#33 Alwyn Davey Jnr

[Ants]

@SplitRound

By draft time 2020 we didn’t have Raz, 2021 we didn’t have Mosquito, 2022 we didn’t really have Walla, 2023 we definitely didn’t. And in the last 7-8 years the drafting landscape has shifted.

My point wasn’t ultimately that we should specifically have drafted Pickett or Weightman or Higgins, because as you say, in some of those years it looked like we were okay. It was that the solution to that problem is no longer generally late picks and rookies like it was even a decade ago. First and early second round picks are mostly where those players come from now.

As the position has become a problem for us over the last four years or so, it looks to me as though we think it’s a position still most sensibly addressed with late picks. We didn’t have the pick to get Rachele, but melbourne didn’t have the pick to get Pickett, they quite aggressively traded up to get it. Humphrey we could have taken but thought Tsatas was better. I have no opinion on that, but we did decide not to take the forward. A forward several teams were aggressively after our pick to get their hands on.

And it’s not like we don’t trade up. We traded our future second round pick to move up 5 spots to get Harry Jones. We traded our second round pick to move up 1 spot to get Nate Caddy. I fully agree those decisions were made because we saw an opportunity to address list balance for a cost we were prepared to pay. But what opportunities exist depends on what you think players are worth, and what balance needs to be addressed is based on what you think the balance should be. It appears to me that Essendon in general disagrees with a lot of teams on the value of small forwards.

Humphrey wasn’t seen as a forward. I think we’d have struggled to trade up for Rachelle (pick 4). The very fact they’re going earlier works against us as Sheezel and Rachelle went so early. Trading up to #4 is a LOT different to trading for pick 11 odd (can’t remember exactly Pickett’s number).

I just don’t see who we’ve obviously missed? It’s not like we haven’t been willing to use the draft currency in trades, trying to get Rankine, Hill, Stengle, Rosas, etc.

We’ll probably learn more this year, with several options possibly around or above our draft position. Do we take one or trade up?