And Adam for that matter
It was a comment that we are risk adverse when it comes to indigenous players, in our heyday Walla would have been on the list at least 2 years earlier (tbh as soon as sheeds would have caught wind of his story, he would have grabbed him in his draft year) Adam will get drafted this year I think. I also think he will he an excellent AFL player. But we could have had him last year and heād be pushing senior footy this year. I have no doubt.
My point is the old Essendon would have rookied Walla 2 years before we did, even if it took the same amount of time to get to where he is now.
We gave opportunity to kids who that was all they needed
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Would you have delisted Jake Long for Adam?
I agree with your sentiment, hopefully the NGA makes us a little less risk adverse going forward.
I canāt believe after the success of Tippa we havenāt tried bringing anymore young Indigenous guys through the VFL
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Yeah I would have, and Jackson Merret. We need to have a kid with his sort of background developing on our list I feel.
Donāt get me wrong, I like what we are doing with our NGA, but we could have been doing it earlier, and given what the Tiwi Islands has give us, probably should have.
Itās just like Walla, Adam has afl ready skills, but he had things he needed to work on that where more environment than a legitimate deficiency, heās been running around the country trying to prove he is worth a shot for 4 years himself.
This is what I said about Adam in 2014
Was he ready then, no.
Was Walla ready when he came out of U18. No
My question is this, would Walla have made afl faster had he been on a list earlier. I think so. We draft kids who take a few years every year. It seems like guys like Jabber and Walla need to be afl ready before they get a look in.
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Personally, I feel we havenāt fully utilised our VFL list, we should have been bringing in a few more speculative kids with talent and the desire to work on their games, like Walla.
Bringing in 1 or 2 of these sorts of guys every year would have been no risk and potentially high reward. Adam, Willie and Sambono all could have been given a shot after missing their darft years
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I donāt understand what Anthony Long and 3rd year meanā¦are you talking about Jake Long who is heading into his 5th year?
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And those three was probably me, and my 2 alts, I mean what?
Hahahahah.
āNorm Smiths on both sidesā was always my argument.
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And I found your argument compelling. I thought we should have gone for Cyril at the time.
He must thank his lucky stars we didnāt.
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Or potentially developing them for someone else. VFL doesnāt give you dibs.
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Whatās the āstoryā around Relton Roberts? By that I mean why do people bring him up as an example with regard to ESS?
didnāt the club take a punt on yestin eades
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Yes it did.
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They donāt, heās brought up as an example that all remote community prospects are either criminals = Jurrah or overweight unprofessional = Roberts.
Reltons real story is actually really sad, Richmond gave him no support, he didnāt even know he was allowed to park at the club for the first 6 months, he used to park his car at Richmond station and walk to the club
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Really?? Thatās aweful!
Did anybody even talk to the kid and make him welcome? if it takes 6 months to work out where you can park then you certainly are not talking to many people at all.
No wonder he didnāt know what what expected of him and how to be an AFL footballer.
If drafting a guy who was a top tac cup, national u/18 and AGS prospect a punt, then sure.
Itās like the club saying they took a punt on Gach Nyuon
Punt??? He was a duel All Australian as a junior and we got him for a rookie spot.
Yestin had a past that he needed assistance with but Gach didnāt
If thatās the extent of what we are willing to risk then itās little wonder why we havenāt drafted more speculatively in the last 10 years.
Iām not saying this is anyone here but the using Eades case as a cautionary tale is despicable btw.
The Eades selection is a weird one IMHO.
I thought he was a rookie prospect maybe. His TAC/champs numbers werenāt exceptional. Weāve cheerfully overlooked blokes with much more impressive credentials (hell, we did exactly that when we drafted him, picking Eades in the ND and leaving Tippa - who had performeed much better at every possible levelof footy - to dangle until the rookie draft).
I have no knowledge about whatever off-field issues he may have had, but from an on-field point of view I never understood why we decided to go for him in particular.
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there was a video we did following that draft where the new players were introduced to the playing group. Dodoro seemed enamoured by eadeās story.
So anyway @benfti, 1 pick this draft for Essendon do you have someone youāre enamoured with who you think is a fantastic fit? You donāt have to name names, but in my opinion we need both an outside mid with speed and quality ball use, and a goal kicking game changing small forward. Is there a young Michael Long or Cyril Rioli to be found?