I’m just looking at things forensically, not trying to be overly critical. I very much hope he turns into a star and that my opinions on his weaknesses are either wrong or he grows out of them.
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Nah.
Dangerfield was being compared to Mark Ricciuto in his draft year.
People are looking at limited highlights and trying to imagine a player that he’s not.
Agreed.
Cox and Martin on the wings fixed that to a degree.
Reid is a tall…
And what is Hobbs?
Plenty of experts of talent and player development on this forum. Is there a chance the kid can get to The Hangar and lace up his footy boots yet. You draft him for 5 years time, not what he did in his Year 12 year. Refer to Oliver, Petracca, etc… Draft picks are investments, time to move on folks and let the footy development process take place.
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Spot on. Also expect him to win the Rising Star or the pick is a bust.
could this guy start his career as a running half back flanker? like Heppell did?
Gee Scott looks happy to have got him.
Wardlaw/Pou will have to demand to come to us in a couple of years only for us not to be able to get the deal done 
I think he’s got cleaner hands at ground level than Shiel, and he’s a fair bit taller and better overhead. Involves teammates by hand a bit more. Not quite the raw acceleration or punch through his kicks.
Mind you, bottom line (and I think this gets missed in the Phillipou/Humphrey talk), the bottom line is he can flat-out play the game.
Granted there’s a few areas of improvement, but it’s easy to see him breaking into the team early, and not leaving it for the next 10 years.
Like Hobbs last year, it actually fell very well for us, and would’ve been a pretty easy decision for most recruiters IMO.
Idealy we can add a HBF tonight.
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Spot on. Logged in post something similar. These kids have had to do their footying whilst going to school. That has limitations on their time commitments.
Being at an AFL club affords them all the time and resources they need to train and develop.
send this kid to ballet NOW
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Though you may need to employ a proof reader.
BRING
TsaTAS clearly going to leave us when the Tasmanian team comes in.
Welcome to Essendon Tassie.
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No, he really wasn’t. He played as a third tall defender mostly, with occasional stunts on ball and on a flank.
He was also rated about pick 20-30 until a few months out from the draft when he eventually went at 10.
Interesting article!
I stand corrected with that one.
Check out a few other write-ups: (which is more Martin Mattner than Ricciuto 
)
Patrick Dangerfield
186.9cm, 83kg
Recruited: Pick 10, 2007 AFL Draft from Geelong Falcons
Dangerfield was drafted by the Crows this year in the first round as a bottom aged player. This was a somewhat controversial selection as South Australian favourite Brad Ebert had unexpectedly slid to Pick 10, but so highly did the Crows rate Dangerfield (reportedly third in this draft pool) that there was no hesitation in reading out his name on draft day.
He will do the pre-season with the Crows, but will return back to Victoria in 2008 to complete his VCE studies at Oberon High School. There has been mixed opinion on this decision that he let every club know about when speaking to him pre-draft and the Crows considered this to be a sensible decision and indicated that he had a good, level head on his shoulders.
The biggest strength in Dangerfield’s game is his elite pace. He was impressive at the Draft Camp coming equal 7th in the 20m sprint (2.92) and 2nd in the repeat 30m sprints (23.96). The 20m sprint result speaks for itself, but the repeat sprint result is a fantastic sign that he has good aerobic capacity to match his pace. On top of this he tested well in the vertical leap, coming 3rd overall (73cm), but more on that later.
In a game situation Dangerfield is not afraid to use his pace. He is well aware of this distinct advantage that he has and will put his foot down to run out of trouble. This has it’s advantages and disadvantages. His sheer pace, combined with the fact that he has excellent core stability means that he’s difficult to catch, and once he is caught he’s hard to keep a hold of. He’s very good at standing up in a tackle and breaking through traffic.
