six of them, according to our data, have been ticks.

“The Western Bulldogs on the other hand have had eight father-sons, five of whom we have got as being ticks. That being Luke Darcy, Mitch Wallis, Tom Liberatore, Lachie Hunter and Zaine Cordy.

“That’s five passes at 62.5%.”

The top eight of father-son success was put together based on who the SEN Drive team feel have been ‘passes’ and/or ‘ticks’.

Father-son success top eight

Western Bulldogs: 62.5%
Geelong: 46.15%
Collingwood: 46.1%
Essendon: 42.8%
Sydney: 40%
Collingwood: 37.5%
West Coast 33.3%
Carlton: 30%

See all the father-son selections from each club below and specifically the ones that have been rated a TICK.

(Note: Some didn’t quite cut it at AFL level and some are too early to pass judgement on).

0 of 2 at 0%

Ben Jarman (2016)
Jackson Edwards (2017)

1 of 3 at 33.3%

Jonathan Brown (1999) - TICK
Shane Morrison (1999)
Josh Clayton (2014)

3 of 10 at 30%

Michael James (1988)
Chris Mulcair (1988)
Darren Walsh (1992)
David Walls (1995)
Lance Whitnall (1996) - TICK
Jarrad Waite (2001) - TICK
Luke Blackwell (2004)
Dylan Buckley (2011)
Jack Silvagni (2015) - TICK - (Still playing)
Ben Silvagni (2018)

6 of 16 at 37.5%

Heath Shephard (1988)
Ernie Hug Jnr (1989)
Nick Davis (1998) - TICK
Brad Oborne (1998)
Rhyce Shaw (1999) - TICK
Jason Cloke (2000)
Cameron Cloke (2002)
Brayden Shaw (2003)
Heath Shaw (2003) - TICK
Travis Cloke (2004) - TICK
Jaxson Barham (2007)
Darcy Moore (2014) - TICK - (Still playing)
Callum Brown (2016) - (Still playing)
Josh Daicos (2016) - TICK - (Still playing)
Tyler Brown (2017) - (Still playing)
Will Kelly (2018) - (Still playing)

3 of 7 at 42.8%

Dustin Fletcher (1992) - TICK
Jobe Watson (2002) - TICK
Jay Neagle (2005)
Darcy Daniher (2007)
Joe Daniher (2012) - TICK
Jake Long (2015)
Tom Wallis (2016)

0 of 1 at 0%

Brett Peake (2003)

6 of 13 at 46.15%

Simon Fletcher (1995)
Matthew Scarlett (1997) - TICK
Marc Woolnough (1997)
David Clarke (1998)
Gary Ablett Jnr (2001) - TICK
Tim Callan (2002)
Mark Blake (2003) - TICK
Nathan Ablett (2004) - TICK
Tom Hawkins (2006) - TICK - (Still playing)
Adam Donohue (2007)
Jed Bews (2011) - TICK - (Still playing)
Sam Simpson (2016) - (Still playing)
Oscar Brownless (2018) - (Still playing)

No father-son selections

No father-son selections

1 of 4 at 25%

Steven Greene (2000)
Travis Tuck (2005)
Josh Kennedy (2006) - TICK - (Still playing at Sydney)
Finn Maginness (2019) - (Still playing)

1 of 6 at 16.6%

Tom Kavanagh (1988)
Bradley Campbell (1992)
Glenn Molloy (1992)
Chris Johnson (2003)
Jack Viney (2012) - TICK - (Still playing)
Billy Stretch (2014)

1 of 4 at 25%

Jesse Smith (2004)
Luke McDonald (2013) - TICK - (Still playing)
Joel Crocker (2018)
Bailey Scott (2018) - (Still playing)

1 of 4 at 25%

Brett Ebert (2002) - TICK
Trent Burgoyne (2019) - (Still playing)
Jackson Mead (2019) - (Still playing)
Taj Schofield (2020) - (Still playing)

2 of 8 at 25%

Sean Bowden (1988)
Matthew Richardson (1992) - TICK
David Bourke (1994)
Joel Bowden (1995) - TICK
Nick Jewell (1995)
Tom Roach (2003)
Patrick Naish (2017) - (Still playing)

0 of 3 at 0%

Stuart Annand (1989)
David Sierakowski (1992)
Bailey Rice (2015)

2 of 5 at 40%

Gareth John (1988)
Heath James (1998)
Stephen Doyle (1999)
Sean Dempster (2002) - TICK
Tom Mitchell (2011) - TICK - (Still playing at Hawthorn)

2 of 6 at 33.3%

Ashley McIntosh (1989) - TICK
Ben Cousins (1995) - TICK
Mitch Morton (2004)
Jacob Brennan (2010)
Alec Waterman (2014) - (Still playing at Essendon)
Jake Waterman (2016) - (Still playing)

5 of 8 at 62.5%

Luke Darcy (1992) - TICK
David Round (1995)
Ayce Cordy (2008)
Tom Liberatore (2010) - TICK - (Still playing)
Mitch Wallis (2010) - TICK - (Still playing)
Lachie Hunter (2012) - TICK - (Still playing)
Zaine Cordy (2014) - TICK - (Still playing)
Rhylee West (2018) - (Still playing)

Note: Fitzroy were 1 from 1 with Jarrod Molloy rating as a TICK.