2020 Draft Watch (Part 1)

Sloots · December 2, 2020, 9:38pm

He’s the one I think we really need. Sad we are going to miss out by 1 or 2 picks.

The_Bomb · December 2, 2020, 9:41pm

Perkins struggles reading the play, Parish, Oliver & Phillips all read the play really well. Perkins just gets lost on the footy field and doesn’t just dig into congestion to find the ball just sits on the outside of it hoping for a team mate to win it.

The_Bomb · December 2, 2020, 9:51pm

Amazing watching a player who plays such good football not be rated because of height or speed, I really like players who let their footballing ability do the talking.
Gulden could be Gaff like in mind, body and skill but still not rated highly.
The other night I pulled a vic country vs vic metro tape from Heppell draft year and watch an underage player by the name of Smith kick a lazy 3 goals and play a great little game of footy, watched Gaff tear it up, both have had excellent careers.
Physically they both have nothing going for them.

THE_DON1 · December 2, 2020, 9:52pm

Welcome to modern football

Lindsay · December 2, 2020, 9:53pm

@THE_DON1 any chance we are looking at Heath Chapman as a half-back to replace McKenna or Saad?

Think I read in one write-up that some are thinking he’ll develop into a wing

THE_DON1 · December 2, 2020, 9:56pm

He is very much like another Ridley, high volume rebound defender who reads the play well. Although he is a lot like what we already have with Ridley, Francis, Gleeson ect. Great kid and a hard worker though, I’m not sure he is a top 10 pick though.

The_Bomb · December 2, 2020, 9:57pm

I know who want footballers when the can get athletes like Laverde.

barnz · December 2, 2020, 10:01pm

You shut your ■■■■■ mouth.

jonovdp · December 2, 2020, 10:03pm

Our development programs don’t allow players to improve much after their drafted.

We place too much emphasis on who we could have picked, in the past… when there is no way those players would be the same player had they been drafted by Essendon.

Jake_Brady_10 · December 2, 2020, 10:03pm

Back in my 18yo year (Carlisle draft) and around that time, calder cannons only recruited players over a certain height no matter what. There were players i played against that were very short but jeez they were very good footballers who didn’t even get a look in because of their rule they stuck by - height. There were players getting picked just cause they were tall but were below average footballers and they’d just hope they could turn them into something and be drafted. Furthest I got was to the 3rd round of cannons I wasn’t tall or short just average height but could kick goals and had sticky mitts!

Crod · December 2, 2020, 10:05pm

I didn’t ask about Reef specifically, so your contact may have greater intel in that regard.

I ended up having a decent yarn with my mate as I found it all pretty fascinating. Asked them about how they deal with poorer endurance athletes at his club and if they’re forever destined to be crap aerobically.

‘It’s nature and nurture so [the athlete] would have genetic limitations but the application should improve it enough to reach a minimum AFL standard. Some blokes are better repeat speed than endurance eg [a big body inside mid at their club] and our talls, so they will do 10 x 200m instead of a 2km TT for their ‘endurance’ test’

Sounds like those types of players never become Phar Lap, but there are contingencies in place to get them to a required level without alleviating their existing strengths. Pretty cool.

ThatsNotDeliberate · December 2, 2020, 10:09pm

@THE_DON1

Hi Mate really love your work and all your insights. With 3 Top picks we should smash it out of the Park this year, I reckon this draft will set us up for years.

That said would you please tell me your thoughts if we are a chance of nailing any of

McInnes, Philips, Bruhn, Perkins as our inside mids who should we get.

And,

I can’t split Cox and Reid for KPP , who is best for us in your view?

Cheers keep up the great work

Milanista28 · December 2, 2020, 10:22pm

Chapman is the kid with the special needs brother correct? I hope he gets picked by Freo tbh

Milanista28 · December 2, 2020, 10:29pm

Perkins 2019…2020

Laverde2Langford · December 2, 2020, 10:33pm

Sports Science Introduction

As requested by @hambo I’ll share some sports science information for people who may be interested in it. Some may know this, some may be logical when reflected on and hopefully most people get some insights into at least one or 2 things.

I will also disclose that whilst I am sports science trained, have worked in and out of the field. I HAVE NOT worked in sports science within the football industry. I do however, have close connections with some that do.

Righto

Sports Science as it relates to players physical health can be broadly split into 3 categories. Physical Development (fitness building), injury prevention and injury rehabilitation.

Depending on which phase a player is in at any given time will depend on what branch of the staff they will work with.

PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Aerobic (endurance) vs Anaerobic (power).
Basically all athletes will genetically be pre-disposed to being unique athletes on the continuum of power vs endurance. However, training will enable them to adapt physiologically.

The most glaring example of this is NBA basketballers vs Nigerian marathon runners.

POWER ATHLETES
For example you will have a player like Laverde, Francis, Tipungwuti etc who are very much power athletes. They can show quite exciting levels of athletic ability whether that be a crunching tackle, 15m dash or a strong vertical leap. In the cases of these players what makes them unique and impactful is the fact they can perform a short burst of effort that creates an advantage of their opposition.

Now these players often have had success at varying levels of competition due to their power. To get them fitter and be able to perform repeat efforts more effectively you can run, run, run them. This will get them aerobically fitter. BUT, if managed poorly you run a very real risk of diminishing their FAST twitch muscle fibre abilities which deliver power efforts. So in Stringers case he is a rare powerful athlete. Trying to build him into a pure midfielder in one pre-season would be unlikely but it would also diminish the physical prowess that makes him special…his power. A good example is Richmond taking so long to build Martin into a dominant midfielder, Dangerfield at Adelaide the same.

