The premier ball hunter in the draft pool was back this week in talent league action. Eastern made some interesting tactical choices here. Up against an extremely strong GCS academy team they played a bunch of young debutants and chose to play Greeves exclusively forward for the first quarter and a half, which led to them being dominated in the middle and Greeves starved of opportunities. Once he moved into the midfield Ollie did what he always does, hunted the footy, won clearances and delivered the ball to his teammates with variable kicking accuracy.
Cal Twomey on Gettable: “Clubs on the whole aren’t hot on this year’s draft. I don’t think the depth is there, I don’t think the star quality is there”
A weak draft can be a positive for us from a trade sense though. Two top ten draft picks for Reid for example looks a lot on paper, but easier to give up in a weak draft.
It would be interesting to go back and look at the “this draft is x, y, z” vibes from year to year then compare it to the results. I feel like they’re generally not wildly wrong, but it doesn’t take much for stuff like “top end star power” to get thrown out of whack.
Also, weak vs strong, shallow vs deep doesn’t really end up mattering at whole lot on an individual club basis. For example the 2013 draft has absolute bangers from top to bottom, the pies used two top 10 picks to get Scharenberg and Freeman. 2014 draft is a pretty meh draft, but the pies got De Goey, Moore (FS) and Maynard out of it.
