We put ourselves in a position where we could only make a small mistake. Had we kept pick 9, there was a huge chance that we could make an enormous mistake (either missing out on Kako altogether if you follow Ablett’s logic, or only getting two kids and a big deficit for next year).
It’s a bit like poker. make a small mistake by folding your marginal hand to the all-in and being wrong rather than a big mistake of calling and being wrong.
100% agree.
There would have been a bid on Kako if we held 9 there is nothing surer! Early bids are done out of spite in most instances, nothing more…make clubs pay for their FS or NGA talent. There is no reason why the Tigers bid on Kako after drafting Hotton! But they did.
We will get another 3 highly talented kids in the 30’s early 40s. Its a huge win for the club.
Although in saying that I can’t quite work out the non Ashcroft bids! Brisbane seem pretty blessed at min! Is this solely club wanting their selections to believe they were in fact their no 1 choice and not a back up plan?? Who knows!
The draft should be 1 night, it lacks armosphere over 2 nights.
Let all the players picked celebrate together on one night.
The analysis on Blitz around keeping/trading pick 9 is so far ahead of the media; it’s quite outstanding.
The mainstream media delves 2cm into the detail to get a sensationalized headline and overlook the lack of draft capital we had post the first pick. And these muppets get paid to talk BS.
I’d be stoked if we managed to draft Shanahan tonight, but I honestly think it’s more likely to be important to use our next 3 picks on small forwards and running mids with good kicks.
It’s never spite in the first handful of picks. Clubs seemingly don’t want to send a message to the drafted kid that they weren’t actually their first choice. All about optics. So if you have access to the best couple of prospects, you’ll almost certainly get a discounted rate. But then in the next 20 or so picks you’ll generally be made to pay full cost . It’s all quite illogical because you’re handing the club already getting the best kid a bonus. But not someone in the midrange.
Don’t look any further than Daicos sliding to pick 4.
I thought it worked out we traded pick 9 for 13 and Melbournes F1 plus picks.
Not sure how we get him with 9 picks ahead of us.
Darcy Jones, Brent Daniels, Toby Bedford, Toby McMullin, Harvey Thomas, Phoenix Gothard, and now Ollie Hannaford.
Throw in Toby Greene and Xavier O’Halloran however you wish to categorise them and my goodness it’s quite incredible how a club is so overt in how highly they prioritise small forwards or high half forwards as being crucial to the way they play.
Think I’d be pretty happy if we grabbed Gerreyn. As a possible Wright (fwd/ruck) replacement and added insurance if Draper goes.
Hopefully would give our VFL more potency next year as well.
Fact is Saints were going to bid on Kako even from two days ago. A three way trade pick swap which helps them made sure they wouldn’t
Cal late mail had Saints bidding and then he updated news on pick swap and noted Kako now will be 13 again.
Its all there to see
Leo Lombard got a bid after pick 6 which the Suns traded away… don’t recall hearing that mentioned even once by any media commentator.
Would’ve liked a pick before Kako but ultimately happy we got our man and haven’t gone mad like north trading our future 1 for a late 20s pick.
Hopefully we get a couple steals tonight.
Rosa’s thoughts last night
Yep. It’s the Kevin Walsh Effect! 
This sums it all up - "On the surface, Essendon’s decision to trade pick No. 9 looked like a mistake after Kako received a bid four spots later. "
They’re wrong about 4 picks, it was only two. But it’s illustrative of wanting to find a story whether it exists or not and facts are malleable.
On the flip side, this is perfectly laid out by Rosa. - "Not at all. We’ve got the first-round selection next year, we’re able to improve our hand this year and we’ve got three picks tomorrow night in a pretty deep draft.
“With the depth of this year’s draft, if you’re going to be picking in the mid-range this is the draft to do it.”
I’m pleased to read this, I’d not seen it. it’s cool headed and logical for fans to follow.
And it’s worth noting that if you’re an interpreter of what happened as “we turned 9 into 13 and an F1” then it’s slightly better than that. We turned 11 into 13 and an F1.
The last 14 hours shows exactly where human society has led to.
Much ■■■■■■■ and moaning that we got it wrong. That we should have traded on the bid.
We’ve done well and come out with Kako and flipped our first round pick into next year’s draft. That’s a good result.
Had we held on to it, we may have had Kako and Xavier Lindsey (or Berry or Bo Allan). An early Kako bid and we come away with either Kako or Xavier Lindsey.
Both situations come with a good result, but only one of those comes out with a bad result. We removed the possibility of a bad result. Even that bad result can be mitigated by trading away the pick before a bid came in. Maybe we get North future 1st round + more for the pick? Maybe we get fleeced? Maybe we end up with the exact same trade with Melbourne?
There isn’t just 1 path to reach a good result. There are multiple paths. We would have worked our way around things either way.
People need to learn to just move on…
I think we did pretty well considering the rule change came in literally August and we managed to get Kako, a F1 and a handful of later picks despite what Dodoro left us with
It’s so clearly not a story, yet I’ve received texts from Essendon supporters this morning declaring the club to be stuffed etc etc. Click bait gets clicks again.
We got a fair deal by getting Melbourne’s pick. We will have 2 X first rounders next year. Could we have had 2 first rounders this year. Maybe. But there was risk involved with that. (Even if I don’t believe it was a fair accompli that the bid would necessarily come, it was obviously a potential outcome).
The click baiting is just media taking advantage of people who are unable to delay their gratification. (Or perhaps it’s the media who can’t pass the marshmallow test)