Beats

Has a club (Club A) ever nominated a player as father-son and then let him go to a club (Club B) which offers a draft pick higher than Club A was prepared to part with?

No. 2 reasons:

1) Acting logically, Club B isn't going to bid a high pick on the hope that Club A calls their bluff.

2) Under the most recent system you only had to match it with your next pick - eg you're not paying the value someone else has assigned to the player. As such you don't have to match Club B, only pay your next pick.

Firstly the points for picks system has most likely been used by recruiters for years. It's a well known concept for sports such as the NFL - http://www.mynfldraft.com/points.php

I like it - it allows supporters to gain an understanding of how clubs value trades.

In regards to trading future picks, could someone give me an idea if a range is applied to it in other codes? Say we trade for someone's first pick next year, what happens if they go significantly better or worse than anticipated? Would it be a trade for a pick between 10-15 for example? Or would it be set at first round, like it or leave it?

And it is not designed to screw anyone except the teams in the top 4-6 teams that are getting talent without paying the proper price tag.

It screws everyone equally, not just the teams that finish top of the ladder.

Jack Viney situation for example:

We have pick 4 and take Jimmy Toumpas. Pick 5 is bid for Jack Viney, we're then left with the choice of passing on him or scrounging together the equivalent of 3 top 30 picks.

where do compo (any type) and trade picks fit into the calculations?

are they part of it or excluded (as now)?

They would be part of it, this bidding would be live on draft night after all other trades have been completed. In an open draft (such as this years) it's a good thing. If a player your team may rate head and shoulders above a f/s slides through to a locked in pick you can't take them now. Under this system you could take that player and the f/s.

The trade still got done with the current system and most do these days. I would need to be convinced that this is a good idea.

It did, but it went through quite late and potentially held up quite a lot of trades. Every year we have 4 days of waiting for the "biggest" trade to go through and then there's a flurry of activity as everyone knows how things sit.

Allowing this would see the Beams trade go through day 1, there's no frenzy to get all the remaining trades in and most likely there will be more trades as those lesser trades would spawn their own subsequent trades.

... leave the Father/Son bidding the same as is, but make it that Father/Sons are drafted in the 5th round for all. stop this bidding bullsh.

As for the academies squads, give every club a Zone they get their academy recruits from from within the clubs home state & development area.

And Allow each club to select their first preference from within their own academy squad, as a pre-draft selection. all other academy players if old enough must be enrolled into the national draft.

Each club would then get their first choice from their stock of academy players pre-draft, not using a NDPick, but using a senior list spot for this player.

Father son bidding used to be a 3rd round pick. Geelong ruined that when they got Hawkins for a pick in the 40's when he was rated as a top 3 (and quite probably #1).

I like the every team gets an academy idea, but it doesn't work in Victoria with 10 teams.

This is wrong and it is why I like the current system that exists. In the current system it basically goes through every teams draft pick, if Melbourne had pick 2 the only way we would use this draft pick on the father/son is if the team with pick 1 bid on him. Whilst this means that teams like Sydney were able to reap the benefits as they were able to get a top 5 pick for pick 18, we also have recieved the benefits by being able to get Jack Viney with a pick in the 30s.

Had collingwood been able to finish in the top 8 this year or even the top 4 they would not have been complaining as it would have made Darcy Moore much more of a steal. The main argument against the current system is that these "academy players" should be available to all, but I think let the system be despit Isaac Heeney and Callum Mills being incredibly highly ranked players it helps promote the game in these areas and converts rugby league/union players into footballers. Let it be, the AFL have been fiddling with too much of late.

FWIW, Jack Viney was pick 26, not 'in the 30's'. FWIW port bid pick 7 on him.

I dont really see how it is much of an advantage, whilst having players trained in the acadamies can be an advantage, the players in victoria being exposed to tac cup, the players in having SANFL and WAFL are probably more of an advantage than these acadamies. The reason these acadamies exist is because those regions are significantly behind the main three AFL areas and thus gives the kids in these areas an opportunity to develop at a similar rate.

