26 minutes ago, Munga said:

One comparison I've heard is Brent Moloney/Jordie McKenzie

So he can kick it 50 meters high and 5 meters down the field... Sign him up on a ten year contract!

I like the fact Oliver gets compared to McKenzie because he has red hair. #Gingerist.

8 hours ago, Ethan Tremblay said:

I like the fact Oliver gets compared to McKenzie because he has red hair. #Gingerist.

exactly my point. shallow analysis isn't it

 

On 25 January 2016 at 11:03 AM, SaberFang said:

Whoever ends up the better player is irrelevant; Parish will get 10 times the media fellatio purely because of the team he plays for, due to the level of influence that club has in senior media positions.

He's the poster boy of their next rebuild (along with whichever unfortunate soul goes pick 1 this year), just as Heppell and Daniher were 5 years ago, just as Silvagni and Weitering are this year for Carlton.

I thought that I had probably heard it all, but that is a new one for me.  Very descriptive though. 

Frankly, a new term deserved to be invented for the sickening armchair treatment the media's given Essendon throughout this affair.

On ‎25‎/‎01‎/‎2016 at 8:31 PM, manny100 said:

Plus Oliver is supposed to have way more break away pace than Parish. Parish should be good but I think Oliver will be better.

Wonder how Parish is going over there in B'land for size improvement at this time of the year

5 hours ago, willmoy said:

Wonder how Parish is going over there in B'land for size improvement at this time of the year

 

 

He looks to have put on a bit of size in the upper body since the combine. I still prefer Oliver.

7 hours ago, willmoy said:

Wonder how Parish is going over there in B'land for size improvement at this time of the year

One would think he'd be a pretty good chance to get a lot of games in his first season (despite being 42 kgs).

That said, I reckon he'll be a gun in due course. Very happy we picked Oliver though.

 

On 1/25/2016 at 0:03 PM, SaberFang said:

Whoever ends up the better player is irrelevant; Parish will get 10 times the media fellatio purely because of the team he plays for, due to the level of influence that club has in senior media positions.

He's the poster boy of their next rebuild (along with whichever unfortunate soul goes pick 1 this year), just as Heppell and Daniher were 5 years ago, just as Silvagni and Weitering are this year for Carlton.

He already is getting heaps of media attention.

10 minutes ago, Tony Tea said:

He already is getting heaps of media attention.

He's one of the few things that Essendon have to be excited about this season. I don't envy the pressure that he'll be under at all.

On 1/24/2016 at 10:23 AM, Cranky Franky said:

For me one of the most fascinating things for 2016 is to see if our recruiters got it right in selecting Clayton Oliver, especially after the stuff up with Jimmy T.   There is clearly no perfect formula for selecting young players but I think the current recruiters have done very well except for the Toump stuff up.

My concern this year is that if you read all the draft comments Parish seemed to be the better player ie - a natural footballer - whereas Oliver filled the criteria of the big bodied mid fielders which are all the rage at the moment.

I will be really peed off if Essendon come out of this in front of us.  Time will tell but its going to be an interesting year.  

 

It will be interesting, hopefully we come out on the right side as I think the "veil of negativity" would be in full force if we had another draft bust.

Simply looking at "types" I think we made the right choice as the skinnier kids find it harder to transition - however we went with this "type" back in the 2003 draft and ended up with Sylvia & McLean. That draft was pretty shallow anyway and Oliver seems to have a far better head on him but I think it shows that unless there is a standout sure thing it is hard to anticipate how well a kid will transition to professional footy.

On 1/25/2016 at 11:46 AM, manny100 said:

According to the AFL Prospectus Champion data players at TAC who do not win enough of there own ball tend not to make it at AFL despite their Junior Comp disposal numbers. They said Toumpas and Morton were relatively low 'win own ball' juniors despite high numbers. Our recruiters at the time were obviously not aware of this. Since those days its no coincidence that its largely been ball winners. Oliver is a ball winning beast. Evidently Parish can win his own ball as well. By reports Oliver has more pace than Parish and also more size.

You also have to look at the environment/make up of the team they are coming into. Recruiting Parish into our 2009 team would have been a failure because he would have been thrown to the wolves and expected to shoulder the load without any protection from more senior/bigger bodied players. We now have that core of bigger bodied mids that would've protected him though (Jones, Vandenberg, Viney, Vince, Brayshaw, Petracca) making it an easier transition for him.

