Axis of Bob

That's awesome news, two sheds. I was kind of dreading opening this thread back up again, but that's bloody fantastic news. The human body is an insanely complicated machine, so it's nearly impossible for anyone to know exactly what's going on. All they can do is guess based on what has happened to other people that they think this may have happened to - but not you. Keep winning the fight.

Crystal: Don't start with a personal remark and then give your argument, as it just puts people off before they even read what you write. Save all of that until the end. 2 - Age is relevant, but it is not particularly relevant to the discussions about whether Cheney will or won't make it. Junior is not competing against Junior for a spot on the list. Maybe a spot in the team next year, but not on the list. Junior is there for other reasons than just on field. 3 - The role of a third tall defender has changed a lot in the past few years, and even more since the VFA existed. Rivers reads the play well, which is his strength as well as his bravery in the air, but teams just don't carry thrid tall defenders like himn anymore. The problem with Rivers is that he needs to find an opponent that is both slow and weak (although he's better at playing on stronger players now). The other problem with Rivers is that he offers us very little in the way of run from defence and carrying the footy. Look at St Kilda, who had a primary tall stopper (Dawson), Fisher (who attacked and defended) and Gilbert played as the third tall defender. Gilbert is a runner and was so dangerous because he was able to carry the ball over lines. Rivers was a fantastic player for the way the game was played 5 years ago, where it was about kicking the ball long to contests. The ball is run far more often now and the benefit of his 'zoning' is starting to fall behind the disbenefit of his static attacking game. Garland actually plays the role of a third tall far better because he can genuinely play of a range of players (which Rivers can't), has pace (which Rivers doesn't) and provides excellent attacking run from defence (which Rivers doesn't). As for Cheney, Bennell has more tools to make it at AFL level than Cheney. Cheney will be a very good VFL footballer and an exceptional country footballer because he is hard, strong over head very good in contests. Unfortunately AFL football is significantly different because it exposes a lack of pace, especially playing close to goal in defence. His best jobs so far have been against players taller than him against whom he has 'heroically fought while undersized', but unfortunately his spot is as a small defender and the small forwards just cut him up due to his lack of pace. Bennell has the pace and agility to play on small forwards that Cheney just can't. 4 - Eliminating Warnock from the backline? He is our best tall stopper and had an exceptional year. He was top 5 in our B&F!! I see you eliminating him from our ideal backline and I worry about you. Warnock and Frawley are the only two who I would suggest are guaranteed positions in our defence, such is their importance. From there you can run any number of players through: Garland, Rivers, Bennell, Junior, Cheney, Strauss (who is the player Cheney will really be competing against for a spot), McNamara, Green, Grimes, Bruce........ For someone who claims to have played a lot of footy (albeit in a vastly different era), you certainly don't seem to rate the defensive aspect of the game at all. You talk about Rivers not playing on a man, rating Cheney over Bennell because he gets more possessions and wanting to omit our best defensive shut down player. I'm surprised you didn't play WAFL given the lack of accountability you seem to tolerate.

'Sam Mitchell Mk X' simply means that and player is slow, short and good in clearances. It's much the same as when everyone keeps quoting Greg Williams as an example of why we should draft a slow short player. The point of the matter is that you need to be as good as Sam Mitchell or Greg Williams to make it as that sort of player - they're both freaks!! That said, I don't view Jordie as a Sam Mitchell clone. He's taller and more athletic than Mitchell. Wellman was just referring to Jordie's ability to read the ball at stoppages as being similar to Mitchell. He's been very impressive so far and I though played very well in his AFL appearances too. He doesn't look rushed, makes good decisions, has a very good tank and also works very hard defensively. In the future I see him as being a very good run with player. He actually appears to be very strong and has the ability to get his hand into contests and win one on one contests which are very good attributes for a run with player. Not flashy, but doesn't make many mistakes. I think he's one that is somewhat under-rated by supporters at the moment.

