So you wouldn’t put Stewart in the bottom 7, but you wouldn’t put him in the top 15, and you think quite a few teams would put him into their teams but don’t agree that he’s a quality tall who may not be an automatic starter in every team in the league?
I would (and did) put him in the bottom 7… but I wouldn’t/can’t argue that he could be top 15… if that is what IT thinks…
I think there are several teams that Stewart would start in and several that he wouldn’t.
I have rated Stewart from before we picked him up and knew he was going to be a quality tall for us but I stand by my original point that he is, in my rankings, in our bottom 7 which says a lot about our top 15.
Well I disagree and think your list isn’t fair, especially as you have included Saad and Smith, neither of whom have played for us yet and both who missed games at their current clubs. Stewart is currently ahead of them in the top 15.
I never said he wouldn’t walk straight into ‘quite a few teams’… I said he wouldn’t automatically walk onto every team in the league… which I believe our Top 15 would.
Stewart doesn’t walk onto WCE, Adelaide, Port, Sydney, GWS for starters. He would be hard pressed for St K but maybe now NR is gone. Probably not Rich who prefer the smaller set up… not Melbourne if Hogan is fit… Probably not Pies nor Hawks…
So yeah… by my calculations less than half the league would have him as a ‘straight in’ starter… which is NOT to say I don’t value him. I’m sorry my point isn’t clear.
When did Saad miss games other than for injury?
Smith was rated in the GWS top 5 for the early years before he lost his place to injury. Also getting a spot in the GWS best 22 is hard… they have been artificially created to have too many quality players. I think many EFC supporters are going to be surprised by just how good this guy is. Even ones who ‘rate him’…
It will be interesting to see how it looks after Round 10.
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Saad did play 2 NEAFL games last year, although that was coming back from a 10 week hamstring injury so he wasn’t exactly dropped.
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He would walk into Pies, Saints, Bloos, Freo, Dogs…easily.
If you think so. everyone is entitled to an opinion. Saints have Membrey, Bruce and McCartin… he MIGHT get a place but it wouldn’t be automatic.
Agree blues, freo and dogs…
Pies are currently rolling with Reid and Moore and have some other talls they are trying… I agree that Stewart probably ends up best 22 there.
So that is 4 clubs that he would ‘automatically’ be in… and there is probably more.
My point was that he doesn’t walk into most/all AFL Clubs best 22. In my opinion, and just mine, I believe the other 15 would walk into just about every other clubs best 22 on paper.
McCartin kicked all of 5 goals last year in the AFL, hasn’t proven a thing. They would jump at Stewart IMO.
The list build is never done. Even if we have solved our midfield and defence issues via trades + youngsters, we need to start planning to replace the talls. Belly, Hooker, Hurley, Leuy are none of them spring chickens.
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Strongly agree with this.
I suspect we have decided to do this via the rookie list with our ruck stocks.
Desperately hoping Mason makes the jump.
But I suspect we are drafting talls as a focus from 2018 on.
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Whoah whoah whoah, how come no one mentioned this earlier?
Maybe, Stewart also had a tendency to go missing for large chunks of most games last year.
I agree he was important but lets not start making him into a superstar. His second halves were particularly bad.
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You over value talls in the modern game.
IIRC you have been on about us drafting talls via the ND for awhile.
Of course they are needed but in todays game they are nowhere near as important as they used to be. Time for us to fix the most important area first, then worry about talls.
I’d have Gleeson in our top 10 over Walla.
Come at me.
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If you think we haven’t been fixing our midfield not paying attention
Been very much doing so, but they are mostly young and take time. Zerrett (already is) Parish & McGrath will be absolute star quality mids.
Langford, LAV & Mutch have enormous potential.
We’ve also added in a pick 14 gun junior mid in Smith, and have Stringer likely to move into a more prominent midfield role than he had at Dogs (out of necessity)
Heppell and Zaka are hardly slouches either.
Plus we now have two of the most promising & quick HBF’rs in the league which is vital.
We are looking at a dynamic midfield with pace & pressure and foregoing too many of the brute clearance players IMO.
Their requirement does wax and wan - but they take a lot longer to develop, and are harder to find - and are more expensive as a result. So planning for them is not choice, but a definite.
Walla is a speedy player who applies extreme defensive pressure on the ball carrier who can play at both ends of the field. He has the ‘x-factor’ for want of better words and has also shown (later in the season) that he can transition for stints in the midfield and up on the wing. Still a lot of room to go on his tank and defending in 1-1 marking contests.
I am struggling to find more than 1-2 teams that he doesn’t walk straight into best 22 (which was the criteria I was using).
Gleeson is a handy defender who plays a sweeper role at times. Gets knocked off the ball easily and prone to running under the ball. Disposal can be shocking, particularly under pressure. had a patchy start to the season before settling in and playing his best game in the final.
As a medium defender… I reckon gleeson would be auto-selection in maybe 8 AFL teams. The rest have that position covered pretty well.
I realise it is obscure but I was specifically measuring under the criteria of ‘walk up best 22’.
Gleeson may not hold his spot if Saad and McKenna take off.
They will take off, literally, and Gleeson will keep his spot.
Bookmark it!
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Oh we have added to it but unfortunately like we usually do instead of actually getting midfielders this trade period we are targeting 2 forwards to turn into midfielders.
Most kids with talent are stars at junior level no matter what position they play but soon get found out when they hit the big league.
Our biggest deficiency isn’t the midfield it is clearance and contested ball winners. So far i doubt we have done much to remedy that this trade period.
Zerrett is a very good player but does get a hell of a lot of easy fed to him ball. These guys are fantastic when you have great ball winners we have ■■■■ all of them.
I like Parish and think he certainly could make the grade but will just take a bit of time to become a contested ball winner.
Wth has Laverde done for you to think he could be a midfielder?
You are putting way too much emphasis on junior form and converting that to the big league.
You know what is more important than quick hbf’ers? hbf’ers that can beat their man one on one but of course we don’t make that easy for any of our backline with the game style we play…