#33 Alwyn Davey Jnr

[SplitRound]

Sure. If you include trades, the only player it adds to the discussion on the Essendon side is pick 84 for Paul Chapman.

Three players on that list have been traded. Hill for effectively a pick in the early 40s. Higgins was traded for what became pick 30 plus an upgrade from 21 to 17, and Rankine was traded for pick 5 plus some pick swaps that amounted to basically nothing.

So if you use “last paid price” instead of draft price, it goes from 9/10 of the small forwards costing more than we’ve spent on a small forward to 8/10. I don’t think it really changes the point at all.

Edit: oh wait, Stephenson too. You can decide how much of the ~pick 21 was Stephenson and how much was Bosenavulagi. I’d argue the vast majority of it was Stephenson.

[evs]

That’s a very detailed response to what was intended to be a flippant, smart ass post from me

I definitely wasn’t disagreeing with any of your analysis. More just pointing out the Suns and Giants seem to bend over backwards to help out everyone else (e.g. Bowes to Geelong and Bobby Hill to Pies) but when we want to trade we can’t get it done.

[Clone_Hirdy]

@evs

Unfortunately the Giants and the Suns don’t like us.

Hopefully WC like us.

[SplitRound]

Fair. I think it was a decent point for you to raise, though, because if half of them had been traded for 3rd round picks two years later, the original point doesn’t hold at all.

[evs]

I’m not sure Harley Reid can solve our small forward problem, but I’m willing to trade him in to give it a try. If it doesn’t work out we can try him elsewhere. Maybe even turn him into a midfielder.

[Clone_Hirdy]

Harley Reid can solve whatever problem he wants to solve.

[Anabelle]

Doesn’t even provide Alot of pressure anymore. Guards grass doesn’t offer anything.

Rather Menzies and that’s saying something.

[Bacchusfox]

What about Walla ? Are you forgetting him ?

[Duplicity]

Menzie* is kicking not many goals in the VFL, not sure how he’s making any sort of case atm, and thats despite Alwyn only kicking 5 goals in 8 games, and being better in almost all stats

[Ants]

@SplitRound

Here’s the top 10 under 25 small forwards from last year for goal scoring: Pickett, Higgins, Rankine, Weightman, Hill, Bolton, Bailey, Stengle, Stephenson, Daniels.

Picks: 12, 17, 3, 15, 24, 29, 15, rookie, 6, 27.

A decade earlier it was: Lindsay Thomas, Walters, Steven Motlop, Wingard, Garlett, Breust, McGlynn, Elliott, Dahlhaus, Josh Hill, Zorko

Picks: 53, 53, 39, 6, rookie, rookie, rookie, pre-list, 61, pre-list

It’s a bit difficult to say exactly what Zorko and Elliott were worth because they were part of multi-part trades, but Zorko roughly pick 40, and Elliott roughly pick 30.

Regardless, I think it’s pretty obvious that the idea that small forwards are a late pick/rookie type of player is outdated thinking. Teams are willing to spend earlier picks on the role now, which means the players are going earlier. The highest pick we’ve spent on a small forward since drafting Davey’s dad was pick 38 on Mozzie, and that was six years ago.

So looking at the pick used on the top 10 from last year again with the most we’ve spent on a small forward in the last 18 years it’s:
3, 6, 12, 15, 15, 17, 24, 27, 29, Essendon, rookie.

Just unlucky I guess.

Edit: corrected the first list because I didn’t realise Owies was that old. It should actually be Brent Daniels on there instead, so it’s 9/10 top 30 picks and 1 rookie.

But it’s always a balance and opportunity. I’m not sure if we had a pick to get any of those top 30 ones except Bolton, who would have cost us Ridley. We missed a couple around 2017-2019 (Weightman, Higgins, Pickett) due to the SSS trades; but given we had Raz and Walla prioritising other areas in 2017 and 2018 made sense.

Edit: I’d blame our coaches far more for what happened with Walla and Mozzie.

[SplitRound]

I don’t think I’m forgetting him. Definitely the best small forward we’ve had in that time period, but only cost a rookie pick. We’ve added plenty of small forwards over the years with later picks, but as more and more of the successful small forwards have come from higher picks, we’ve persisted with the older approach.

[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.

[astro_bomber]

This is the way I envisaged our forward line working, a lone tall and small working together deep inside 50 and another similar combination working up the ground

[HirdMentality]

@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.

I wonder how much we were influenced by the Davey twins being around the corner. But small forwards and HFF have been in vogue since Richmond’s front half was filled with them.

This is why it will be interesting to see how we approach the Kako situation in the draft this year, we now him better than anyone, he is literally perfect for us, we may be in a position where we have to trade up for him. I’m firmly of the belief that we should be trying to get another pick in the teens to pick up 2 smaller forwards.

[Laverde2Langford]

@HirdMentality

I wonder how much we were influenced by the Davey twins being around the corner.

I suspect a lot…which is a shame because I am highly unconvinced by 1 of them.

[HirdMentality]

I fear you’re right, even then we have been pursuing SFs via trades, unsuccessfully, and we’ve had intentions to draft some later prospect before being beaten to them as well.

[Anabelle]

Menzies hasn’t played well this year, but we know he can play as he showed last year.

Mature body, will be handy in rain conditions in a tight contested situation.

[Go_Team_2.0]

Given we’ve chased Rankine, Stengle and Hill,
I think it’s clear we’re aware of the gap in the list.

[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?

[Clone_Hirdy]

I was watching the replay and have never seen a player as afraid of the contest as this bloke is. There was a passage of play on the wing where he literally moved away from the contest. Why is he in the team?