Draft Picks 1 - 20

[praha 11,240]

Roos set to cull top picks:

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/paul-roos-to-cull-top-picks-in-bid-to-regenerate-melbournes-list/story-fni5f91a-1227037950219?from=herald+sun_rss

[Beats 190]

Quoted from pitmaster at the pie night last night

In summary Roos does not value draft picks the way some of us do: 'at Sydney we traded many draft picks because it's a lottery, the draft".

And posters want us to get better at it. How do you get better at a lottery ?

Buy more tickets.

[rjay 24,928]

We are in violent agreement on this.

Posters look for black and white in recruiting when all there is is various shades of grey.

Other factors are looked at by recruiters but will either depreciate or inflate their under 18 form

.

You suggest we should get better at it . Couldn't agree more except you haven't outlined how to get better at it.

Quoted from pitmaster at the pie night last night

In summary Roos does not value draft picks the way some of us do: 'at Sydney we traded many draft picks because it's a lottery, the draft".

And posters want us to get better at it. How do you get better at a lottery ?

It's not a lottery, particularly at the top end. It doesn't mean you get it right and we have a real history of getting it wrong. The ones we got really wrong as you've outlined before are where we've gone for needs over best available...so that for a start pushes the odds of getting it right against you.

Luck plays a significant part. If you are Hawthorn and get a PP in particularly strong draft years as they did it doesn't hurt their chances. Roughy and Hodge are pretty decent PP's I would think.

At the moment we have an unproven recruiting dept. so we won't know for a few years yet if they are any good. I would have preferred us to have someone with a proven track record in this area. That's one way you get better.

The other is something I strongly believe in and that is bringing on board an astute experienced football person like a John Northey to work with the recruiters, give feedback and insight on what they see. He doesn't need to be full-time but would come in on key meetings and cover the championship games.

[olisik 4,060]

Roos set to cull top picks:

http://m.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/paul-roos-to-cull-top-picks-in-bid-to-regenerate-melbournes-list/story-fni5f91a-1227037950219?from=herald+sun_rss

I linked that last page.

[nutbean 8,838]

The other is something I strongly believe in and that is bringing on board an astute experienced football person like a John Northey to work with the recruiters, give feedback and insight on what they see. He doesn't need to be full-time but would come in on key meetings and cover the championship games.

yup - agreed - development.

[Guest Demon Abroad]

"Surely the main question when recruiting is who will be the better player for the club over 10 years, not who has had the better junior career or tested the best at the Draft Combine.

I would have thought the secret to being a good recruiter is predicting what the player could become not simply taking who the best is at age 18."

Your words - I'll stop making things up when you come up with a way to figure out how you can ascertain who will be the best player over ten years without leaning very heavily on their junior form ?????

Look at your second line - by your own words - take who will be best not who is currently the best.

I am all ears - exactly how do you do that ??????

There is a reason that recruiters lean almost exclusively on form shown through junior careers - it might because that is the only indicator they have ?

There is a reason that year in year out the top 10 order is pre-ordained and comes out as anticipated. It is because of their body of work in the junior competitions.

Still waiting for you to illustrate where I said that junior form is not taken into account or is dismissed - I NEVER DID

Just saying it shouldn't be the only thing that is considered. Of course junior form plays a large part but it is so different to what is required at AFL level you have to be able to try and identify if they can make the transition

Look at the players we drafted who were highly rated junior but haven't reached the levels expected. Hindsight is easy but at the time did they consider:

Cale Morton

Not big enough for Key Position, can he develop body to be inside mid? Does he have enough pace to play on the outside? Is he a competitor? Does he have appetite for contest? What is his role? – Suitable for bruise-free football played under Bailey but not much else

Addam Maric

Short, can he build endurance to play in the midfield, does he have the pace to play as a pressure forward? Is his attitude AFL standard?

Jack Watts

Key position height, can he build the body strength to play key position? Does he have the competitiveness to be the number one target and be niggled by defenders week in week out? is he a competitor?

and you mention Scully regardless of the fact that he left us, he does not play to the level of a number one draft pick, I wouldn't have him in the top 10 players from that draft. For a player who doesn't have the body to be a brute inside mid, I'd say a lack of kicking skills is a pretty big knock on him.

The trouble seems to be the recruiters don't seem to want to take a risk with the top picks by selecting anyone other than who is rated the best junior by general consensus as this would seem controversial. This is why I am in favour of trading early picks for more of a known quantity plus a slightly later first rounder, like the Tyson deal. Takes the pressure and attention of the top selection and allows you to make a more calculated selection.

