OK, I‘m going to put this out there, but please take note of the following
1. I have no knowledge of any of the players available to be drafted this year
2. My entire assessment is based on a ‘vibe‘
3. Everything can change between now and draft day (in terms of the information available to those of us on the outside), which can change the vibe entirely.
That being said, I reckon this is going to be a draft that is all over the place, and which is looked back on in 5 years with either a lot of ‘wow, how did they miss X, Y and Z‘, or in the worst case with ‘wow, what a terrible draft‘.
I‘ve watched a number of highlights vids recently (both ‘draft machine‘ and the more meaningful yt ones with both positive and negative contributions). Very very few have made me think that the players being highlighted have the tools required for the AFL. I understand that these videos are meaningless and don‘t even give you the tiniest glimpse into what the players are like on the field, let alone all of the other stuff that makes up the person and which ultimately makes the difference between a superstar and a Damien Cupido. But given the limitations there are things you expect to see in highlights videos that aren‘t there in a lot of them.
Add to this a few other things and I start to question whether :
a. The “internet gurus†have it wrong, or
b. Is it just a weak pool?
Things that bother me:
I‘m seeing a lot of midfielders spoken highly about who just aren‘t racking up the amount of ball you expect from the top guys at this level. If you managed 19 disposals a game at the champs then that‘s enough. This feels unusual to me. I know the days of Jobe racking up 45 disposals a game across half a dozen TAC Cup games are gone, but where are the guys who were getting the ball 25 or 30 times a game? They‘re generally not amongst the guys getting talked up as early draft picks. Not being able to find the football hurts your chances of making it at AFL level badly as a midfielder.
I‘m seeing a lot of talls who are rated very highly, but I‘m not seeing much in their games that projects what someone called “key-position-y-ness†earlier this week. If they lack KPYN, then what is their role? Maybe some will be versatile guns, but I‘d gamble against there being 5 Pavlichs in the draft. (and Pav has KPYN anyway…)
South Australia won the champs, but players from there are barely mentioned in dispatches. Surely it wasn‘t all vanilla midgets driving them to championship victory?
Who is pick #3, 4 or 5? It seems that once the first couple of picks are done that anyone from a bunch of about 15 could legitimately end up in the top 5. In one draft Ahern is 7, in the next he‘s 20. Someone will have Langford at 5, someone else at 17. When people have such wildly differing opinions it doesn‘t generally mean that there‘s 20 guns. History suggests it means there‘s 3 guns and 17 NQRs , some of which will make it, but the majority of which won‘t. Maybe teams have got smarter over the years, but 10 years ago this would have led to a complete wipe of the 2nd half of the first round as teams got blinded by a couple of AFL qualities and ignored things that really mattered. I think that teams are smarter, and it will probably mean they are drafting for their particular requirements (in terms of ‘qualities‘) rather than for things that those a couple of steps away might be looking for. I guess we‘ll find out in a few years, but I am not convinced all clubs had got much ‘smarter‘ by 2009, which had a high number of first round busts. (but good quality in the 2nd round!). That was 5 years ago now though! I am guessing though, that it means there‘s a reasonable chance that there will be half a dozen ‘surprises‘ in the top 20, either due to clubs rating players highly, or really not rating players that the “internet gurus†rate.
The ‘haven‘t played in a year, but we don‘t care‘ situation. Both Lever and Cockatoo, in different ways, create this worry. They both have no high standard football in their draft year. Lever is expected to be top 5ish, and Cockatoo top 20. They may have that level talent and genuinely be worth it, but what bothers me is that (for Lever in particular) it seems there‘s no ‘risk mark down‘ in play. In most years not playing at all in your U18 year would at least raise a bunch of alarm bells, and there‘d be discussion about how it might affect your draft position. For Lever it appears not. Either he‘s a Chris Judd / Joel Selwood level talent, or there‘s a lack of others who pushed up this year. Given that I‘ve seen it written that he‘s enhanced his prospects this year due to his dedication to rehab, I feel it‘s the latter.
