A definite irony given the source..lol.. But amongst his words ( Oswalds ) are the sealers to thsi s deal for me. Its that his is multis-sided and could take a turn in many positions. Should we draft him I would realy like to see Bailey try him out al lover the place. Bails seems to do this anyway. Maaric..an obvious small forward gets a gig far from home etc. The beauty of someone like Watts is, even if he is playing forwad on a day..if he is being nutted ot of the game yo bring him right back into it along a wing.. His defenders wil have coronaries and another of our forwards comes into play. The versatilty to shuffle the cards thoughout a game must surely make this bloke the monty of monties !!

Id liek Rich too..but alas we can only have one. Be interesting to see who's still knocking around at 17.

Watts not to like..?? Watts left to figure out ?? Watts hard about this selection really

yes I love what you're saying about versatility - having Morton (who is also touted as a huge-motored wingman who can slot in a forward spot) will mean Bailey will have a couple of very handy weapons that he can throw in and out of the forward line to make things very tough for his opposing coach. The ultimate would be to have them both in full flight just patroling a wing each and drifting in to score periodically. Ya!

nugget, respect what you're saying about your mates having personal experience of the kid, but the fact is he is considered to be an absolute lock for number1 by almost everyone in the country that knows what they are on about, even those that don't have him definitely in the top 3. It's not like we are picking some smokey here. You talk about him as if he is some kind of risk but from what i can gather, he and Daniel rich are about as close to 'sure thing' players as you can be, in terms of the sheer likelihood of them pullinmg their weight at AFL level - his physical attributes obviously give him a great head start.

FWIW I reckon he'll play round 1 if only as a marketing tool - we will be pumping up a lot of energy to get people to sign on for 09... by naming him we will be getting a lot more folks down to the G for North game in the hope of getting some more sigs at the tents outside... this would be a good move I feel

i know i have said it before but i must remind you that i have heard we are taking natanui and my feeling is that oswald left because of this

edit: in comparison to cale morton, cale was not bottom age like watts is and had finished his year 12

From my over-hyped expectations of the quality of this draft I would say he is a better player than any of last year's draft. Those guys cemented a spot pretty easily in their teams. Even Marric got a gig while at school, though I did hear that he never really turned up.

He will play most games next year, but there is no way he will live up to my expectations, and I am sure I will be saying "...when he's finished year 12... " a lot over the next 12 months.

From my over-hyped expectations of the quality of this draft I would say he is a better player than any of last year's draft. Those guys cemented a spot pretty easily in their teams. Even Marric got a gig while at school, though I did hear that he never really turned up.

He will play most games next year, but there is no way he will live up to my expectations, and I am sure I will be saying "...when he's finished year 12... " a lot over the next 12 months.

i still believe that this wont happen, but i hope you're right because i want to see watts play everygame

i know i have said it before but i must remind you that i have heard we are taking natanui and my feeling is that oswald left because of this

99.99% sure we are taking Watts... have it from a good source.

Unless your sources are Marty McFly and/or Doc Brown, I don't give a toss

99.99% sure we are taking Watts... have it from a good source.

i hope it's the same source as goose cos then we would be getting both natanui and watts with pick 1

but i dont see how the club couldnt take watts

Regardless of whether he does play APS football or not, I would be surprised if he does play in the Rd 1 H&A. He might get a sniff later in the year. Like all 1st year players Watts will need to monitored to ensure he can cope with the demands of AFL.

He has to get drafted first. P.S.

I would be surprised too Rhino, pleasantly surprised that is. Just remember what happened with Grimes and Round 22.

Unless your sources are Marty McFly and/or Doc Brown, I don't give a toss

Oh, what if his sauce is from Mr Ed, direct from the ho''es mouth.

I find it very hard to believe that anyone has a source reliable enough, who would actually spill the beans.

Early draft selections are highly- guarded secrets and as someone who works with a company that sponsors 4 AFL clubs, I can tell you that nobody with half a brain will divulge that sort of information (not even to people they work closely with).

Unless your sources are Marty McFly and/or Doc Brown, I don't give a toss

Great scott!

This is heavy.

I find it very hard to believe that anyone has a source reliable enough, who would actually spill the beans.

Early draft selections are highly- guarded secrets and as someone who works with a company that sponsors 4 AFL clubs, I can tell you that nobody with half a brain will divulge that sort of information (not even to people they work closely with).

I disagree, people love to talk to show how much they know, it's human nature.

For example, I found out about the Carey scandal at the roos before it hit the media - people just can't themselves, the bigger the info the more willing they're desperate to tell someone.

Just look at Rudd and Bush

I find it very hard to believe that anyone has a source reliable enough, who would actually spill the beans.

