Axis of Bob

So when is the right time to draft a tall? If we always have to wait longer for a tall to develop, is there ever a good time to draft a tall? Or do we have to wait until we’re desperate? And then wait a few more years? We're not drafting for a player to win us a flag next year with the old group, we’re drafting for a player to help us win one with the older group. If we were drafting for now then we’d have just traded the pick.

I think posters have become myopically focused on the midfield because Trac and Oliver were out/hobbled this year. Yes we need to grab a midfielder but it’s certainly not our only need. We have needs for rucks, tall defenders, tall forwards and small forwards as we transition our past premiership squad into a future premiership squad. Oliver and Trac are contracted for many years still, and we only really need to get one midfielder out of the draft especially since we got a couple of long termers with early picks last year in Windsor and Kolt. Picking Tauru gives us a May succession and Armstrong allows us to play our younger defenders away from the forward line. We just need to hero adding talent and we’ll have a spot for them no matter who it is.

Darcy Parish, as a junior and as a senior, was a much more straightforward player than Smith. Darish was tough and skilled, but played the game very conventionally as a drop-of-the-ball midfielder. He ran hard and got rid of the ball quickly and effectively by hand when he was under pressure. Just a solid style of midfielder played at a very high level. He played old-fashioned 'man's man' football. And that's what you see at AFL level too, without the extra space that allows him to regularly use his clever kicking. Smith is a different style of player, in that he's a slippery, elusive player who moves around congestion unconventionally, which buys him a lot of time. For a player of that size, being able to avoid the power game whilst still winning contests is a real strength. Parish is a very good player but he doesn't have a natural evasive game so needs to dispose of the ball before the big players batter him, limiting his damage. He also doesn't have any support from bigger midfielders at Essendon. For all that, he's been a consistently excellent inside player and it's been his outside game that hasn't translated as well at AFL as you'd have expected. I'm not saying that he's a better or worse player than Parish, they're just a bit more different than they initially appear.

It's odd that nobody ever mentions Neil Erasmus, Brodie Kemp, Paddy Dow, Will Setterfield, Will Brodie or Jackson Hateley.

That’s true but at some point your opponents will also have the ball. You can’t carry too many slow players because it reduces your ability to defend. Generally slow players need to be really, really good because of the defensive limitations and you can’t play too many together in the one team. If that slow player is Bontempelli then you make that trade off but the Bulldogs couldn’t also find room for Macrae and Sanders in that midfield together with him and Liberatore.

I’d want one with one of our two top 10 picks. If we didn’t get one with our first early pick then I’d target one with the second. It appears highly unlikely the cards would fall in a way where I wouldn’t select one with pick 5 though. ‘Probably more talented than Ed Curnow’ is a category that includes about 98% of all AFL/VFL players. I don’t see the Ed Curnow comparison at all. I’m not even really sure where it’s coming from. But it doesn’t mean you’re wrong, just that we see things very differently here, which is why it’s fun.

Apologies in advance, this was posted in the wrong thread. Now you may read the same drivel twice! I think we need to get a centre square midfielder out of one of the two picks (probably pick 5). There are options available and I'd probably choose either Smith or Langford (assuming Lalor and O'Sullivan aren't available). They're very different types of centre square midfielder, so it'd be a difficult choice. I tend to think that the last few flags have been won by fleet footed running midfields, so I'd likely err on the side of Smith. I'm not a big Draper fan and Smilie scares me, so I'd consider going a different direction (Tauru/Armstrong) if they weren't available. As for pick 9, I think we need a bit of a 'difference maker' up forward because they're difficult to find. I'm not dogmatic about the style of forward difference maker, as it could be a big forward, a powerful medium or a clever small. We just need players that can turn small advantages into scores. Armstrong is one, but so is Hynes (who would both complement a JVR/Jeffo combination), and even Reid or Hotton as a high half forward that can turn small advantages into goals.

I think we need to get a centre square midfielder out of one of the two picks (probably pick 5). There are options available and I'd probably choose either Smith or Langford (assuming Lalor and O'Sullivan aren't available). They're very different types of centre square midfielder, so it'd be a difficult choice. I tend to think that the last few flags have been won by fleet footed running midfields, so I'd likely err on the side of Smith. I'm not a big Draper fan and Smilie scares me, so I'd consider going a different direction (Tauru/Armstrong) if they weren't available. As for pick 9, I think we need a bit of a 'difference maker' up forward because they're difficult to find. I'm not dogmatic about the style of forward difference maker, as it could be a big forward, a powerful medium or a clever small. We just need players that can turn small advantages into scores. Armstrong is one, but so is Hynes (who would both complement a JVR/Jeffo combination), and even Reid or Hotton as a high half forward that can turn small advantages into goals.

Draper and Horne-Francis are very different people with very different backgrounds. I don’t think equating the two is fair.

It's hard to imagine two people pull off the same look (white top, blue shorts, sandals and pulled up white socks) more differently than Windsor and Tholstrup.

My amateur feel is that there’s a strong likelihood that Draper gets to St Kilda’s pick. Everyone assumes that Adelaide takes him but I get the feel that everyone is just matching his value to whatever pick Adelaide has. I wonder if anyone has considered how Adelaide feels about it. I think we all want things to fit into neat boxes but each of these clubs is selecting the player they want the most rather than making phantom drafts look neat. I still remember everyone losing their minds when Adelaide picked Dangerfield over Ebert.