[Earl Hood 6,086]

Still waiting for you to illustrate where I said that junior form is not taken into account or is dismissed - I NEVER DID

Just saying it shouldn't be the only thing that is considered. Of course junior form plays a large part but it is so different to what is required at AFL level you have to be able to try and identify if they can make the transition

Look at the players we drafted who were highly rated junior but haven't reached the levels expected. Hindsight is easy but at the time did they consider:

Cale Morton

Not big enough for Key Position, can he develop body to be inside mid? Does he have enough pace to play on the outside? Is he a competitor? Does he have appetite for contest? What is his role? – Suitable for bruise-free football played under Bailey but not much else

Addam Maric

Short, can he build endurance to play in the midfield, does he have the pace to play as a pressure forward? Is his attitude AFL standard?

Jack Watts

Key position height, can he build the body strength to play key position? Does he have the competitiveness to be the number one target and be niggled by defenders week in week out? is he a competitor?

and you mention Scully regardless of the fact that he left us, he does not play to the level of a number one draft pick, I wouldn't have him in the top 10 players from that draft. For a player who doesn't have the body to be a brute inside mid, I'd say a lack of kicking skills is a pretty big knock on him.

The trouble seems to be the recruiters don't seem to want to take a risk with the top picks by selecting anyone other than who is rated the best junior by general consensus as this would seem controversial. This is why I am in favour of trading early picks for more of a known quantity plus a slightly later first rounder, like the Tyson deal. Takes the pressure and attention of the top selection and allows you to make a more calculated selection.

Interesting to me is the three examples you picked all had issues above the shoulders. Watts has everything, height, skills, all except as someone said recently, the passion and will to reach his potential. Morton had ample ability but he had fragile confidence and there is evidence I believe that we didn't do him any favours as a club. He needed nurturing to build his confidence but didnt get it. In his first season he was great but it was downhill from there. Maric said himself that he wasn't mature enough for AFL demands. So much rides on temperament, confidence, aggression and a burning ambition to succeed. Can recruiters test for this? I would have thought so myself but you would have to do your homework.

[nutbean 8,838]

Still waiting for you to illustrate where I said that junior form is not taken into account or is dismissed - I NEVER DID

Just saying it shouldn't be the only thing that is considered. Of course junior form plays a large part but it is so different to what is required at AFL level you have to be able to try and identify if they can make the transition

Look at the players we drafted who were highly rated junior but haven't reached the levels expected. Hindsight is easy but at the time did they consider:

Cale Morton

Not big enough for Key Position, can he develop body to be inside mid? Does he have enough pace to play on the outside? Is he a competitor? Does he have appetite for contest? What is his role? – Suitable for bruise-free football played under Bailey but not much else

Addam Maric

Short, can he build endurance to play in the midfield, does he have the pace to play as a pressure forward? Is his attitude AFL standard?

Jack Watts

Key position height, can he build the body strength to play key position? Does he have the competitiveness to be the number one target and be niggled by defenders week in week out? is he a competitor?

and you mention Scully regardless of the fact that he left us, he does not play to the level of a number one draft pick, I wouldn't have him in the top 10 players from that draft. For a player who doesn't have the body to be a brute inside mid, I'd say a lack of kicking skills is a pretty big knock on him.

The trouble seems to be the recruiters don't seem to want to take a risk with the top picks by selecting anyone other than who is rated the best junior by general consensus as this would seem controversial. This is why I am in favour of trading early picks for more of a known quantity plus a slightly later first rounder, like the Tyson deal. Takes the pressure and attention of the top selection and allows you to make a more calculated selection.

You were fairly dismissive of junior form.

Every example you give Morton, Watts and Maric - you only have their previous body of work to determine what they can and can't stand - anything beyond that is guesswork and thats why so many draft picks are wrong. Morton was always an outside mid - how on earth does one test to see if he a body can take on weight - would anyone have guessed that Morton would remain a stick insect ?

Your last paragraph about recruiters not wanting to take a risk and players rated by general consensus. This consensus is not being plucked out of thin air - it is by watching them play, by seeking opinions on leadership qualities, work ethic and personality traits. You keep ignoring the one glaring fact (IMO) - no matter how much homework you do there is still a huge amount of luck involved.