Why it is an issue is because Isaac Heeney could well have been a top 5 pick, but for the most part top 10 picks have not come out of these acadamies, so if they are able to get one or two every 10 years then good on them.

It's an advantage because they have priority over the player. Not sure how you can't see that as an advantage?

Yes the most talented kids in the state now have the opportunity to receive coaching equivalent (if not significantly better.) to TAC sides.

Without intimate knowledge of the academies I'd argue that all they do is cherry pick the top athletes/ talents and that their effect at growing the game at a grass roots level is minimal.

What did we pay for Viney and Stretch?
What if Selwood was already picked?
Eagles have some father sons on the way and there's no guarantees all father sons will be gun players.

We paid pick 26 for Viney (port bid pick 7) and we paid 42 for Stretch (adelaide bid pick 29).

Without applying discounts, under the proposed points system we ended up 915 point ahead with Viney (equivalent to pick 20) and 258 points ahead for stretch (equivalent to pick 51).

Gee....Aren't players under enough public attention without their wages being put all over the media?

I could imagine the uproar on here if a player was getting say $400,000 a year and has a bad couple of games.

who cares if a player comes under scrutiny for poor performance based on their wages - so they should!

I can understand the concern for players well being and the need to shield them from criticism, but will it really be the players that cop it for being overpaid? It's the players agent and the list manager that negotiate their salaries, I'd hope that those would be the ones getting the majority of criticism. Rather than opening up players for criticism about being overpaid, I'd think the blow torch should/ would be pointed squarely at the list manager who did the deal. I know it's not a perfect world, but the players have limited input in regards to what they're paid.

Case in point - TS - he hasn't played up to the $million price tag, but he didn't set that price, he simply took the best offer on the table (as we all would).

Kind of a tangent here, but topical - http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-01-22/1m-club-shrinks-again

I wonder if the highest paid player to miss the entire season was MC?

This was a suggestion made by Nate Jones to both Roos and tech guy, (forgotten his name, which is poor of me), they are still fairly difficult to control, all laughed when it was mentioned that if it fell out of sky and clobbered club captain how that would be explained to both media and Workcover, of course gizmo mad Roos wants it looked at in the future

I own a parrot bebop drone (which is at the low end of the drone spectrum), my thoughts would be:

a) the battery life of commercially available drones simply isn't long enough for the stated purpose, definitely not long enough to keep it in the air for a quarter. The life on my drone is approx 12-15min depending on weather conditions. you don't find too many that can stay in the air for more than 20min.

b) depending on the complexity of the drone you may require 2 people to operate it - 1 person to control its movement and one to control the camera, which is the way movie studios use them.

c) if it gets hit by a ball 30m off the ground (entirely possible in afl) you can kiss goodbye to your drone.

d) can't fly it in wet weather

There are other reasons around privacy, potential for personal damage etc. But I'd say the main reason would be the battery life.

It's funny that both the for and against in the article are essentially arguing for a greater level of transparency.

Would anyone be upset to find out the a C grade battler earns 200k?

A B-Grader on the same or less money?

I haven't thought this through enough to have a view, but an alternative might be to publish bands within which player salaries fall. For example,

John Smith $600,000-$700,000

Bob Miller $450,000-$600,000

Bill Bloggs $200,000-$450,000

etc

Bands would be the way to go, gives a rough idea of how the club values them without fully disclosing the players salary/ benefits.

Making it public would mostly benefit the fans, and why do we need to know this? They are not public servants, could be argued it's a breach of privacy.

Good point Moon, why are public servants salaries made public? A google search ends up in 50,000 articles on public service pay rises and I'm not sure so would appreciate your input.

If I was to take a stab I'd say it's because information should be transparent when there is public interest involved and because we, the taxpayer, indirectly pay their wage and we want to know how our money is being spent.

I was having a think about this last night, why don't they reduce the Veterans list eligibility from 10 years to be in line with unrestricted free agency? Currently clubs get an 'allowance' to spend on each veteran player, which is equivalent to approx 1.3% (approx. $130-$140,000) of the salary cap per player.

I'm not sure it would help in retaining players a great deal, as the better players typically leave for success, but it makes sense to me to have them start at the same time.