He has plenty of confidence with the ball and this is where the disadvantage can come in. People have described him as Mattner like, and yes, there is a chance we will see that over ambitious side with Dangerfield. It hasn’t been particularly noticeable with Paddy, but I did see it happen twice in one game against Calder Cannons (both in the back line) so that risk is there. However, his confidence can be just as much an asset and he is a very good carrier of the ball. I’ll get onto his disposal in a sec, but he can be an 80m player (run 25m, kick 55m) and in modern football those players are becoming more and more valuable to defeat the flood with quick, direct ball movement. With our other draftees this year it appears to be the tact we’ll be taking in the future.
A lot has been made of his kicking skills, and yes, this certainly needs to be an area of improvement for Paddy. He would be a much more damaging player if he could hit targets more consistently. I see a lot of the problems with his kicking to do with his ball drop. Most of the time he has a very loose ball drop. By that, I mean that he doesn’t particularly guide the ball down onto his foot - he basically drops the ball onto his foot. Often this makes his kicking a little bit too careful, or at least that’s how it looks.
His kicking to contests often sits over the top of his targets head. It often reminds of that classic Futurama quote when Farnsworth brings in his What If machine and Fry asks what if life were like a video game. In the Space Invaders scene when they lose Lrrr gets out and says something along the lines of, “Instead of shooting where I was, you should have shot at where I was going to be.” I did want to randomly throw that line in because I love it so much, but it accurately describes his kicking to contests.
Oddly, his kicking on his left foot has a much better ball drop where he tends to guide his hand through his kicking leg. For an opposite foot it’s passable, and in fact it’s somewhat encouraging that he has a pretty neat looking style there. To me it indicates that he can be taught to replicate that on his preferred foot.
Ground level skills aren’t too shabby. He is quite good at scooping the ball up with pace and continuing to run hard. Clean ground skills at pace is no easy task, so this is good to see. For some reason he tends to struggle a little bit more when things are a little bit slower or when he’s not moving. It would be good to see him get a bit cleaner below the knees at a slower tempo. Whether this means he is good instinctively below the knees at pace, or if it’s something he’s worked hard on then I’m not fussed because it’s rarer to have someone pick up the ball while moving quickly.
His vertical leap allows him to play taller than his actual height of just on 187cm. He has good skills in the air and a decent punch on him. While I don’t anticpate it being his main purpose to play as a key defender, he would work well as a rebounding defender and it doesn’t hurt to have good aerial skills in that position! Ideally he’ll be a part of our midfield rotation in years to come, but he’ll likely do an apprenticeship across the half back line. Height and pace make him a tantalising midfield prospect and there’s still bits and pieces to fix up, but he does have the makings to be a very exciting and explosive AFL midfielder.
One other small thing that I noticed that I would like to see ironed out of his game is that he tends to have a slight bias towards chest marks. This is a bit petty because I’ve only really noticed this in uncontested situations, but he seems to move himself to the fall of the ball is right in his lap. I’ve always come from the school of thought that you should mark the ball out in front of you when you can, so it’s not really an issue, but just a little quirk that I picked up from watching him.
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ironically it doesn’t really have anything to do with the kid, like it rarely has anything to do with any player.
it has to do with ironically the same experts you try to mock in this post, merely on the opposite side, trying to gaslight people into submission about a player not having a flaw or a bad trait or something that they need to work on.
it’s like the usual suspects need to believe that the players that play for the EFC or in this case were poised to be selected by the club, can not possible have any flaws in their game cos well the experts at the club decided to pick them( because the club has such a great recent history of stellar decision making).
most of the stuff surrounding the crap with this kid could have easily not have got the traction it did, just like other players, if certain people merely went, you know what maybe he does need to work on certain aspects, hopefully the rest of his game makes up for any areas he may need to work on in the meantime.
instead it’s no you’re wrong he has no flaws yada yada he is awesome and the bestest ever.
so again it’s not even the kid himself, it’s just certain people need to feel validated on here by just defending people employed by the EFC, simply cos they are associated with the club and run with the they have no flaws philosophy cos it somehow in their mind makes them a better supporter.
Danger exuded confidence from the get go, almost figjammy. Apparently despite appearances (book, cover) Tsatas is very confident as well. Are any kids thesedays not infected with that US style self confidence? Has a good build but won’t be powerhouse solid like Danger.
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