How did you rate our Draft?

 MELBOURNE 

Picks (at start of draft): 3, 10, 28

Selections: Luke Jackson (3), Kysaiah Kropinyeri-Pickett (12), Trent Rivers (32)

Melbourne bucked the trend and selected a ruckman in the early stages of the draft. With Pick 3, they called out underage basketball star Luke Jackson who focused his attention purely on footy over the last 18 months. The Demons believe he can play a role up forward before progressing into the ruck alongside Max Gawn, or even head into the midfield. With their second pick, Jason Taylor selected the nephew of former Port Adelaide player Byron Pickett, Kysaiah. The South Australian small forward loves to tackle hard and has smarts around goal. ‘Kozzie’ is going to light up the MCG for a number of years. With their third selection, they managed to grab a slider in Trent Rivers, with the crafty half back/midfielder impressing across the WAFL Colts and Under 18 Championships.

Grade: B

 MELBOURNE DEMONS

3. LUKE JACKSON

198cm, 94kg, ruck, East Fremantle

12. KYSAIAH PICKETT

171cm, 67kg, Forward, Woodville West Torrens

32. TRENT RIVERS

188cm, 85kg Defender, East Fremantle

It was an eyebrow-raising strategy from the Dees, taking a ruckman with pick three and a livewire forward at 12. But the upside for Luke Jackson and Kysaiah Pickett is immense.

Melbourne’s forward line retention was poor last year but Jackson will provide a target and Pickett’s tackling pressure has drawn comparisons to Hawthorn champion Cyril Rioli. Their third and final pick was medium defender Trent Rivers who was a rebound machine for the Sharks in the WAFL Colts, averaging 27 possessions.

JAY CLARK’S VERDICT

Love it. Jackson does Brodie Grundy things and Pickett will be a risk worth taking when he is laying bone-crunching tackles in the forward half. Some have said 12 was too high for a 171cm forward pocket. But the game revolves around blokes like Pickett creating havoc near goal and the Demons have lacked his sort of defensive pressure in attack.

I always consider these types of things to be a pointless exercise but understand it’s meant to feed all things AFL. 
 

Any sane assessment should be done at a minimum of two to three years from now but I do like our approach more than anything.

Therefore, I’m not voting. 

A+

I wanted  X factor and flair and I got it with LJ and Kozzie.  Pick 32 was a nice pick with Rivers  sliding  a bit and gives us another halfback option with Hibberd slowing down and KK a big question mark.

Like the draft a lot. You'd think we'd have 3 long-termers, which would be batting above average. Not sure that the first two are as speculative as some people are making them out to be, and will be interesting to see where we are with them, even as early as Round 1.

Wouldn't mind betting all 3 will play at some stage next year.

Not the players I wanted so if I was to vote on that it would be a C-C+. (Edit: My choices were made on highlights and what I thought we needed ??‍♂️)

If I was going to vote how I think the recruiting team went, I would vote an A. They obviously went in with the plan to recruit Jackson and Kossie, not only did they get their targets, but they got Rivers as a bonus. ??

Edited November 28, 20195 yr by Males

1 hour ago, McQueen said:

I always consider these types of things to be a pointless exercise but understand it’s meant to feed all things AFL. 
 

Any sane assessment should be done at a minimum of two to three years from now but I do like our approach more than anything.

Therefore, I’m not voting. 

Just sour grapes...

Happy with our draft haul but feel like we could have been tactically shrewder.

I'm sure there were other things going on behind the scenes, but: 

Swapping out 8 for 10 and 28 pre-draft seemed hasty. 8 was the sweet spot.

28 was also lower than expected - and as shown again, pick ~20 proved another good hand.  

I have no idea how much (if at all) we rated Pickett above Henry . . . -

But there was no way that Freo would let him go, and we still handed them a platter. 

In my mind we've potentially given up Young over Picket, or could have had 'Pickett' plus.

Be that Weightman or Pickett as well as a sub-20 - or then 25ish and some juice for next year

In saying that, I support our approach in deciding who we want, and then ensuring we land them.

And Pickett and Young are now my new favourite players - behind Clarry of course. 

It should however be kept in mind that we've also spent most of our cookies next year. B to B+

 

Won't know how we went for years but giving JT an A+ for this impressive don't argue....

 

The interesting thing will be averaging it out with next years draft, and if we can get back into the first round or not. Clearly when you take two top 10 picks you're in A territory and awaiting confirmation with form. But the caveat is next year of course. No matter how far we go, we will not be able to acquire much additional firepower without trading an asset/losing a player i think. A 2021 1st round can't be worth that much to trade, if we're back up in that top 8 bracket in 2020.

Edited November 28, 20195 yr by John Demonic

6 minutes ago, Rusty Nails said:

Won't know how we went for years but giving JT an A+ for this impressive don't argue....

 

Gotta admire his full commitment to it, getting caught half way in between shaking and not is an awkward nightmare

Edited November 28, 20195 yr by John Demonic

1 hour ago, Skuit said:

Happy with our draft haul but feel like we could have been tactically shrewder.