Nah but I've got an AppleTV so was able to stream from iPad to that. When the cameras still and zoomed in it's ok but panning down the ground was horrific couldn't even see the ball.

What sort of connections were you using?

I'm currently intending to cancel foxtel and buy a digital membership through the club (annoying that it's only mobile/ tablet =/).

Currently the plan is to stream the game to my phone (iPhone 6+) and connect the phone to the tv via a lightning to hdmi adapter, then a traditional hdmi cord. I've tried this set up with youtube and personal videos and the clarity is normally pretty good...

I sit on the fence for this issue. If players get the free agency limit pushed down to 6 years and compensation is removed giving clubs the ability to trade players without their consent is a fair compromise.

Michael Whiting's paragraph had some poor arguments in it, the only reasonable point he made was in regards to a players mental health if they're constantly bounced around. To cover this a clause could be inserted stating that if it's a players first contract with a club then they can't be traded.

Whiting's main points can be easily rebutted:

- It's a basic workers right to choose where they work - a) no it's not, it's a workers right to choose where they work within limits and b) they're not basic workers. Seriously, how many people are working at their employer of choice, or even their industry of choice, let alone doing their dream job. I can assure you that I'm not photographing playboy models.

- Can you imagine a homesick player being traded away from where they want to be? Don't sign that long term contract then. Pretty simple stuff.

- Taking away the right to choose your employer is a step too far. Neither you or I have that problem, so why should players? - Refer to the points above and I may add, if they don't like where they're being sent they can tear up their contract and become a 'basic worker'.

I think implies is the wrong word. Synonymous is better.

Anyway, I'm glad the sun came out for the boys today. If you want heat training it's better to have some heat!

Did a guy with a tattoo bonk your misses/ take your job/ beat the shizen out of you? I'm genuinely interested to know why someone would hold such bigoted and generalised views on something that has literally no effect on them whatsoever.

It's a bit chicken or egg though isn't it? Do they look better because of the coaching or are they getting that coaching because they are the better players?

I've read a few interesting articles on player development in soccer, the general premise is that young players do look better because of the coaching. The idea behind this is that in soccer player talent is identified very, very early (under 10's) so a player who receives 10+ years of elite coaching will look better than the guy who's had none.

An interesting point put forward is that players born towards the start of the year are more likely to make representative teams, this is due to the cut off date for age groups being December 31. If you are born on January 1 you have 10 months of growth/ physical development over a player born in October. With the same talent level you generally take the bigger/ more athletic kid. When it's time for rep teams the next year the kid born in January not only has 10 months of growth on the one born in October, they also have experience at a higher level. Once again, if they have the same talent you pick the older kid because he is physically larger and now has a year of experience in the system. etc etc.

This idea doesn't translate fully to AFL, as talent identification isn't done as early so the 'older' kid doesn't have as much of a leg up through years of elite level training, but it would be interesting to do an analysis of player birthdays across the competition (particularly for players who have gone through the TAC cup/ AIS systems) as I think you would find the birthdays to be skewed towards either end of the year.

I was thinking of streaming games through the afl site instead of getting foxtel this season. Has anyone gone down this path?

I'm thinking about doing the same thing. I only really have foxtel to watch sport and can find live streams of most of the bigger overseas codes... $60 for a digital pass through the club (on top of your MFC membership) plus $30 for an adapter to hook my iPhone up to the TV is a fraction of what I pay for Foxtel...

Pardon my lack of knowledge nut but I thought that Sloane too would become a FA at the end of this year?

He's a year short. UFA is 8 years, Dangerfield was drafted in 2007, Sloane was drafted in 2008. He'll be UFA at the end of 2016.

Are we better just targeting Sloane? Would come cheaper and while everyone else trips over themselves to get Dangers signature we tell Sloane he is our preference.

No. Sloane is a good player, but he's pretty similar to the likes of N.Jones, Tyson, Viney etc. Dangerfield's pace, goal kicking and star factor would be the point of difference we are sorely missing in our midfield.

4+14 for Scully

I'd suggest that any above average player to go to a new team through FA would be the biggest bargain of the last 30 years.