Early draft selections are highly- guarded secrets and as someone who works with a company that sponsors 4 AFL clubs, I can tell you that nobody with half a brain will divulge that sort of information (not even to people they work closely with).

we have the number 1 pick so it doesnt matter if the word goes out that we want watts. later picks are a different story as we dont want to give away exactly who we are after because another club may deliberately pick a player up knowing that he will be gone by our pick. with a pick 1 though, this does not apply.

Just look at Rudd and Bush

we have the number 1 pick so it doesnt matter if the word goes out that we want watts. later picks are a different story as we dont want to give away exactly who we are after because another club may deliberately pick a player up knowing that he will be gone by our pick. with a pick 1 though, this does not apply.

This is true

We should just be wearing our heart on Sleeves right now and saying 'yes we're definitely taking Jack Watts as he is the best player of the draft and we want him to have a long career in red and blue' and just giving the side, supporters and the kid himself a little boost of confidence. It's also a bit of an F.U. to the rest of the comp to show we're not having any doubts about who our man is and we know where we are headed

I can't think of one reason to hide it unless they genuinely are still deciding, but surely not

I find it very hard to believe that anyone has a source reliable enough, who would actually spill the beans.

Early draft selections are highly- guarded secrets and as someone who works with a company that sponsors 4 AFL clubs, I can tell you that nobody with half a brain will divulge that sort of information (not even to people they work closely with).

I tend to agree Jaded, even though there are a few good arguments as to why it'd be the opposite.

I'd like to think that if we truly are striving to be a more professional club in all facets, then things like this would not be leaked.

That's not to say they wouldn't be. I guess it all depends on how important the secrecy of the pick is in the club's eyes.

If behind closed doors they have been stressing that under no circumstances should this be leaked, then fair enough it is kept a secret.

But if they are just playing a bit of token bit of cloak & dagger, but really don't think that secrecy is vital to our plans... then i could see it being leaked quite easily.

And the only way to know is to be part of the inner sanctum, unfortunately.

in the end, who cares? even if someone DOES have inside info, i still won't believe them!

Who we decide to take with pick 1 will affect the draft choices of West Coast, Freo and Port.

If we wanted it known that we're picking up this kid or that, we would have made it public knowledge. We didn't. Therefore nobody should be leaking this sort of information out.

Don't you think that if clubs knew we were picking up a KPP that they could work out the probability of us picking say a midfielder with a later pick? Or if Niknat is our man than clearly we ain't targeting anymore ruckman. Every tiny bit of information could help an opposition side, and that's not good.

Who we decide to take with pick 1 will affect the draft choices of West Coast, Freo and Port.

If we wanted it known that we're picking up this kid or that, we would have made it public knowledge. We didn't. Therefore nobody should be leaking this sort of information out.

Don't you think that if clubs knew we were picking up a KPP that they could work out the probability of us picking say a midfielder with a later pick? Or if Niknat is our man than clearly we ain't targeting anymore ruckman. Every tiny bit of information could help an opposition side, and that's not good.

In years gone by clubs have advertised well ahead of time who they were taking with their first pick. It has happened.

Who we decide to take with pick 1 will affect the draft choices of West Coast, Freo and Port.

If we wanted it known that we're picking up this kid or that, we would have made it public knowledge. We didn't. Therefore nobody should be leaking this sort of information out.

Don't you think that if clubs knew we were picking up a KPP that they could work out the probability of us picking say a midfielder with a later pick? Or if Niknat is our man than clearly we ain't targeting anymore ruckman. Every tiny bit of information could help an opposition side, and that's not good.

Do you really believe that we should base our draft strategy on rattling opposition clubs?

Each club would walk into the ND with every scenario covered for their 1st round pick. To suggest that we are gaining a competitive advantage by not disclosing our 1st round pick, is ridiculous.

Then again, there are many on this site that believe that we would gain a competitive advantage by not disclosing the full extent of injury list at the start of this season. We really fooled 'em, didn't we?

I hope we draft Watts and I hope the silence on who we will take #1 is to spare Jack from the being the sole focus of the media spotlight ahead of the draft.

Of course he will get a lot of attention after the draft, but there will also be other draft picks for the media to talk about.

i think most clubs make a list of 20/30, depending on how long they plan to take "best available" of who they believe is the best in order eg)

1.Watts

2.Natanui

3.Vickery

4.Rich

5.Hill

6.Swift

and then say if Natanui, watts, rich and hill are taken, they will take vickery

however, i do think the clubs use a bit of strategy on top of this

ive heard (or i think maybe read on demonland) that hawthorn were always more interested in buddy than roughhead, but still went for roughhead first because they knew that more clubs were interested in him...

same with mclean and sylvia, i have heard that we were more interested in brock but we went with sylvia first because we knew that brock wasnt going to be taken with pick4

so in conclusion, i dont see much harm in the club disclosing who they will take with pick 1 that early, however, after this, all plans should remain highly secretive

from memory, i think it was publicly announced that kruizer would be taken with pick 1, 3 days before the draft to take all of the weight and speculation off his shoulders