I think that the need to address the needs of your list depends very much on how close you believe your team is to competing for a flag. As an example, take Geelong. Geelong, for years, focussed on taking good running players with their picks that were generally around pick 10. Their first picks each year, from 1999 to today, were (with players traded for with early picks in brackets): Joel Corey, Josh Hunt (Murphy/White), James Bartel, Andrew Mackie, Kane Tenace, Brent Prismall (Ottens), Travis Varcoe, Joel Selwood, Harry Taylor, Mitchell Brown. Interestingly, every one of those players were running midfielder types, until they drafted in Harry Taylor and Mitch Brown. But by the time they started picking talls they were well into premiership mode. But up until that point, Geelong just kept stocking up on the most obvious talent available. Geelong traded for a ruckman (Ottens), drafted one father-son (Blake) and rookied one (Mumford). Their key position players were: Scarlett (drafted father son in 1997), Taylor (drafted as a mature player to replace Egan, who was drafted late), Harley (traded on the cheap from Port in 1998), Mooney (traded for late picks in 1999 after being drafted late in 1996), Hawkins (drafted father son in 2006). While Geelong have been lucky in getting a few father son picks, with Ablett and Scarlett being the most prominent, Geelong have managed to get their key position players sorted out relatively cheaply. Only Taylor (who was an Egan replacement) and Ottens (who was a ruckman trade), have cost them picks in the first round. Meanwhile they have locked in the obvious talent with their early picks and not really speculated at all. How does this reflect on the Dees? Well if you look at Melbourne's list, we already have our talls in defence sorted out (Frawley, Warnock, Garland and Rivers) and we are better set for key forwards with Watts. Perhaps there's a need for a key forward in a perfect world, but in reality we may not really need another given that we have a number of very dangerous marking players in Jurrah, Morton, Bate, with an able workman in Miller to crunch packs in a similar way tot he modestly talented Mooney. But what Geelong have are top end midfielders that cut up the opposition. We don't yet have this. But the best way to do this is to keep loading up on the most obvious talent available early. If we need to give up a talented midfielder closer to our premiership tilt in order to fill a gap (like Geelong did with Moloney to get Ottens) then so be it. When we get close to the flag, then we can start reaching to fill our needs. Until that time, we just keep on picking the most obvious talent. Have we done this so far? Since 2003, our early picks (first round) have been: Sylvia, McLean, Bate, Dunn, Jones, Frawley, Morton, Grimes, (Maric), Watts, (Blease, Strauss). Plus this year we look like taking Scully and Trengove. then we have picks 11 and 18. Luckily we haven't really missed too often with those picks and we haven't really reached early for those players. The result is that we have a good base of talent on our list and we just need to keep adding to it. The more talent we have on the list = the easier it is to trade to fix a weakness when we really need to. Just keep on picking the most obvious talent

A lot of the criticism for Spencer from people on this thread has been about his poor kicking and general lack of coordination. Everyone just assumes that because, at 20, he is ungainly that he will remain the same for the rest of his career. Firstly, I couldn't give a toss whether or not a ruckman is a great kick. A ruckman isn't in the team to kick the footy, he's there to provide dominance in the stoppages through his ruckwork and ALSO through his follow up work to create space of his midfielders. I want a ruckman to want to get his hands dirty in stoppages rather than skirt wide and pick up cheap kicks around the ground. My personal belief is that a ruckman actually slows the ball down around the ground. Spencer shows enormous promise in the primary role of a ruckman, and that is the most important thing. Darren Jolly and Aaron Sandilands certainly showed no more promise around the ground at the same age as Spencer does. Secondly, he is an ungainly ruckman with the attributes you expect at his age who is still growing into his body. Why do you think Cox was such an unco at Spencer's age, yet somehow became a skilled running ruckman? It certainly wasn't because he just decided that he would, but instead it was because he simple grew into his body. As ruckmen put on more and more weight they are better able to control their limbs and their coordination and ball skills improve. Spencer willimprove in this area, just as someone like Justin Madden did. There is a reason why so many of the best ruckmen are picked up in the rookie draft, especially monster ruckmen like Spencer, Jolly, Sandilands etc. The ones that get the coordination early end up being early picks. To have Spencer being competitive in the ruck contests at AFL level in his second season is remarkable.

I see a lot to be positive about with Spencer. Remember that he's still a baby, certainly in ruck terms. He's skinny, but he's super competitive and surprisingliy fast for a big man. He certainly has a lot to learn about the game, especially in relation to his running patterns, but he's the sort of robust dinosaur ruckman that will get the most out of himself. That's the type of ruckman that has been able to win premierships - the type that is really competitive in the ruck and supports his midfielders with blocking, tackling and creating space, not winning possessions. With Meesen, he was very disappointing last year. But I saw the few games he played at Casey before he was promoted and he was genuinely good. I thought that it must have been his birthday, but then he backed it up and played really well the following week too. He's got the running ability to do damage around the ground, but he lacked the competitiveness that Spencer has. Hopefully it was like a switch being turned on about what he needed to do to play AFL and he goes on to become a very good ruckman. I will watch both of them with interest next year.