Buddy to the swans for free - before FA that would have required a Judd like deal.

James Frawley is a ready made player. Frost will need time. I'm worried for him. A couple of blunders (like the one he made against us this year) and he'll be very quickly placed under the Demonland microscope. He seems like a good kid with the physical tools to make it. Whether he can defend and read the play and make good choice with the pill remains to be seen. Give him a chance and be understanding of where he is at in his development. Frawley was far from the finished article after his first three seasons.

Frawley was an AA in his fourth season...

Tom's kicking is actually not terrible. The problem is his decision-making, and fortunately that is something that can be fixed.

Would hope that with something to kick to down the ground, his decision making will look a bit better. Tom gets himself by running into space and then realising there's no one down the ground to kick to, at which point he panics and tries to do something outside of his skill level (like hit a 50m bullet pass).

This is my smokey for 2015 - I think he'll be okay....

Will improve outta sight, because he's got good coaches behind him and takes feedback very, very well.

I like Bail and think he will keep his place in the team, but I'm not sure where the improvement comes from?

Can't see him getting much more midfield time (although his first quarter in the Adelaide win was impressive). His tank has always been right up there (vaguely remember he represented Aus in junior athletic for middle distance running), so can't see much improvement there.

If he can add more penetration to his kicking maybe he could become a damaging outside player?

You are underrating Garland and the even retire comment, well at 26 going on 27...hardly.

There are plenty of players who retire at that age as their bodies cannot cope with the pressures of AFL. It's unlikely, but not beyond the realms of possibility. It's a long bow to draw I admit, I would think he'll go via free agency rather than retire - he's been one of my favourite players throughout the shizen years. Would like for him to stay in the 22, but it will be tough for him to do so.

To elaborate on my thinking - He's behind Mcdonald, Frost and Dunn for tall defender spots. Jetta now owns the lockdown small defender spot. Grimes/ Howe/ Lumumba are ahead of him for the HBF/ mid size defender roles. I have no idea where Hunt and Stretch sit, but it's been touted that they will start off a HBF when they play 1sts (likely to be years away though).

As such, in a fully fit team he is probably in the emergencies/ same boat as Terlich. Dunn is possibly the only player from those I've listed who may retire/ leave before Garland, as such the picture doesn't get brighter for him in coming years.

If I was him and was looking to maximise my earnings/ playing time I'd be looking at other teams.

Additionally, he has a long history of injuries, he's had an extended period of being smashed at the dees, he had a poor year last year (albeit coming back from injury) and according to reports his pre-season hasn't been as stellar as others so far.

Do you have his disposal efficiency % to back up that sweeping statement, when you look it up, I think you will be surprised

No I dont have the disposal effiency because I cant find. And unless you can show me be very carefull in saying "you will be very surprised" because you would wanna hope its right up there.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_player_compare?tid1=12&pid1=3185&tid2=2&pid2=2327&type=A&fid1=S&fid2=S

Jordie averaged 10.2 (76.1%) effective disposals per game in 2014. Would think more than 80% of those effective disposals would be handballs as well.

Footywire is a great site for AFL stats (http://www.footywire.com/). So is AFL tables (http://afltables.com/afl/afl_index.html)but footywire's interface is more user friendly.

Would be surprised if Jordie is playing as an outside midfielder at AFL level. IMO outside midfielders need to have pace, creative flair and the ability to break lines through either pace or kicking. Not saying he doesn't have those abilities, but haven't seen them displayed in his 6 seasons with the club so far.

Edit: added links.

If jordie isn't delisted at the end of the year as many have thought, i wonder then who will be instead? have to make 3 changes at least so its getting harder and harder to delist guys now which is great

It's harder than last year, but it's still pretty simple to identify those in the gun.

Players currently out of contract at the end of 2015:

Jamar (UFA), Garland (RFA), Trengove, McKenzie, Howe, Gawn, Fitzpatrick, Toumpas, Pedersen, Salem, Kennedy-Harris, Hunt, Cross, Bail, Riley, Harmes ®, King ®

At this stage Howe, Gawn, Toumpas, Salem and JKH are the only ones that I would guarantee another contract.

