He won’t be in the backline for long. He’ll end up a very good midfielder in the mold of Dev Smith/Touk Miller; a small, tough, skillful, two-way player.
Can’t underestimate Hardwick’s influence, his willingness to take these kids under his own roof I imagine would be incredibly powerful for kids from these sorts of background who may struggle with the Melbourne/AFL environment.
He won’t be in the backline for long. He’ll end up a very good midfielder in the mold of Dev Smith/Touk Miller; a small, tough, skillful, two-way player.
Can’t underestimate Hardwick’s influence, his willingness to take these kids under his own roof I imagine would be incredibly powerful for kids from these sorts of background who may struggle with the Melbourne/AFL environment.
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Couldn’t agree more - Dimma’s such a gracious, humble, and incredibly grounded and strong leader that would’ve given the kid confidence assurance and a sense of purpose. I’m fascinated and inspired by the story which makes you wonder how many other Sydney Stacks are out there who Nab League, WAFL or SANFL clubs have turned away because they’re too hard to deal with? Or who haven’t made it to that level.
A player to watch next year if we are after key defender depth is Zach Reid brother of Kyle Reid the red head who played champs for victory country last year. Zach is already 200cm and only 77kg but he reads the play well and has strong hands and also a safe kick, is more Fletcher-lite than Mason is which is scary.
I can, erratically behaving indigenous kids tend to drop off most AFL teams radars. Especially seeing as a lot of clubs are quite poor at understanding their sociology. Syd had a massive lack of mentors in his teenage years and a really tough life. That’s all.
I’m absolutely wrapped for him, and not surprised at all with a bit of help it came together quickly for him.
You must be impressed with how Richmond has turned their Indigenous programs around under Hardwick in recent years.
Blown away, they were streets ahead the worst in the AFL. It’s all Dimmas doing, it’s no surprise. He knows the value, you don’t get your start under Sheedy and then spend the second half of your career at Port and not see how much return a club can get it with a little extra effort in that area. I’ve had so many people here throw out the line at me when I’d spruk some random indigenous kid of “we’re a football club not a charity” yet not see providing proper welfare to talented kids becomes a ■■■■■■■ excellent football decision.
Still blows my mind how clubs will invest significant capital in fixing a fundamental skills flaws in a suburban kid or international kid but won’t invest the small capital of proper emotional support on a kid like Stack.
Make no mistake, the only difference between Walla, Mozzie and Stack is, Walla had Jane and Moz had the Roberts, and Stack didn’t.
Essendon was running with the boarding house for young interstate kids a while back, where they had a live-in babysitter all to improve their transition to a professional environment. It would be nice to see some a similar level of investment in talented kids from non-ideal backgrounds.
Would something like that work for NGA kids and other Indigenous kids from “alternative” environments? Or do you think providing positive role models in a family-based setting is required? Like trying to simulate what Walla and Moz have had, kind of like what Dimma has done with Rioli and Stack.
I think these kids thrive and can deal with being away from country because they become part of a family.
One thing is true of every kid I’ve ever worked with Indigenous, African or otherwise, they just want to fell like they are accepted. Not a fish out of water.
Hardwick seems to a lot of the heavy lifting himself. That’s impressive, but you wouldn’t think the same model would work for us.
What do you suggest? Foster families? Senior players?
Families for sure
One thing we need to do is encourage and facilitate more Indigenous kids from our zones to come down south, either on a permanent or temporary basis.
Having that Melbourne based “Little Tiwi” community will be super important for player transition and retention, combine that with a family based boarding situation and you get the best of both worlds.
I’m disappointed that we don’t have any Tiwi players currently in our VFL setup, Adam Tipungwuti would have been a great addition imo.
Feel free to put this in the too hard basket, but is there an easy excel way to highlight which players are going up or down? Green for up, red for down kinda thing. Can imagine this idea being a pain in the butt to execute.
Awesome work by the way. Great to have insight into the future kids.
My RMD is mostly for a bit of fun, adding more to it would be more tedious and take the fun out of it, for my personal rankings though it might be something I consider if I can make it look good
Any reason you’ve have us taking HR-S over Byrnes?
Lachie Potter seems to have put in a good performance over the weekend, and Jay Rantall continues to impress. Care to elaborate on how they look live.
Also it’s good to see Josh Honey play a good game.
I want an inside and outside mid with our picks and Dow is already the inside mid sorted.
Potter is seriously quick with good agility much like Saad down back although Saad is a lot further ahead in terms of kicking and physicality. Rantall is a hard working mid who can hit the scoreboard, kicking needs a lot of work
Honey certainly has talent but can go missing, looks more likely as an outside type yet has added muscle and size to his frame which I don’t think helps him.
From the little I’ve seen of him, Hugo is very outside. And I’ll admit I’m a fan of Byrnes, although he is a little too similar to most of our current mids.
I think the types of players we take in the ND this year will be determined by the types we let go, which at this point I think will be 1x outside (Long), 1x inside (Clarke?) and 1x KPD (Hartley)
Have finished watching the SA vs WA trial games with the likes of Will Gould, Luke Jackson, Jeremy Sharp, Cam Taheny and Jackson Mead all playing. Most players played to how I expected and a few names not wel known that I’ll keep an eye on at the champs. It’s hard to say who will win the champs this year it looks like it will be the closest it’s been for awhile.
Kysaiah Pickett can play, might be the shortest player ever to be picked in the top 20 of an AFL draft. He is looking like a better version of Tippa and I don’t say that lightly.
His height may see him drop into our laps, I doubt we go for another small forward though.
Hopefully he hits like his uncle.