Brad Sheppard is from WA and Nathan Vardy is from Gippsland. Neither of them would be a home grown local boy for either of the Adelaide clubs.

There are usually tiers of quality early in the draft with a few standouts. Since 2000 I think there is a line that you can draw on most drafts. This doesn't mean that there aren't really good players available afterwards, but the obvious elite talent falls off. 2000 - Riewoldt, Kosi, Didak ............ Livingston, McDougall. 2001- Hodge, Ball, Judd .............. Polak, X Clarke, Sampi 2002 - Goddard, Wells .............. Brennan, Walsh 2003 - Cooney ............. Walker, Sylvia, Ray 2004 - Deledio, Roughead, Griffin, Tambling, Franklin ............. Williams, Lewis, Meesen 2005 - Murphy ............. Thomas, Ellis, Kennedy 2006 - Gibbs .............. Gumbleton, Hansen, Leuenberger 2007 - Kreuzer, Cotchin, (Masten), Morton ............ Grant, Myers - Masten is a bit of an anomaly as there were probably other factors affecting his selection over Morton. Some of these are more pronounced than others, such as 2000, 2002, 2003 and 2004, while it is hard to differentiate the 2005 and 2006 drafts. Most of the talk seems to be that there are 2, 3 or 4 that are real quality at the top end, but history may show differently. Although if Port Power believes that pick 2 is better than picks 8 and 9 put together (although didn't appear to offer that for pick 3) and Sydney thinks pick 3 is better than picks 6 and 14 put together (although didn't offer that for pick 4) then I think it shows the value of picks 1 and 2 this year.

Personally, my favourite bit of all this is where Bailey rules out using 1, 2, 11 or 18 on Ball, saying that these picks will be used on youngsters. Then I pick up the paper today and see that a journalist saying that Melbourne is prepared to use pick 18, or even pick 11 on Ball!! Pick 11?!?!? HA!! :D I'd love to know how he got 'maybe pick 11' from 'we won't use pick 11 or 18'?

It's funny because the South Australians who have seen a fair bit of Trengove, but obviously very little of Scully, are adamant that Jack is the best player in the draft. Alternatively, the Victorians who have seen a fair bit of Scully, but obviously very little of Trengove, are adamant that Tom is the best in the draft. There are also those who haven't seen much of either of them who are simply repeating what other people are saying about players and boldly proclaiming that player A is better that player B. I fall very much into the category of the Victorians. I haven't seen much of Trengove, but if he's better than Scully then he'd be an effing unbelievably good player. Scully is an awesome player and would be in the top couple of names in any draft. In a poor Metro team he was still getting the ball 25 times a game in shortened matches (probably 75% of normal time). But he uses the ball well too, especially by hand, and runs opponents absolutely into the ground. Scully is a dynamic, clearance winning, line breaking inside midfielder with unbelievable endurance. I'm not sure how many of those there are in the AFL - I'm trying to think of one but am struggling to think of one with his endurance. Trengove would have to mount a hell of a case to be better than Scully. It sounds like he's mounting a good case, but I find it hard to imagine that it's better than what Scully has presented over the past few years. I guess we'll find out on draft day.

Do you remember a kid by the name of Luke Herrington? He kicked 50 odd goals in 15 games in 2003. He played in the national under 18s championships and kicked 17 goals in 3 games, including 9 goals in a game against WA. He had 2 chances to be drafted as an under 18. Just because you kick goals at under 18 level, it doesn't mean that you can do it at AFL level. Recruiters get paid to judge whether or not a player will be a good AFL player, not whether they are a good under 18 player. I can reel off a bunch of good under 18s players that couldn't cut it at AFL level, and also a bunch of good AFL players that weren't exceptional under 18s players. Everyone is trying to help you understand because you've got great energy, but eventually they'll give up.

Name me all the slow full forwards at AFL level today?

I'd go after Mumford. He's a really strong, physical young ruckman and should be in his prime when we are making our big push at a flag. As for Spencer, he's younger than Mumford and shows some really promising signs as a young ruckman. Once he fills out into his body and mattures he'll become a very intimidating player. Very agressive player.

Sorry, I shouldn't have jumped that quickly. It did fit quite nicely though!