I'm sure there were other things going on behind the scenes, but: 

Swapping out 8 for 10 and 28 pre-draft seemed hasty. 8 was the sweet spot.

28 was also lower than expected - and as shown again, pick ~20 proved another good hand.  

I have no idea how much (if at all) we rated Pickett above Henry . . . -

But there was no way that Freo would let him go, and we still handed them a platter. 

In my mind we've potentially given up Young over Picket, or could have had 'Pickett' plus.

Be that Weightman or Pickett as well as a sub-20 - or then 25ish and some juice for next year

In saying that, I support our approach in deciding who we want, and then ensuring we land them.

And Pickett and Young are now my new favourite players - behind Clarry of course. 

It should however be kept in mind that we've also spent most of our cookies next year. B to B+

 

I suppose after bidding Henry at 8, GCS would've come at us with picks 17+20 to get Flanders. And you have to wonder which of Serong, Picket, Weightman or Kemp would've been there at 17-20. Also Young was 7, so we've picked up Pickett instead of Serong, not Young afaik

Edit: Another interesting thing of note is the GCS/Carlton trade could've been about Jack Martin now that GCS have come out and said they won't touch him. Another case in point in relation to our lack of 'shrewdness' - We certainly love to jump out of the way and make sure other clubs get their wins. And yet here we are with pick 2 in the PSD still able to be shrewd and get a free player.

Edited November 28, 20195 yr by John Demonic

I like the look of all 3.

All competitive players who love the contest.

Just some thoughts on Weightman v Pickett; Weightman reminds me of a Dalhaus type pressure forward, works hard, chases hard but nothing in his highlights shows him to have any real x-factor, no special qualities other than work rate. Pickett is an excitement machine, looks the real small forward we've been looking for. Jeffy with mongrel...I can understand why we rated him.

Jackson is exactly what we needed to compliment our forward line...he's going to be a real hard match up and gives us some real versatility being able to give Max or one of the mids a chop out. With Fritsch, Trac & Melk...2 of Weid, Tommy & Pet plus Pickett we're looking a lot better than we did in 2019.

Rivers; these picks are always more speculative of course but I love his attack on the footy, looks like he knows what to do with it as well. Has the attributes to be player, good size & skills. If he matches those with attitude then he should get there.

1 hour ago, Skuit said:

 

Swapping out 8 for 10 and 28 pre-draft seemed hasty. 8 was the sweet spot.

In my mind we've potentially given up Young over Picket.

 

Young went at 7 to Freo. 7 is before 8.

It's likely we knew this was going to happen, next we wanted Pickett, knew he'd be there at 10 and got Rivers for "free".

Your post makes no sense.

I rated it ‘A’:

we got who we wanted with our picks 1 and 2

We got a slider who we rated higher with our pick 3

we were shrewd in moving resources around, from next year to this year, and from 8 to 10 plus 28.

we didn’t get sucked in, or bullied into a bad deal.

we got needs met that dovetailed with the trade period, and the 2 train with players.

cant know how good they will be, but I rate the process and outcome highly.

Very good all round selections which addressed most of our needs 

Forward power via a left field competitive livewire with plenty of ball skills. One has to imagine when Luke is in the vicinity of the ball only good (goals and assists) will come if it.

Speed and aggression plus defensive forward pressure. Kozzie is such a live wire and has plenty of tricks to enable him to survive in this tough game.Will quickly become a fan favourite and light up the G with his electrifying moves.

Another  defender named Rivers who could easily be even better than Jared.Very solid good Mark very good disposer from HB snd a dasher when he sees the opportunity. At 188cm will fit into our team very nicely sooner rather than later. Two good points are that he USA team mate of Luke Jackson at South Freo and that's smart in interstate recruiting. Also he will put Every one of our half backs on notice he is coming for their spot so don't be surprised he gets a chance at some stage in 2020 and grabs it.

Mark A and when you think of Ed Tommo Harley and Brown possibly it's a very good haul which should enable a more expansive game plan greater speed and pressure to get us back in the Finals  race again.

I couldn't rate this draft an A+ until at least one or two of them have premiership medals around their neck for us.  Sounds a bit hard on these individuals, but you recruit to achieve team success and not star individuals.

That said, I'm quite happy with who and how we drafted.  Jackson at 3 is quite OK with me as no one would have quipped drafting a ruckman in Nick Nat at 2 or even 1.  I did like the look of Young in some respects, but also feel a bit burnt recruiting this type of player with a high pick from the Toumpas debacle.  Picket looks like an absolute goer and I'm very glad we used out second pick on him.  Rivers rounds out the bunch nicely with that common thead of compeditiveness.  

With Tom Sparrow having spent most of last year on the sidelines, it will almost be like we head into next season with two fresh first round and two second round draft picks developing away in the background.