Potential retirees/ free agents:

It's likely that Cross will retire at the end of the season.

I can see it getting increasingly difficult for Garland to get a game ( =[ ), especially given that he isn't burning up the track so far this pre-season. May look at free agency or even retire.

Same boat as Garland for Jamar, would expect that Gawn (or possibly spencer) will have taken the number 1 ruck role by the start of the 2016 season.

Trengove's foot may never recover properly (worst case scenario)

Potential delistees:

As they will be out of contract the likes of Mckenzie, Fitzpatrick, Pedersen, Hunt, Bail and Riley will need to show why the should stay on the list.

At this stage my prediction is:

Cross (ret), Garland (FA), Mckenzie (del), Fitzpatrick (del)

Jamar, Trengove, Bail, Pedo, Hunt and Riley to get 1-2 year deals

Howe, Gawn, Toumpas, Salem and JKH to get 3 year deals.

JKH finishing 21 seconds after T-Mac is a brilliant result for a second year player.

Positively rapt for the kid, he's clearly worked his ass off since last season ended, both on weights and endurance. Have a feeling he'll hit the ground running from round 1.

Did T-Mac run a PB?

Any questions feel free, pics will be Twitter Demonpk soon

Any idea what the preferred ruck combination is at this point? Are they leaning towards taking 2 ruckmen in or will it be 1 ruckman with pedo/ fitzy giving them a chop out?

Here are my real answers:

Me: why couldn't we get him to declare that he would come to us and only us?

As for history - Nick Stevens did go to a club that didn't let him decide where he played so trying to erase that from history is a bit rich... Jack Hannath was training with us and picked by Fremantle, he didn't have the gall to limit his future by playing games with other clubs and demanding he only go to one club. Jade Rawlings will tell you clubs hold the cards when it comes to these decisions.

Thankyou for a proper response.

Not dismissing the Nick Stevens scenario, but it is the exception, rather than the rule.

Jack Hannath is a different scenario all together. We were going to take him as a rookie, Freo took him in the PSD. We had no PSD spots so could not match the better offer/ contract/ opportunity given to him by Freo at the time.

Jade Rawlings might say that clubs hold all the cards, but why would you pay stupid money to someone who is going to turn up and do the job really half arsed? Also, this - http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-05-15/chads-giant-refusal - Apparently clubs do listen to the little half-wits when they say those sort of things.

Just to highlight examples of players saying they will only play for a certain team from recent history:

Beams (contracted) says he wants to go to Brisbane, he goes to Brisbane.

Lumumba (contracted) says he wants to go to Melbourne, he ends up at Melbourne.

Jonathan O’rourke (uncontracted) says he wants to go to Hawthorn, he ends up at Hawthorn.

Mitch Clark (*contracted*) says he wants to go to Geelong, he ends up at Geelong.

Paddy Ryder (contracted) says he wants to go to Port, he ends up at Port.

Etc. etc.

Granted, they were all trades, but the majority of these sort of cases are ‘unders’ for the club giving the player up.

Free agency effectively rules out an uncontracted player going to a club other than their club of choice and contracted players generally get traded to the club of their choice. Prior to the last few years you have players like Luke Ball (ND pick 30) and Kurt Tippett (PSD pick 8) being overlooked by quite a number of teams to get to where they want to go.

Having written the above I'm now thinking we were relying on another trade going through (Trengove) that would have given us a late 2nd rounder to trade for Frost+40/53. (As you pointed out, they weren't using 40 or 53 so as long as they got something earlier than 40 they would have done the trade).

History will decide that, the rest is hypothetical hyperbole.

I love how dismissive you are. Let me summarise:

Me: why couldn't we get him to declare that he would come to us and only us?

RPFC: it doesn't work that way.

Me: It does work that way. Other than Nick Stevens can you name a player who has said I want to go to club X and not got there?

RPFC: Hypothetical Hyperbole.

You must be a hit at parties:

Me: I got a new puppy!

RPFC: don't love it, it will die.