I like this one.

The rivalry has already begun (read the figure legend and comments)
 

 

Some funny ideas and comments abound.

I rated Parish. Still do but like many see the logic and wisdom of selecting Oliver. 

Be hard not to make an impact at Essendon... Surely  

My take on Parish after watching one game was that he wasn't what he was being sold as. In that game he looked a little slow for a small mid, reflexes not great (bowled a couple of times by ground balls coming at him), an ok kick, didn't have a lot of impact on the game

His highlight reel showed a kid who was very clever at moving the ball on in close, he looked good. He looked like a footballer...

Turner says he's the greatest kid to pull on a boot, he says that every year...

What to make of him, well I can't go on one game and he did get AA honours 2 years running which is a big achievement. The kid can play, he looks to be pretty competitive and doesn't mind mixing it up. Of course he will need to put on some weight which it looks like he is. To play his close game he will need to have the strength to get the ball and move it on.

There is a lot of expectation on the kid and as I said earlier I'm glad it's them and Carlton now that need to wheel the kids out as the saviours of the club.

It will be interesting with Parish. Didn't test overly well in terms of speed or endurance and being 180cm and slight i think the player id compare him to his basically Lewis Taylor without the speed and endurance that Taylor has. 

Like Taylor, Parish in the games i have watched seem to only kick short little 25m passes and doesn't seem to really influence games much. Will win alot of the ball and rack up 22-25 disposal a game but i dont think he has the hurt factor at all.

When i watched Oliver last year his playing style was so similar to Luke Parker where he is such a brute around the contest and his contested marking and courage in the air was so impressive!

Luke Parker or Lewis Taylor?

Hmmm....

I think we got it right this time

roll on the footy

I drove past training yesterday so I didn't see a lot but Oliver was near the Punt Road boundary and I was really shocked to see how big he is in the flesh.

On 1/26/2016 at 6:52 AM, Good Times Grimes said:

 

 

He looks to have put on a bit of size in the upper body since the combine. I still prefer Oliver.

Of course he's put on size. His coach is a pharmacist.

26 minutes ago, Moonshadow said:

Of course he's put on size. His coach is a pharmacist.

ZING!

Had been avoiding this thread. 

Was hoping it wasn't as bad as it turned out to be. 

I just want our young players to be the best they can be and I'm sick of comparing our draft picks. Can't wait to see Clarry pull on the red and blue jumper.

17 hours ago, Georgiou R.R. Martin said:

Had been avoiding this thread. 

Was hoping it wasn't as bad as it turned out to be. 

I just want our young players to be the best they can be and I'm sick of comparing our draft picks. Can't wait to see Clarry pull on the red and blue jumper.

That's all very well GRRM but we have seen one rebuild totally botched partly due to disastrous recruiting choices & high picks wasted on Cook, Gysberts, Blease, Tapscott & then the terrible selection of Toumpas ahead of Wines & Stringer so its not surprising that supporters are a bit nervous. 

Don't like putting Toumpas in the same category as Cook, Gysberts, Blease etc, in that he really did put in the work and went where expected in the draft. Just seemed like a bit of bad luck with injuries and things just not "clicking" for him. Ripper bloke, and I wish him all the best with his career.

 

7 minutes ago, stuie said:

Don't like putting Toumpas in the same category as Cook, Gysberts, Blease etc, in that he really did put in the work and went where expected in the draft. Just seemed like a bit of bad luck with injuries and things just not "clicking" for him. Ripper bloke, and I wish him all the best with his career.

 

Totally agree, i thought Toump showed flashes of being the type of player we thought he could be when we picked him, the game against the Saints last year is a good example, unfortunately his confidence was shot to pieces early on as well and he wasn't able to do it consistently enough, i really hope the new environment helps him 

3 minutes ago, Peter Griffen said:

Totally agree, i thought Toump showed flashes of being the type of player we thought he could be when we picked him, the game against the Saints last year is a good example, unfortunately his confidence was shot to pieces early on as well and he wasn't able to do it consistently enough, i really hope the new environment helps him 

How was Toumps confidence shot? 

And why couldn't he get over that if that was the case?