It depends if you’re after one specific player above all others or are happy to select from a group of players that you’re interested in. Two examples to illustrate. If the following players were available at pick 9: Lachie Hunter, Josh Schache, Kyah Farris-White and Caleb Windsor, then you would obviously reject all offers and select Windsor because you think he’s much, much better than the other players available. If the following players were available at pick 9: Petracca, Gawn, Oliver, May and Lever, then you’d consider trading down from pick 9 to pick 12 because you rate those players very similarly, taking on pick 25 to do so and selecting Trent Rivers. In this case you’re saying that you’d rather have Oliver and Rivers than just Petracca by himself. It’s situationally dependent and we’ll have the ability to make that call depending on who is available at pick 9 on the night.

They’re not highlight videos.

They’re not highlights, they’re all involvements from a game. Good, bad, ugly, indifferent. Unless you’re watching different videos to everyone else.

Exactly. Fun question: Of the 71 players who had a disposal efficiency over 80% across at least 10 games, how many of them do not play as defenders? A: There are only 2. James Jordon (66th best) and Karl Amon (51st best). According to Disposal Efficiency, the 4 best kicks in the AFL are Harris Andrews, Luke Ryan, Ben McKay and Buku Khamis. Not exactly a list of 'who do you want kicking for your life'.

I agree with this. His way of playing just screams half back at the next level. He links well, is composed with the play in front of him, and uses it well but he just doesn’t have the tricks in tight to play as an inside midfielder at AFL. He looks a lock to be a good, long term AFL half back but I also think that’s his ceiling. Salem is a great role comparison, even if his style is a bit more conventional for that role than Salem.

Yeah, the NBA and AFL drafts are not the same. The NBA only has 5 players on the court at any one time, so there's a massive premium on getting a star in the lottery, with the rest of the picks being largely useless. Second round picks don't even get guaranteed contracts, they're effectively glorified 'try out' spots. In the AFL there are 23 players on the team and the importance of the players at 6-23 is much higher. As a result you need to get quantity of talent, as well as quality. It means that you have to use your resources differently. That creates an incentive to slide down a pick to get an extra pick if you deem the quality you are giving up to be sufficiently small. If we are targeting a player who we know will be available at pick 15 (or have a player we rate near equally at that selection) then why not pick up the free pick to improve the overall quality of your list? Plus, sometimes you trade away pick 1 to get Jayson Tatum, who you knew would still be there at pick 3, whilst picking up a future first round pick for free.

12 and 26 from West Coast would be the most likely, imo. Richmond seem to covet big bodied mids and Bo Allan is the most likely at this spot. I read that the WA state talent manager suggested that Allan may not get to WC at their pick. 26 seems a reasonable pick to compensate for a small slide at this point. If not then Freo may do the same trade, or Port. I’m sure we’ll have already had those discussions with those teams and having 3 teams with comparable assets does give us a small advantage. My guess is that we’ll see if Armstrong (or one of the top tier of mids) is available at 9 and, if not, we’ll do this trade to get two players in that bracket.

Twoney’s phantom form guides are usually decent enough but with some pretty big misses as he’s a journalist, not a professional recruiter, so he’ll only hear bits and pieces around the traps. The phantom draft he does nearer the draft usually has lots of good intel about which players the clubs are expected to take, and is a much better source of information. My personal feeling in pick 9 is that we’ll keep it if there’s a player we want but will split it if there isn’t, as we have some other players later in the first round that we’d be equally happy to grab.

I like Allan because of his power. He's grown on me because I didn't like his ball use early and thought he was a pretty basic footballer. He's still a simple footballer but he's got great power, defends really well and uses his power to get forward out of stoppages. A bit like Reuben Ginbey but quicker and more direct. I don't think his kicking is as terrible as I initially thought and his hands are fine. I'd be comfortable taking him at 9, as we've clearly rated players with his sort of power with even lower output (like Tholstrup). It's difficult to get true power players onto your lists and they're so valuable when you do. It's as good a reason as any to grab him.

He's a lot smaller than Dangerfield and plays a very different way. I'm not as enamoured as most. I think what you see is close to the finished product with him (as a short, well built, agile inside midfielder with high level technique already) and I'm just not sure that's his level is as good as others in the top 5. I don't particularly like his work in tight, where his feet are really quick but his hands aren't great (for a player of his type) nor his decisions in close. I think his feet buy him a lot of the time he needs to make decisions, which often aren't great. If we're looking at Draper vs Smith, I like Smith a lot more because he has the types of skills needed to succeed as a small accumulator, which are his hands, his composure, and ability to manage heavy traffic in tight. They're the main question marks I have on Draper. That's not to say he won't be a good player, especially with his obvious professionalism.

What I like about Hynes is that he has great power (which we always value highly) and he plays the game an odd way. He does weird things on the field, sort of like a Nate Caddy or Jake Stringer does. When you’re looking for ways to create goals and be dangerous, it’s sometimes the players who do weird things that can make a difference. I think Hynes would be in part exhilarating and infuriating, but sometimes you need that element in your forward line. The power in his game is very enticing.

It doesn’t matter whether we reach at pick 9. We have one pick between 5 and 80, so we just have to pick the player we like the most out of whoever is left. It’ll make no difference how that player is rated by the rest of the clubs.

I’m just enjoying that nobody seems to know anything about anything. Makes this time a lot more fun with endless possibilities and opinions.

St Kilda would likely take him, as they need a classier, more mobile key forward to pair with King long term. If we want him it’ll likely be at 5 or not at all.