Spoke to a guy today who follows each and every draft in depth and has friends who scout for the giants.
Could not say enough good things about Francis, reckons he really should go top 2 (he won't) but thats how much he ratea him
Also thinks Schahe will be a bust
I’ve mentioned it before but i know an AFL scout and he rates Francis the 2nd best player in the draft.
If Disco and co rate him the same way and he’s there at our pick then we will take him as they aint going to go with a “needs” pick (Parish) if they clearly rate someone much higher with such a high pick.
Francis has always been my first choice. Hope that if we get him we can make him fall in love with us because mark my words the Crows are playing funny buggers and have been for some time. Was speaking to a lad at the footy club who knows him quite well and there already has been offers for jobs etc for his family and the Crows will do everything they can to get him to come home at end of his first contract
Yep this is one thing that sways me to Parish because this ‘go home’ thing seems to be more and more common. They plant the seed of coming back home really early these interstate clubs (as I’m sure the Vic ones do too). But hey, I suppose ultimately if Disco and co really really rate Francis higher than Parish then I suppose post ASADA you have just got to back in your club’s environment.
Spoke to a guy today who follows each and every draft in depth and has friends who scout for the giants.
Could not say enough good things about Francis, reckons he really should go top 2 (he won't) but thats how much he ratea him
Also thinks Schahe will be a bust
I’ve mentioned it before but i know an AFL scout and he rates Francis the 2nd best player in the draft.
If Disco and co rate him the same way and he’s there at our pick then we will take him as they aint going to go with a “needs” pick (Parish) if they clearly rate someone much higher with such a high pick.
Spoke to a guy today who follows each and every draft in depth and has friends who scout for the giants.
Could not say enough good things about Francis, reckons he really should go top 2 (he won’t) but thats how much he ratea him
Also thinks Schahe will be a bust
Francis has always been my first choice. Hope that if we get him we can make him fall in love with us because mark my words the Crows are playing funny buggers and have been for some time. Was speaking to a lad at the footy club who knows him quite well and there already has been offers for jobs etc for his family and the Crows will do everything they can to get him to come home at end of his first contract
If we get him need to make sure he hooks up with a nice pascoe vale girl
Francis has always been my first choice. Hope that if we get him we can make him fall in love with us because mark my words the Crows are playing funny buggers and have been for some time. Was speaking to a lad at the footy club who knows him quite well and there already has been offers for jobs etc for his family and the Crows will do everything they can to get him to come home at end of his first contract
With the top 2 picks almost locked in as Weitering and Schache..
Then pick 3 is the only roadblock to Francis. Whether it is GC or Melbourne… why would either of them take a kid that is widely know to a)support EFC and b) want to play with EFC.
If either of them takes Francis and then complains when he wants to come ‘home’ in two years… wtf did they expect?
My gut feel is that if we want Francis (and all reports suggest we do) then he will be ours with pick 4.
I don’t get this. All of the draftees would grow up supporting a team and rarely (just in terms of weight of averages) will they end up playing at that team. Francis is South Australian. If GC want him, I am sure they won’t be letting him go just because he supported Essendon as a kid … in fact, they would be selecting from a pretty shallow talent pool if they were only drafting players who supported them as a kid.
Yeah they do all grow up supporting a club… and all of them will go where they are drafted. However Clubs are now finally realising that some blokes who say “I want to play at X club” really mean it… and drafting them just means you put 2 years of effort in before they nominate that they want a trade back to club X.
Buckley was one of the first and it seems Brisbane still hasn’t learnt his lesson.
I’m not saying you only draft kids that support your club… BUT if you have a choice of two players and both are roughly equal (Francis and Parish are seen as such) then smart recruiting would lead you to take the kid that hasn’t spent the last 3 months talking about how much he would LOVE to play at Essendon.
Of course they can still draft him and he will go… but clubs are definitely trying to get a lot smarter about finding kids that genuinely want to be at their club if possible.
Just seen the highlights of Francis, for the first time.
I wasn’t real keen on us picking up a medium/tall defender.
wow.
I think he could possibly cover the loss of Carlisle in coming years (possibly better) If we’ve got lock down defenders, in Hurley, Hooker/Brown. Then having a player like Francis who reads the ball that well in the air, and can take strong intercept marks is a real weapon.
Just look at Gibson at the Hawks. they use his intercept marks and rebound to score quite a lot.
With the top 2 picks almost locked in as Weitering and Schache..
Then pick 3 is the only roadblock to Francis. Whether it is GC or Melbourne… why would either of them take a kid that is widely know to a)support EFC and b) want to play with EFC.
If either of them takes Francis and then complains when he wants to come ‘home’ in two years… wtf did they expect?
My gut feel is that if we want Francis (and all reports suggest we do) then he will be ours with pick 4.
I don’t get this. All of the draftees would grow up supporting a team and rarely (just in terms of weight of averages) will they end up playing at that team. Francis is South Australian. If GC want him, I am sure they won’t be letting him go just because he supported Essendon as a kid … in fact, they would be selecting from a pretty shallow talent pool if they were only drafting players who supported them as a kid.
If I was GCS I would be taking the picks this year to keep a healthy group even if you loose a few to trades next year. The mature age players won't be there for a tilt at a flag and it will add to the current crop for when their ready.
Francis should be our priority, we need a dynamic medium to tall forward. At 192/3 he is smaller and could be like stringer, also he could grow a couple of cms and be true KPP. But his game sense and athleticism mean he can influence up the ground as well.
If we take him with 4, assuming he falls to us, then we can go for a pure mid with 5, or offload 5 for two later first rounders and add another two high quality mids.
I’d be talking to the Suns and seeing which direction they are going and even doing a deal to Francis.
I’d rather Parish as I think we have more of a need. I think that we recruited 2 similar players with our first 2 picks last year. That said if we could get both I’d be pretty happy.
Other than height, I don’t see a lot of similarity between LaVerde and Langford at all, to be honest. About as much similarity as Caracella & Fyfe.
With the top 2 picks almost locked in as Weitering and Schache…
Then pick 3 is the only roadblock to Francis. Whether it is GC or Melbourne… why would either of them take a kid that is widely know to a)support EFC and b) want to play with EFC.
If either of them takes Francis and then complains when he wants to come ‘home’ in two years… wtf did they expect?
My gut feel is that if we want Francis (and all reports suggest we do) then he will be ours with pick 4.