The things people make up to justify the games our journeymen are getting…
31 of the 41 first and second rounders from 2016 have debuted, 3 of the 12 form the third round, 6 of 17 from the fourth round etc etc
Overall, 41 of 77 have played a game- ie MOST first draftees have already played, far from “not often”.
Ridley and Begley have easily shown enough ability to get a look in in a middling side, Mutch arguably has too.
I wasn’t really trying to justify game to the older guys, I actually agree we should have got more games into younger players.
However if those statistics are relatively consistent year to year then I stand corrected on that point, it just doesn’t seem like young players debut that often.
Seems to be about consistent, 46 in 2015, 46 in 2014. A bit over a quarter of them are in round 1. That makes it a bit under 2 per team for the rest of the year, so I guess it’s not surprising it that doesn’t feel as though it happens that often.
He’s actually a really good inside midfielder mate, look at his statistics for the previous three seasons - disposals, clearances and tackles especially. Prestia and Caddy have pushed him out of the team, and you could get him cheap.
The problem is whatever our strategies are in trying to poach other players its sadly not effective. Our track record speaks volumes…are we not getting to them earlier enough or are we not giving them enough money or is it the past 4 years that have deterred players from coming…or is it Dodorro’s old style tactics that is causing these problems.
I’m not sold on Hopper. He’s the type of player we need and at the right price I’m in. He just might be the big kid who dominates U18 but not quite as dominate at AFL level - Caddy II.
He’s still very young and I’m probably not seeing enough of him.