But in a broader sense:
Ins                                 Outs

Tomlinson                   Frost

Langdon                      Stretch

Jackson                      Garlett 

Pickett                        Walker

Rivers                          Lewis

Bennell                       Maynard

Brown                         Smith

With the exception of an ageing Lewis we seem to have improved our class across all areas.  Now they just have to perfom on the field.

 

13 minutes ago, Salems Lot said:

But in a broader sense:
Ins                                 Outs

Tomlinson                   Frost

Langdon                      Stretch

Jackson                      Garlett 

Pickett                        Walker

Rivers                          Lewis

Bennell                       Maynard

Brown                         Smith

With the exception of an ageing Lewis we seem to have improved our class across all areas.  Now they just have to perfom on the field.

 

Totally agree, our 2019 trade and draft season has been to opposite to our 2019 season, an outstanding success. 
- 2-3 x mature Top 22 campaigners in Tomlinson and Langdon (and possibly Bennell)

- 1 x top quality tall forward/ruck/mid in Jackson 

- 1 x top quality livewire small Forward in Pickett

- 1 x outside rebound defender in Rivers

- 3 x x-factor and game breakers in  Bennell, Pickett and Jackson.

If we are blessed by the injury gods, we’ve now go the ingredients to win a flag or two, starting 2020. 

Go Demons 

 

A good trade and draft period. Now the dust has settled, I really like the addition of a younger Langdon for a second rounder, rather than selling the farm for Brad Hill. That would have likely meant no Jackson. Langdon + Jackson > Hill IMO.

I'm not even including Bennell. While it's potentially exciting, anything we see from him will be a bonus.

B+ for Draft. I think there were better players available with our top two picks, but not unhappy with how it turned out. Rivers with our second rounder was a steal and he’ll be good long term back flanker. All players drafted have tools that give them a higher than average chance of making it, so decent draft period.

Trade/Free Agency period I’d give a B. We missed out on our main target Jamie Elliott who would’ve come free of trading. We sold the farm pick-wise to get Pickett. We gained Langdon, who I’m a big wrap for, but needlessly swapped second rounder as part of that trade. Tomlinson in is average. Bennell as potential rookie is a winner, as he’s obviously a huge talent and high risk high reward. The ins are decent, but like previous Mahoney years I think we overpaid.
 

Overall I’d give us a B+.

Edited November 28, 20195 yr by Lord Travis

If those three players are duds, then obviously we lose.  If they end up being good players they'll probably go home to Perth.

The trade Draft period has been extremely successful for our club, I'm a B+ but that could quickly turn into an A depending if Harley Bennell gets through pre-season.  He is that outside class if fit and in right frame of mind, serious ability and moves like silk.  Lots of boxes need to be ticked off but getting Bennell right would really be the cherry on top of a pretty good period.

I don't have a view either way on Jackson or Pickett and I hope they are both 200+ game players for the club. The highlights packages are encouraging, but I could come up with a decent highlights package for my 9 year old son after 2 years of football too. Rivers addresses a key need with Hibberd declining fast. It is a risk taking interstate players, particularly at the top end of the draft.

That said, I am firmly of the view that ruckmen don't win premierships, and I'm not convinced that small forwards do either, so I am not thrilled with these choices. It has now been four years since we have taken either a genuine midfielder or key position player with a top 25 pick. That is not only dumb, it is bordering on being negligent. We have no depth in these parts of the ground and we are in a world of trouble if the likes of McDonald, May or Oliver are injured at any stage of this season.

We painted ourselves into a corner by resigning a bunch of C graders in September, which limited our options in the lead up to the draft. I would have loved to have split pick 12 into 2 later picks, but we didn't have the list spots to make use of them. Other clubs were able to make use of live trading to get the players they wanted. I find it hard to believe that Pickett wouldn't have been available later on, and perhaps we could have had a crack at Robertson or Kemp as well.

And for a club who supposedly doesn't leak any more, our trade and draft priorities have been widely known well ahead of time. If we didn't broadcast to the world that we wanted Pickett, perhaps he would have still been available in the 20s where he was originally rated. Other clubs are much better at keeping their cards close to their chests.

I thought we did very well.  Happy with our 3 picks.  We will be a much better balanced team and the quality of our starting 22 will be quite different by end of this year.

Its worth noting that some heavy live-pick trading was done with picks in the 20's and very good deals struck (and I'm filthy on Geelong getting GCS's 2020 pick #11 and #64 for their #27).

We couldn't play at that table as we had no picks in the 20's (or able to use 2020 pick of any value to package up).  We always knew pick 28 would slide to the low 30's because of the Academy and F/S players before then.

It shows the need to keep some early second round picks because once round 1 is over teams want to get their fave player that slid down the order, ala Lions and GCS and they will pay up.  Some canny plays went down in the second round.

We may have snookered ourselves a little bit by swapping picks too early in the trade, pre draft periods.  Not sure we gained full value from them.  We will learn from it. 

8 hours ago, Ohio USA - David said:

Just sour grapes...

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