Athleticism. We‘ve discussed Blakely plenty, and after reading that afl website story I went back and watched his vids again. He straight out looks plenty fast enough. So the conundrum is, was the draft camp time an aberration, or is the overall athleticism of this year‘s group such that being a slow mid is barely noticeable against your peers. I have no idea, but I went back and had another look at the draft camp sprint numbers (hardly a scientific analysis, but without access to all draft camp #s all time I can hardly do a decent comparison!). Amongst the 20m sprint top 10, only Pickett, R. McKenzie, Menadue and Cockatoo are mentioned amongst those likely to be ‘Top 30‘ in the draft. For the repeat sprints Pickett and McKenzie then drop out. Guys like McKenna and Brophy and Baynham all made their presence felt in these tests, but my feeling is that they didn‘t push the results higher, they just fitted legitimately into a top 10 that was no better than previous years. It makes me wonder if maybe the top end of this draft is a little less athletic than some other years. It mightn‘t seem much, as plenty of less than superstar athletes have made the grade over the years (and been guns as well!), but if we‘re starting with guys who may be slightly flawed in other ways, then missing that 5% of athleticism may also hurt their chances of being long term guns.
The ‘vibe of the thing‘. I‘m going back to 2009 again, because it feels like a good reference point for this draft, but I don‘t know why. My vibe is there are a bunch of mids who are decent, but they don‘t hit targets under pressure, they don‘t find lots of the ball, and they don‘t have any particularly special traits. Then there are a bunch of talls who don‘t demand the ball in the air, and don‘t do other things that well. Then there are a bunch of guys who have some exceptional quality combined with a bunch of flaws that will need to be rectified to allow the exceptional quality to shine through. Somewhere amongst that bunch I feel there‘s a Jake Carlisle and a Nat Fyfe. But there‘s also a whole bunch of other guys who aren‘t Jake Carlisle or Nat Fyfe. I think the clubs attempts to find the guns are going to lead to a lot of head scratching in the days post the draft as the internet tries to understand why guys who everyone thought were worth pick 50 or 100 went at 25, and why guys that were considered first round locks went undrafted. Then in another 5 years there will be more head scratching as all of the ones that were got so wrong (both positive and negative) become clear.
For me this makes me happy that we‘re not a massive part of this draft. You want to be spending your list spots on drafts that are worth it. The 2001 draft set up some clubs for a decade and missing out on it hurt us for a decade. Going hard in the wrong drafts also hurts as you lock up list spots for 3 or 4 years on guys that are borderline.
It also makes me worried about Long, because if a club can‘t find someone they rate at pick 40+, the risk that they‘ll pick someone from left field is higher. Fortunately I think it‘s unlikely that there‘ll be too many picks taken late, given FS choices, academy choices and rookie upgrades.
I guess we‘ll only know in 5 years whether any of this had any basis in reality, but I figured I‘d put it out there for discussion. Really all I‘m saying is I feel we could pull a massive surprise at one of 17 and 20. (maybe we‘ll take Tippa at 17 and Tagliabue at 20!)
Time will tell. I look forward to being completely wrong!
Plenty of vibe with my guys
Re disposal numbers: remember that TAC games have 20 minute quarters and the clock doesn't stop for stoppages in play. Champs games are something similar I think, There's a lot less game time in a junior game than there is in an AFL match, so possession counts aren't as high.
Re South Australia: actually, yep, their champs win WAS on the back of a bunch of blokes 175cm or less, from what I've seen. Daniel is starting to get a bit of talk as a rookie prospect, very very good player indeed, though I still reckon he's just too small.
Re athleticism: my impression is that the top end of this draft is strong in the inside ballwinning types and there are a lot of tall prospects as well. Less really fast runners. The seemingly lower test numbers are just a function of the types of players that are in the draft. Stuff like this varies from draft to draft, it's only natural and to be expected.
its mabo
Good post worth the read.
As HM said, games are shorter in junior footy.
But the vibe I have got is similar to you. Weak draft, likely to be littered with gems here and there.
Good post worth the read.
As HM said, games are shorter in junior footy.
But the vibe I have got is similar to you. Weak draft, likely to be littered with gems here and there.
I agree that it sounds like a weak draft...but we could pick up some good kids with 2 picks inside top 25.
and you would think cooney is going to be better than pick 37-40..odd
Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn’t do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
He will.Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn't do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
He will.Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn't do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
He is a good player, I was hoping he would slide to us too - but, I don't think looking at raw stats paints the whole story. Yeh - it's easy to select a player because he averges 50 disposals a game and kicks 10 goals - but their impact relative to the level should determine their position in the draft. For instance, no one likes Ballantyne and he probably gets 8-12 disposals a game, and maybe averaged 1.5 goals a game - but he's one of the most effective players in the league and arguably the best small forward there is.
Plenty of vibe with my guys
Indeed. Plenty to work with, but also plenty to work on.
