Axis of Bob

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.

Assuming that we take Armstrong at 5, it does beg the question about who is available and who we’ll target at 9. With Tauru and Armstrong in the top 8, my guess is that it will depend on who St Kilda are looking at with 7 and 8. There’s a chance that they’ll want to split the player types (small and tall, or midfielder and flanker), or maybe just go with two of the established midfield group - particularly if they have to choose from multiple midfielders who aren’t great defenders like Smilie and Langford. My guess is that they’ll have a choice of whoever is left of the midfield group of Lalor, O’Sullivan, Draper, Smith, Smilie and Langford. If St Kilda opt not to select two players from that group then we’ll get whichever one is left over. Alternatively, there are interesting players who are not necessarily pure midfielders that may be available. Travaglia and Hotton are two of the more interesting. What would the reaction be here if we picked a key forward and a flanker?

He's done both, although my understanding is that we wanted to play him forward (I can't remember where I heard that from, though). Either way, I think having two of our current key forwards (Petty and Turner) being converted defenders probably indicates our desire for key forwards too. Plus picking Kentfield in the mid-season draft. Last season we were missing two of the league's top 5 midfielders, and we obviously struggled there as a result. We also were missing none of our best key forwards, and we still only had Van Rooyen and then a couple of converted defenders. Oliver and Petracca, of all the noise, are on long term deals. The key forward cupboard, even without injuries, has Van Rooyen, Jefferson (0 games), Fullarton (0 games) and Kentfield (0 games) in it. In the past few years we've lost Brown, McDonald and Jackson from that premiership forward line and replaced them with Van Rooyen and magic beans. More key forwards is still something we need to add to the list.

The more straightforward thing to read from our interest in Derksen is that we are still looking at adding key forwards to our list. That’s likely to mean that the Demonland consensus of ‘draft midfielders at any cost’ is not shared by the club.

You’re very sensitive about any perceived criticism about Langford. It’s odd. I’m almost tempted to start doing so just for the amusement of watching you leap in each time like an unrequited high school crush.

The question is for recruiters.

The question will be about how good he’ll be in attack to compensate for his lack of speed when defending. If you’re Bont or Cripps then that’s ok because you would trade their defence for their offence. If you’re Matt Crouch then you may not. You also can’t have many players like that in a team or you get destroyed trying to defend, so you need to consider the mix of players in your midfield, like the Dogs found with Macrae.

Most comparisons to Butters are pretty funny, TBH. The reason he's as good as he is relates less to his ability to win the ball and much more to his ability to use it. His weapon is his very creative vision and his ability to routinely take on and hit kicks at strange angles that other players just can't do. There aren't any players in the top part of this pool that can do that at this stage. Just because a player is small and a decent ball user doesn't make him Butters. Even O'Sullivan, who is a very good ball user, kicks in straight lines to more obvious targets (more like a Cotchin would).

Collingwood did that this year because they ran out of forward options, with injuries to Mihocek and McStay. When they won the flag last year they had Mihocek, Cameron/Cox, and McStay. When McStay went down with injury they played Frampton as a forward in the GF. Last year Collingwood (with 3 tall forwards) were the 4th highest scoring team, this year (with only 2) they were 9th. Hawthorn played 3 tall forwards all year this year. Just because those teams also have good mediums and smalls, who played well, doesn't mean that they don't play a three tall forward line. The talls drag defences around and leave the holes for smalls to do damage. The small forwards don't operate in a vacuum, and a team without tall forwards just allows defences to sit back behind the ball. The important thing is that they aren't just one dimensional markers, but are able to work up and down the ground to take part in play either high or deep. That's what happened with Sydney (and, to an extent, Port) where they had too many forward that were just big, chest out, presenters rather than players that could work either at the ball or with the ball. It's where Petty and Turner fall down a bit, which can make our forward setup clunky (although much better than when we tried playing small).