How does that guarantee we would get him? Do you think he is not going to play for St Kilda? Do you really think they care what a promising 21 CHB says about a club he has nothing but a prospective contract with? Ask yourself what you would want Melbourne to do if some good kid said 'don't pick me' in the PSD - did your answer involve not listening to the little half-wit?

So your hypothetical is nothing but that, but what else would you have wanted from ND23? ND40 and ND53 meant less to GWS as THEY WERE NOT GOING TO USE THEM IN THE DRAFT - so the value from that trade may be full value from ND23. You just don't know.

And we won't know the value of the trade until history judges it for us.

Other than Nick Stevens, how many players have declared they want to go to a club and have not actually gone there? The overwhelming weight of empirical evidence indicates that if a player (contracted or not) says I want to go to club X, they then get to club X.

The issue we had at the time was that we thought he was only going to come to us, St Kilda then got involved on the last day and the only chip we had on the table was pick 23. The admin stuffed it up, in the belief that we were the only ones in the running.

As you say, GWS possibly discounted picks they weren't going to use, we may not have been able to get anything better with pick 23, but up until we traded for him we were getting him for free in the PSD.

I'm not saying it was a bad trade or that the player we got are poo. I'm simply saying there is the possibility that we could have got a better return and that admin/ list management screwed up in the process that led to this trade.

It's interesting you should raise the issue of the Press's Phantom Drafts versus KnightMare and Paige Cardonna. I was thinking this very thing a while ago as I didn't know why so many people on here rate KM & PC so highly and refer to their comments about prospective picks and predictions. So after the draft I had a look at their Phantom Drafts versus Emma Quayle and Callum Twoomey. Emma Quayle picked 9 out of the top 10 in the correct order and 19 out of the top 20 but not all of 11-20 in the correct order. I had a look at KM and PC and they were way way off the mark in the top twenty or so picks. Not to say I won't still read the info they post as it's interesting to get any info but I won't be relying on their predictions over EQ. It's not really a bash of them as she is paid to work on this stuff full time and makes a lot of her predictions on info she gets from her recruiting contacts inside the teams. They obviously give her more than they give anyone else. So I know who I'll be relying on in the future.

I agree you should look at all picks from 23 to 52, so go for it. I don't have the time. I just picked the first few as a comparison of what actually happened.

The fact, not a theoretical, is the Saints got Membrey as a delisted free agent so they had pick 1 in the PSD live and would almost certainly have used it to get Frost. How stupid would our recruiters look now if they'd gambled on that and lost like with Hannath. A 21 yr old with a handfull of games can't say he won't go to the no 18 team because he wants to go to the no. 17 team and have the no. 18 team not take him. Just wouldn't happen. And yes, I am looking at it from the draft point of view because in the whole trade period there wasn't a better trade that went through that we could have got if we'd traded pick 23 to someone else and we would have lost Frost for sure if we didn't use the pick. Could we have used a later pick? We didnt' have one. It was a great result. Move on. KPP's with a few years of development under their belt, who are physically ready to go and have proved they can play at the level are worth gold as far as I'm concerned. Way more than a gamble on an untried 18yr old at pick 23. Frost might end up being mediocre, we don't know yet but some of his highlights are outstanding. Pick 23 without the other two might prove to be a steal. It might not but that's not the point.

RE: the phantom drafts

EQ and Callum Twomey's drafts were released the week (the day?) before the national draft, after having spoken to club recruiters to gain an idea of which players will be taken where, they are informed guesses at who each club will pick. I suppose it comes down to what definition you apply to phantom draft, whether it should be a subjective ranking of who will be the better player or whether it should be trying to guess who a club will pick.

Either way, judging a phantom draft days after it has happened is a poor way of judging its accuracy, you should look at the phantom drafts from 5+ years ago and judge the draft/ players based on exposed form.

Knightmare releases his power rankings a year or so ahead of the draft, and constantly updates it with thoughts and opinions. He has a publicly available body of work that is far greater and much more transparent than either EQ's or Twomey's and on the whole his work stacks up.