This is also why I feel the criticism of Francis is too harsh because he will never be a supreme endurance athlete and if he tries too he won’t be good at footy anymore…he will undermine his skill set.

ENDURANCE ATHLETES
This are the beep test animals. With a reduction in rotations inevitaby coming these players will become more important. They run all day. Think Zaka, Stants etc. We mostly assoociate fitness with these types but if you have a midfield of all of these types you probably arent going to have the right dynamic.

MAINTENANCE OF FITNESS THROUGH A SEASON
Due to the length of a season teams will go through variable training loads over the course of the year from high, moderate and low. This will often depend on ladder position as well. But it is not uncommon for teams to really train very hard toward the back end of the season just prior to finals and then back off. This maintains there levels but then freshens them up for the big stuff. Ross Lyon teams are pretty famous for woeful losses late in the season when they had secured a strong ladder position. Only for a week later play like a completely different side. Its toying with form and can cut a fine line but it can be very effective. Getting it wrong can be catastrophic though. During pre-season games especially the difference in energy and effort can be profound. Because in reality many training sessions or internal match simulations will be considered just as important if not more so than a practice match and as such the pre-season match is just part of the the overall picture and not something to “peak” for.

INJURY REHABILITATION
This is highly medical and fairly well understood. Basically without going into the details the clubs will have a good baseline on how fast Kobe Mutch can complete a 20m effort, how high he can jump, flexibility, range of motion etc and as he recovers from injury the rehab staff will place increased load on him to build him back to 100% functionality. Obvisouly surgical efforts etc are interesting but that is largely outside my knowledge.

INJURY PREVENTION
This is probably the most interesting. At least to me. Without disclosing IP basically some studies have been shown that teams who have the higher availability of their best X players available will stand a signifciantly higher chance of winning. Teams that have their 19, 20, 21 and 22 ranked players all injured wont be as susceptible to player 6 & 9 out.
So some clubs will be even more conservative with their mgmt of the big dogs. Hence we saw Hepp, JoeDan play half games and we didnt even see Hooker, Hurls or Fantasis. This may be for other reasons but it is not uncommon. Clubs are super conservative with these types. (Not related to fitness but they will also assess other clubs availability of their best players and then use this data to develop predictive match day win / loss margins…really. So a 3 goal loss to the swans at the SCG may be a comparatively better performance than a 3 goal win against FCFC at the MCG)

Players who have been at a club a while will have individual predictive data that shows injury history and individual training loads. For example, we should have amazing data on what David Myers body can and cannot cope with session by session week by week to understand how not to break him. However, a player is often more susceptible to soft tissue injuries in the same spot recurring once this trend occurs.

The clubs will also have data on overall training cycles week by week including the bye rounds and will adjust the broader load (km, intensity, duration) considerations based on previous years. But there is a fine line between injury prevention and maintaining fitness. That is why often clubs will have a shortened match simulation during the bye weekend just to ensure the body stays in its optimum cycle.
Clubs will also assess every injury and analyse whether it was fatigue related, over-exertion or an impact injury issue. Obviously fatigue and exertion injuries are considered preventable and as such a sports science department will be asked to explain their findings.

Player will also have a responsbility to report general feelings of physical wellbeing and fatigue. These will also be used as a guide in injury prevention.

When it goes wrong?

This is speculative, but I’d suggest Mark Harvey was essentially fired from Fremantle one season for player mismanagement. He reportedly undertook the most ridiculous pre-season where the km run per player was off the charts. That year they kept having soft tissue injuries. He also played players underdone and brought them back too early. It was a disaster. This also demonstrates that although we like to blame fitness staff in the end the coach is ultimately accountable and can overrule the fitness staff… at their peril. Which was apparently happening.

I also have heard that Bomber Thompson didn’t have a high regard for sports science for what it is worth.

Hypothetically, a real example of the JLT game would be…

Heppell can only complete 6.5km running.

Hepp reaches 6.5km of running irrespective of the game situation and performance and he is pulled off.

Also interestingly sports science departments will also provide injury predictive data for potential draftees and recruitment teams will be well informed of this prior to making selections.

Just some minor insights but hopefully it clears up the idea that the reason a player isn’t a midfielder or isn’t as fit as Shane Crawford is not becasue they are lazy. There are signifcant Genetic and Physiological determinations as to why an athlete performs the way they do.

Here mate. I posted this a few years ago as some were interested. You may find interesting and could cross reference with your mate.

barnz · December 2, 2020, 10:33pm

Specimen. Keep him away from Gerard Healy

youngbarry · December 2, 2020, 10:34pm

Very true

RM_7 · December 2, 2020, 10:41pm

2 more years and Perk will be Langford size.

Tim32Watson · December 2, 2020, 10:57pm

The Norther Knights have a very similar philosophy from what I saw over recent years.

It probably helps to explain the apparent decline in skill level at AFL level.

ThatsNotDeliberate · December 2, 2020, 10:57pm

Look, I like Langford as much as most of us but I hope Perkins( if we get him) finds the ball more than Langford.

Langford in my mind is not a mid as much as he is trying to be. He doesn’t find the ball anywhere near as much as he should.
I wish he was played as high forward where he played his junior football, with just occasional bursts in the midfield.