In the main he has picked pretty solid picks at 2nd round though hasn’t he?
Laverde, Merret, Ashby, Redmen, Ridley, Colyer, Buckets where all highly rated prospects that were getting a lot of attention.
From my memory its only been Steinberg, Morgan and Begley that have been huge upside picks. If he ends up 1 from 3 that aint too bad.
When Francis wins his first BNF ill remind ya.
Shrug. We’ll see. Like everyone in recruiting, his record is a mixed bag, and that’s not a criticism. Picking up the likes of Hooker, Fantasia, Stewart and Tippa with relatively late picks has been a massive tick in his column, but on the other hand we lucked into having the best key forward of the current generation fall into our laps via f/s, and I’ve had concerns for a very long time that we don’t have sufficient focus on contested ball winners, and losing Watson and Kelly (and backup in Hocking, Howlett, and even Stanton) this year is not going to help in that department at all. And hell, maybe Begley or Mutch or Clarke or someone will waltz into a starting centre square role this year and win six clearances a game and prove my concern unfounded. In which case I’ll be happy to eat crow.
I just hope our recriuting philosophy and decisionmaking is subject to the sort of review and after-the-fact evaluation that other facets of the football operations are. Mistakes are inevitable, especially in a business as imprecise as recruiting, but if you’re not using those mistakes to learn, you’re doing it wrong.
I feel it needs to be pointed out that other clubs are very interested in the blokes leaving our club. I don’t understand how that is failed drafting.
If anything, clubs are saying, “we think you picked the right bloke but we’ll do a better job at getting the best out of him than you did”.
Or at least, “your list is so awesome that your cast-offs are better than the blokes we had”.
It’s weird that they delisted Mullet at 25 who played 17 games in 2017. In what world is Morgan better than Mullet.
Potential and pace.
For me, Ridley was definitely an upside pick, Redman was too but not as decisively. (As was Carlisle - goind further back - many clubs didn’t pick him over temperament concerns and that’s why he dropped) From the last couple of drafts on u18 performance I’d have Mathieson clearly above the guys we picked, to the point where I don’t think it was remotely close. Ryan Clarke and Riley Bonner too. Last year, Witherden (even from only a few games) was the one that had me scratching my head we overlooked.
I’m not really counting our drafting in the saga-compromised years, cos I think we downshifted there - we drafted the safe option with our first picks (even if they were 2nd round) and went for riskier guys like Fantapants with later picks.
I think your point about Joey is irrelevant. There are clubs far mor advantage to us that we are going to be competing with and it takes more than just one player.
Your point about contested ball winners is one that gets a fair bit of airplay on here so you aren’t alone. I don’t share those views though. My thoughts are that there is more than one way to skin a cat. Football is about tactics and personal. I think we have the personal so now it’s about getting them to execute on the game plan.
I personally think we have some real growth still to come in this list and I’m very bullish about our prospects. I also happen to believe that we are rising at a very good time. Melbourne have a talented young list and GWS also, but other than that I feel all the other clubs have weaknesses.
I think the list is there, now it’s Woosha’s Job to convince the players they can do it.
Interesting, thanks for the insight.
I wonder why some of these clearly talented guys do slide. Its not just us that overlooks them. I suppose its different in every case, but funny how popular picks do often work out.
Can hardly blaming him for leaving, gets to learn his craft off superstars like Marley Williams and Shaun Atley now.
There is a terrifyingly fine line between the 25-possession-per-game guy in the TAC Cup who is moderately paced and whose disposal is only ok but who’ll nonetheless step up seamlessly into the AFL because he’s a pure footballer, and the 25-possession-per-game guy in the TAC Cup who is moderately paced and whose disposal is only ok but who has reached his ceiling and at the next level will only look slow and unreliably-skilled.
If you ever work out a way to reliably tell the difference, please write it down and send it to the club, cos you’ve found the holy grail. It’s one of the reasons that top inside mids so often get picked up with late picks relative to blokes in other positions. It’s just so hard to judge.
It isn’t an accident that so many of the ‘missed’ draft picks - from Hardingham over Barlow back in the day, to Parker and Mathieson, and even Jack Graham last year - are inside types who accumulate. Hardest position on the ground to evaluate kids for, imho.
Under-utilised
On that note, wasn’t the story that Essendon requested a change to the U18 format after selecting Hislop, who dominated against lesser opponents, but never got to prove himself against the best because there was two State divisions?
I’m still çonfused why we went so early on Morgan in the 2015 draft.
Same with Ariel a few years earlier.
Those were x2 picks that just seemed really hard to understand at the time.
That was the story i heard, though I’m sure other clubs had similar concerns.
Pretty sure it was us who requested the inclusion of a handball test into the draft camp too, after Myers
got to the club and we realised his handball on his non-preferred side was non-existent.
Yeah that’s fair enough. I still don’t believe you’d get anything earlier for him.
A top 10 pick who couldn’t handball on his non preferred just absolutely blows my mind. How does he make it through elite junior pathways with such a glaring deficiency.
Also HM, can you please stop torturing us with all this second round talk. It’s just too much for me.
I’m firmly off the view that you should just take the best pure footballers at every opportunity, stack your list with them and hope you find enough cream along the way
Dodoro must have something against genuine mids.
To be honest his preferred side handball only barely existed at the time too (it’s vaguely better now)
Meh, did nothing in 2 years at the club. No real loss
At least with him gone now, it will save me the embarrassment of thinking he was Anthony Long went I went to watch our VFL final this year.
As for drafting him, meh you win some you lose some