RE: the trade

A 21 yr old with a handful of games can do exactly that. See Jared Polec nominating Port Adelaide as his team of choice.

I guess my knock isn't on the trade, but why we couldn't secure Frost until a) the last day of trade week and b) with a lesser chip (refer to a) or c) outside of a trade.

Pointless comparison as both players went before 23. The only way to really compare is to look at who was still there are 23 and who was picked around that pick.

GWS used pick 23 to get one of the biggest shocks of the draft, Patrick McKenna the Captain of the Aus U19's Cricket Team. Not a big background in footy. Good luck to them if their punt works but it wouldn't have been our pick.

Pick 24 was used by GWS to get Jack Steele. He was developed in their Academy and as far as I'm concerned at this stage certainly doesn't show any more than ANB. I'd be confident that most pundits would have picked ANB ahead of him.

Pick 25 North Daniel Nielson, who looks like a reasonable prospect as a 193cm defender but is going to take 3-4 yrs to develop whereas Frost already has that development and has shown he can perform at this level. I'd take Frost over Nielson any time.

Pick 26 Bulldogs Toby McLean a 179cm midfielder. We don't need any more short midfielders.

This is just the first few picks around the mark. It's no wonder several of the Phantom Drafts in the press had ANB ahead of these players. So starting with Frost who also looks better than any of them especially as a potential ready made replacement for Frawley and then getting ANB and Oscar looks like a no brainer, to the extent that every pick in the draft is a gamble, these picks look outstanding results.

There's really no point in saying we'll only know in a few years because that is irrelevant to the decisions that had to be made in the here and now in the trade period and the draft. Was the decision to make the trade the right decision at the time. Surely you'd have to say yes. Any of the single players we would have picked at 23 might be a fail but as others have said to get the three we got is spreading the risk so it's likely at least one or more will be great pick ups.

McKenna may not have a huge background in AFL, however he clearly has the talent - look up his 2014 stats from the Bendigo league - there's every chance we rated him at pick 23. Jack Steele was an academy pick, North Melbourne bid pick 15 on him and GWS used their next pick (pick 23) to get him.

You should look at all players taken between pick 23 and 52, as any player taken between those picks may have been next on our list. This draft was regarded as particularly even between picks 20-50.

You're basing your ratings off phantom drafts in the press? Seriously? If you're making judgments on draftees you have never seen please use credible sources. Although the Herald Sun has been getting better at Phantom's they're still terrble. Emma Quayle is one of the only journalists in main stream media who does their draft homework (she had ANB at 20). Look for Chris25, KnightMare and Paige Cardonna among others on BigFooty for quality/ in depth phantom drafts.

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You're looking at it from a draft point of view, rather than a trade point of view.

We were going to get Frost through the PSD for free, there were whispers St Kilda may trade for him/ pick him before us in the PSD, we baulked and traded pick 23 for him. My question is why we couldn't get him to declare that he was coming to us and no-one else, guaranteeing that we could get him for free.

If pick 23 is worth Frost, 40 & 53, then surely if Frost went for free through the PSD we could have traded 23 for more than 40+53?

For the record - We may have taken the same players, even if we got Frost through the PSD and traded 23 for better picks than 40+53. I'm not suggesting that this was a bad trade, rather I'm suggesting that we could have done better.

We must have different memories.. I loved Barty's hardness but I don't believe he ever got his kicking right. It always was a major flaw in his game.

Some players will turn the ball over, but Grimes, like Bartram before him do it even once a match when it is under zero pressure and costly - it is deflating and momentum killing.

IMO Bartram had an awkward kicking style which affected his efficiency.

Grimes is a different kettle of fish, as others have said it looks to be all mental. Grimes is a solid kick, not bad, not good. He hits targets under pressure, for mine the majority of his clangers came from marks. He would look up, ignore the first option and then with no movement up the field he would try to pin point a pass/ do a kick outside his limits. The memorable ones he kicked on the full were all down the line kicks that ended up a metre or two outside the line, not like they went 10 rows back. Just a player with a lack of options trying to do too much.

In terms of momentum killers, Pedo had 2 this year that are up in the top 5 worst I've ever seen.