I will repeat again and draw another anology - I can go out and buy the very best ingredients to make a gourmet dish - if i put those ingredients into my $5.50 Kmart cookware and my cheap and nasty oven it will turn out just ok - the cookware doesnt heat evenly and the oven is inconsistent in its temperature. So is the MFC - we have continually taken talent and thrown them into our cesspool and scratch our heads as to why they dont turn out to be winners. Cook, Strauss and Gysberts were definite mistakes - but don't you wonder why we have not taken one elite footballer from the draft in decades ? To suggest it is all about the players we picked suggests that we have got EVERY pick wrong as we have not had an elite footballer come into our ranks in a decade.

So this year we get a coach who knows what he is doing and assistants that are 1st class - we have a stable administration and what happens - we get in Tyson who has been a revelation, two of our picks are showing a little ( Salem and JKH) and we see general improvement in the likes Jetta, Dunn, Howe and others. Has Jetta gone from a back pick to a good pick or has something around the MFC changed this year ?

Lastly on Scully - you wouldn't have picked him in your top ten ? Then you should definitely be a recruiter as you are stating something that no other recruiter in the land thought at draft time.

[nutbean 8,838]

This is why I am in favour of trading early picks for more of a known quantity plus a slightly later first rounder, like the Tyson deal. Takes the pressure and attention of the top selection and allows you to make a more calculated selection.

98% spot on ! I don't care about the attention or the focus - but at least you have a year or two's form to see how they have developed so far.

[rjay 24,928]

Lastly on Scully - you wouldn't have picked him in your top ten ? Then you should definitely be a recruiter as you are stating something that no other recruiter in the land thought at draft time.

That we will never know 'nut'.

It was certainly the conventional wisdom at the time, but lets say for example the Tiges really wanted Martin do you think they would have come out and said that. Although having a look at that draft, apart from Martin the best players were all selected in the 20's...

[nutbean 8,838]

That we will never know 'nut'.

Be it hype, be it paper filler - all one needs to do is google Scully from his draft year and even before we finished bottom he was the only one ever mentioned at pick one.

If you go back through his history , there was plenty of talk about him at the age of 16. He was a freak of a junior footballer and there is only footballer that had a better resume as a junior and that was Judd - Judd didn't go number one because of his shoulder problems

You can only go on what was written at the time but there arguably hasn't been a hotter favorite to go at pick one than Scully was.

[Straight Sets Simon 23,113]

Be it hype, be it paper filler - all one needs to do is google Scully from his draft year and even before we finished bottom he was the only one ever mentioned at pick one.

If you go back through his history , there was plenty of talk about him at the age of 16. He was a freak of a junior footballer and there is only footballer that had a better resume as a junior and that was Judd - Judd didn't go number one because of his shoulder problems

You can only go on what was written at the time but there arguably hasn't been a hotter favorite to go at pick one than Scully was.

I agree, I think that every team would have taken him and Trengove. I also think that most clubs would have taken Watts.

[rjay 24,928]

Be it hype, be it paper filler - all one needs to do is google Scully from his draft year and even before we finished bottom he was the only one ever mentioned at pick one.

If you go back through his history , there was plenty of talk about him at the age of 16. He was a freak of a junior footballer and there is only footballer that had a better resume as a junior and that was Judd - Judd didn't go number one because of his shoulder problems

You can only go on what was written at the time but there arguably hasn't been a hotter favorite to go at pick one than Scully was.

I was going to let this slide but surely other recruiters must have seen problems with his kicking and noted it.

I don't think we can say for certain that Scully would have been taken by every other recruiter in the land, we just don't know. The hype was there that's for sure, the really good guys are not going to let you know what they were thinking, that's why they're the really good guys.

[nutbean 8,838]

I was going to let this slide but surely other recruiters must have seen problems with his kicking and noted it.

I don't think we can say for certain that Scully would have been taken by every other recruiter in the land, we just don't know. The hype was there that's for sure, the really good guys are not going to let you know what they were thinking, that's why they're the really good guys.

His kicking was noted as a bit up and under but was more than complimented by elite hands ( which he does have )

I watch a bit of TAC at Oakleigh chargers ground - the disposal is average at best - watch clips of the players and you will also see that there are lot of kicks that go to no-one i particular or are turned over and then read the biography and see that the player is an elite kick !

I am with you that recruiters keep later selections under wraps but the word on who will go 1-10 is pretty well spot on the money.

[nutbean 8,838]

I agree, I think that every team would have taken him and Trengove. I also think that most clubs would have taken Watts.

Watts or Nic Nat - they were equal in standing as number one picks.

I think maybe Nic Nat was a little ahead but it was known that he wanted to stay west.