45h16, I think if you look back you'll find that I've said it in the past. (Edit - I just did research and I've said it on 5 separate occasions) jcb31, in all likelihood he won't last until 11. In fact I think that if you divide Temel's draft selection by 3, the number will still be higher than Butcher's. The problems with Newton and Miller are not all about kicking. We're talking about pack marking forwards who operate close to goals, not outside midfielders. Think of him as Justin Koschitzke, rather than Nick Riewoldt. Butcher still kicked 32.19 this year. Players can be made from poor kicks into adequate kicks on an AFL list, especially when most of those kicks will be set shots at goal. Look at Stef Martin, who was one of the most truly horrendous kicks you will ever see when he was drafted. Butcher's kicking is nowhere near that bad, but look at the improvement Martin has made. Personally I think that Butcher's kicking has a lot to do with poor technique, which could be corrected at an AFL club, but that's just my opinion. And Watts is more athletic than Butcher, but Watts is more athletic than pretty much everyone!! He's the second quickest non-indigenous kid to ever run that test at draft camp! I don't see how that's relevant in any way, shape or form. Oh, and I'd love to hear what Temel's sprint times come out at at Screening. Also, under 18 stats can be very misleading when you compare players that mature early, like Temel. If we relied entirely on underage stats then Ed Clarke would have been an AFL champion rather than a VFL reserves journeyman.

Are you saying that you think Butcher is slow? Butcher is actually quick and very agile, especially for a big guy. The knocks on him are work rate and kicking. Athletically he's very good and I think he's criminally under-rated by people on here simply because he's a poor kick and he underperformed in two games that a lot of people saw: the Champs game at Etihad and final against Dandenong. If he lasts until 11 (which I doubt) then I'll be doing cartwheels. That said, I'm a Scully and Trengove man at picks 1 and 2. Geelong showed again how to win flags without a dominant tall forward.

Did you watch that game live, or on TV?

He seems to be really highly rated at Essendon. I very much doubt that he'd be on the trade table, unless Essendon (with their full medical information on him) decide that his body is flat out cactus. Good player, though. Certainly the type that would complement Watts very, very well.

He's contracted, so how could someone offer him better terms?

Why would an MFC runner be dressed in footy gear while the players are in Bali on their end of season trip? Bloody school holidays.

He did very well, but would he get a touch at AFL? The key to recruiting is to imagine what the player will be like at AFL level when he develops fully. Temel is already mostly developed, so you just have to imagine how he would have played in the TAC Grand Final with Matthew Warnock playing on him - ie someone who is as tall and strong as him but much faster. The pace of AFL is so, so much faster than TAC Cup, so athleticism is far more important. FWIW, Butcher may not be able to kick, but his athleticism and hands will potentially make him a far better key forward than Temel. Butcher is only skinny and currently struggles body on body, but runs very well. He has underperformed this year but has the attributes to be very good. Carlisle is similarly as skinny as a rake and played a lot of his time as a defender, but has a lot of attributes that excite like speed and skills. Griffiths is injury prone, but has far, far more potential than Temel due to his speed. But if I was recruiting for an under 18 team then I'd pick Temel early due to his early development. But the MFC doesn't play under 18s.

Sorry, must have been someone else at your computer. Butcher, Carlisle and Griffiths all currently appear to rank higher because their attributes are more likely to translate into performance at AFL level as they fill out. Each of those players has really good speed, which is what you need at AFL level in order to get separation on your opponent on the lead. Running ability is massively important in the modern game. Every year the forums get flooded with claims that we should pick up XXX who played well in the TAC Grand Final, because people only get to watch one game of underage football all year and make their judgements based on that. Do you remember any of these players - Jordan Barham, Ashley Arrowsmith, Jesse D Smith, Stephen Dinnell? Temel could go on to be a good player, but his type will often dominate at this level because they have matured far earlier and have a massive strength advantage over his their opponents. Jack Watts went at number 1 because he had speed and agility which let him dominate, so he still has the improvement left in him when he matures into a bigger body (which Temel already has). Does Temel have the athleticism to make it in the AFL? I don't know, because I've only seen him a few times. However I would say that there are other players around that have no such question marks.

What sort of money do you want to put on that he won't be available at 11? You over-rate Temel significantly. He's not going to Draft Camp for a reason.

Thanks a lot to everyone for their reports on young Jack, especially Krazy Jay for the live updates. After seeing the GF yesterday, Jack's ability to win the contested footy and use it well would make him an ideally suited player under finals pressure. Exciting stuff.

Garland was drafted in the 2006 draft along with Frawley and Petterd. Given that they received the standard two year draftee contracts, that would put them out of contract at the end of last year. So........unless he signed a one year contract last year, I'd be very surprised if he was out of contract.