He hasnt been a standout but he’s been playing his role. Looks like he belongs at the level which is a positive.
My take on his draft prospects is a little bit biased by my concept of his suitability to the small defender role. He’s very undersized and hasn’t shown that he can play taller than his height. We have McGrath back there, and he’s a super athlete with a huge leap. How many sub 180cm defenders are there in the comp?
I’d hoped they would try him on ball this year, or if not that then at least up on a wing. But he’s been stuck playing small defender, and he hasn’t grown in that role from last year. If anything he’s been a little bit worse than last year in Talent League play.
I don’t know… I don’t want to be negative but I’m not sure I see it at the moment. Keen to hear counter arguments though.
That perspective may be good if he slips to the Cat B list, or he could end up like Foley and miss out entirely. How would you compare him to Foley at the same age?
Retrospectively would you have added Foley to the Cat B list last year, he has been serviceable at VFL level, starting to accumulate in defence. He does lack the weapons of a Lual though - line breaking pace and jump but he usually gets more of the pill than Lual.
Nguyen is a fair way ahead of Foley at the same stage of their juniors to my mind. I don’t recall Foley presenting as a realistic draft possibility back then and I didn’t focus on him a lot. This season for me he’s looked like no more than a solid VFL player.
Nguyen has a turn of pace and can damage with his attack through the middle, can break lines. I’m mostly concerned about his ability to defend against AFL level forwards, and disappointed that he’s not kicked on this season like I’d hoped.
Cat B is a free shot if we’re not using those spots on anyone else, so it wouldn’t surprise if we took him as a rookie to have a closer look for a season.
I saw a lot of jayden as a 15 and 16 year old and he was as good, if not better than kako. He and kako basically won the edfl bnf every year.
I hadn’t seen much of him this year so was interested to see him in the metro v sa game and he was as you described he’d been all season unfortunately, not overly noticeable. He did play wing the whole game though, despite being on and off the bench.
Overall he seemed a little nervous at the level, kicking wasn’t as good as usual (he does have good penetration on his kicks despite his size) and i was a little disappointed with his output.
He has really good speed and the game quickens up around him, but yeah probably wouldn’t get drafted if going off that display and your previous reports of his Coates league games this year. I’ll be disappointed if we don’t draft him though, a really popular kid and would be great to have a player in the afl representing the Vietnamese community for the first time. Especially considering the category B list is basically a free hit.
Regarding Foley, i wonder if he needs to play wing to show another string to his bow to get drafted, similar to how al hawli got drafted in the end. I think he could be good in most positions actually, but never gets noticed much due to being a good, reliable, small defender only.
Yeah Kako just has that confidence and swagger that Nguyen is lacking right now. So much of the game at the elite level is the psychological element of believing in yourself and that you belong.
With the AFL allowing us to possibly trade another year/years picks in advance does anyone think we may try and land another 1st rounder/2nd rounder this year?
Seems to be a deep class but i would honestly just be happy getting Kako
Yeah lin jong was east timorese because i have a friend of the same nationality that knew him. Like a lot of Asians in other countries in Asia though, likely had Chinese heritage going back generations.
Depends how serious we are about the Harley Reid pursuit?
A few extra top 30 picks would be nice, I feel we could solve a lot of our holes and depth issues with 3 or so picks in the 10-25 range. That could be achieved by bring some picks forward or if Shiel, Bryan or anyone else requests trade they might be packaged up with some second rounders to get us earlier picks
If that happens with Bryan and Shiel wanting out theres a chance we could trade the 2nd and third rounds we receive with our current third rounder to the Gold Coast Suns for there Pick 8? i mean i think we would need to possibly cough up more then that but its just a hypothetical but we could end up having Pick 8 and which ever pick we end up at in regards to our own 1st round pick?
*basing this on if they dont have the required points to match etc
I played with and against a lot of Vietnamese kids at underage level and most were pretty good and a couple even won B&F’s but for one reason or another very few went on and played senior footy, most seemed to drop out after u14/15’s level
No. Clubs know the value of picks/draft strength so you would pay a premium. I don’t think other than small forward we’re so desperate for a position that I would pay over for it. Keep the picks for the future.