Thanks HM, I was wondering about the time on status of tac and champs games. That helps allay a few of those fears .Re disposal numbers: remember that TAC games have 20 minute quarters and the clock doesn't stop for stoppages in play. Champs games are something similar I think, There's a lot less game time in a junior game than there is in an AFL match, so possession counts aren't as high.
Re South Australia: actually, yep, their champs win WAS on the back of a bunch of blokes 175cm or less, from what I've seen. Daniel is starting to get a bit of talk as a rookie prospect, very very good player indeed, though I still reckon he's just too small.
Re athleticism: my impression is that the top end of this draft is strong in the inside ballwinning types and there are a lot of tall prospects as well. Less really fast runners. The seemingly lower test numbers are just a function of the types of players that are in the draft. Stuff like this varies from draft to draft, it's only natural and to be expected.
And the SA stuff is good to know as well. I'd better go and look at the Daniel clips....
On the athleticism, I reckon that often a couple of ball winners test better than expected, which ends up pushing their price up as they're seen to be more than 1 dimensional inside types. Similarly there's normally a couple of talls who test fast, which excites people because it also means they can see options if they don't work out exactly as they envisage. Obviously there is variation from year to year, and I have no way of knowing whether this year's numbers are just in the noise, or if they're slightly weak (and also I don't know who did and did not do tests). Obviously once players get into an AFL environment how they tested at the combine doesn't matter though!
He will.Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn't do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
He is a good player, I was hoping he would slide to us too - but, I don't think looking at raw stats paints the whole story. Yeh - it's easy to select a player because he averges 50 disposals a game and kicks 10 goals - but their impact relative to the level should determine their position in the draft. For instance, no one likes Ballantyne and he probably gets 8-12 disposals a game, and maybe averaged 1.5 goals a game - but he's one of the most effective players in the league and arguably the best small forward there is.
2.4 goals a game this year...
2.4 goals a game this year...
He is a good player, I was hoping he would slide to us too - but, I don't think looking at raw stats paints the whole story. Yeh - it's easy to select a player because he averges 50 disposals a game and kicks 10 goals - but their impact relative to the level should determine their position in the draft. For instance, no one likes Ballantyne and he probably gets 8-12 disposals a game, and maybe averaged 1.5 goals a game - but he's one of the most effective players in the league and arguably the best small forward there is.He will.Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn't do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
GAGF
2.4 goals a game this year...
He is a good player, I was hoping he would slide to us too - but, I don't think looking at raw stats paints the whole story. Yeh - it's easy to select a player because he averges 50 disposals a game and kicks 10 goals - but their impact relative to the level should determine their position in the draft. For instance, no one likes Ballantyne and he probably gets 8-12 disposals a game, and maybe averaged 1.5 goals a game - but he's one of the most effective players in the league and arguably the best small forward there is.
He will.Matt Crouch averaged 37-odd disposals last year in TAC I believe. He didn't do a whole lot this year for Adelaide.
GAGF
Fingers crossed!
Re: Daniel Caleb.
What about as a small forward but with a heap more upside?
I don't get the height thing when you're recruited as a small to crumb/provide defensive pressure etc.
Worth a punt for someone, so cool under pressure.
Re: Daniel Caleb.
What about as a small forward but with a heap more upside?
I don't get the height thing when you're recruited as a small to crumb/provide defensive pressure etc.
Worth a punt for someone, so cool under pressure.
Short people are a liability in life, not just football. They just get in the way and the worst thing is that you don't even see they're there and you trip over them. They make me angry!
Re: Daniel Caleb.
What about as a small forward but with a heap more upside?
I don't get the height thing when you're recruited as a small to crumb/provide defensive pressure etc.
Worth a punt for someone, so cool under pressure.
Short people are a liability in life, not just football. They just get in the way and the worst thing is that you don't even see they're there and you trip over them. They make me angry!
[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NvgLkuEtkA[/media]
Re: Daniel Caleb.
What about as a small forward but with a heap more upside?
I don't get the height thing when you're recruited as a small to crumb/provide defensive pressure etc.
Worth a punt for someone, so cool under pressure.
Short people are a liability in life, not just football. They just get in the way and the worst thing is that you don't even see they're there and you trip over them. They make me angry!
Short people with umbrellas = the worst people.
So, should we implement the Goodies apartheid plan then?
Certainly my feeling is that this will be a weak but spread out draft. Makes me think of 2003. A lot of people wanted Dyson as our 2nd pick, but we were able to get him with our 3rd. Players went all over the place, but over-all hindsight says it was an incredibly weak draft.
I would be more suspect about the smalls than the talls in this one as well.