Axis of Bob

Dusty and Riewoldt made Jason Castagna a triple premiership player, not Kamdyn McIntosh and Ivan Soldo.

I think they’ve been keen to have Turner’s marking in the team and have tried to shoehorn him into the forward line but he’s a really natural defender who reads the ball through the air incredibly well. I’m sure they prefer him in defence long term for his intercepting ability, which is made easier with Petty now moving forward more permanently.

Given we have done everything we possibly can this year to introduce more attack, run and dynamism into our defence, it shouldn’t come as a major shock that our best team includes Turner in preference to McDonald.

Good start and has a skill set that would make him an excellent AFL contributor from the beginning. At a minimum he's a good long term player because of his combination of mobility, smarts and skills. The question is how far can he develop his game. If he can develop his ground ball and contested football game then he could become a really nice, balanced midfielder who can complement some of the bigger bulls. If he can't then he'll always have a role as a neat, team oriented wingman or ball using half back and club leader. He's a very low risk pick. We've already seen how high his floor is. I'll be intrigued to find out where his ceiling is.

I assume when everyone is saying South Kensington, what they really mean is Macauley. Macauley is on the Upfield line and about a 10 minute walk to Arden St. North Melbourne is an ever so slightly longer walk but North Melbourne has a lot more trains running to it. If you end up at Kensington or South Kensington Stations then you're probably lost.

The development of the key forwards is generally related to their ability to compete physically at AFL level. But I think we're all hung up on the physical size, which is only a part of that. The much bigger issue is the ability to run at an AFL level. That's where you see output from younger tall forwards, like Amiss, Cadman, Cameron, King, etc, who have the athletic ability to play AFL football even when they weren't playing as true key forwards. The issues that Jefferson has had as a young player have been much less about his physical size (although it's partly that) and much more about his inability to run at an AFL level. The first year he really struggled to make it to contests. When he was in those contests he did OK for a young stringbean but he made it to so few of these contests that he had very minimal impact. This was especially so given the secondary role he'd play in the VFL forward line behand a number of mature talls, so the ball wasn't directed at him either. He'd have some great individual moments but they were rare because he wasn't near the ball enough. Last year his running was much better, he got to a lot more contests (albeit still below average) and had more impact as his role increased, resulting in a massive uptick in his output. As he continues to improve his running, the game will get easier for him and the skills he has will show themselves more often. It's much easier for us supporters to identify a skinny player than a player who lacks AFL running because you can see a skinny player from a single glance whilst the poor runner happens over a period of time. Jefferson was always going to take longer to develop because his strengths aren't athletic ones, so he needed time to build those to a level where he is no longer a liability as a senior footballer. Players like Caddy and Curnow are the exact opposite.

Don’t worry @Timothy Reddan-A'Blew, I was never in it for the prizes. I was only ever here for telling media pundits where to shove it! 😁

A good point well made, RM. 😁

It’s less about which kicks are effective and more about which kicks each player takes (mostly based around where they take them from). A defender will either kick long to a contest in slow play or cop the ball short to an open player. Both are very easy kicks to make. A midfielder kicks often from stoppage, under pressure where kicks are often intercepted or don’t go far enough to be considered a long kick to a 50/50. Forward mostly kick to situations where the defenders far outnumber the forwards, so effective kicking is very difficult. For 2024, the top 10 players for disposal efficiency (10 game min) are all key defenders, except Luke Ryan who is a third defender. In fact the highest ranked non-defender is Karl Amon, who is ranked 51st. By comparison, the 21 lowest ranked players for disposal efficiency were forwards or rucks. Disposal efficiency doesn’t measure kicking skill, it just tells us the situations in which they are being asked to kick. Are we to believe that Jamarra Ugle-Hagan is the worst kick in the league whilst Ben McKay is the third best? Disposal efficiency is a truly terrible statistic for measuring the ability to kick.

Disposal efficiency is a truly terrible statistic for measuring kicking quality.

I looked at it and thought the same thing. A glass ceiling is a barrier to growth that can't be seen, indicating that O'Hehir has very limited in terms of potential growth. This is, of course, the complete opposite of what was intended.

Yep. Familiar to football supporters of every football club since about forever. Except Terry Wallace. The nuffies loved him.

Has signed with Casey for 2025 though.

It’s a trade that worked out well for both parties. They may have received more if they traded it on the night but that would have been taking unnecessary risks based on the hope that they got a marginally better deal. They achieved what they wanted (ie, Kako points, a future first plus throw ins) and didn’t have to take the risk into draft night. But contrast, Dodoro would have dragged it out and not been able to plan effectively for the draft because of the unknowns going into it, just in case they happened to get a slightly better deal in the night. It’s about winning wars, not battles.

Hotton also exists.

The difference is that Rivers was as slow as a wet week, whilst Tauru is very much not. This gives Tauru the versatility that Rivers never had because Rivers could be exposed defensively when he didn't have a good matchup. With Tauru you'd be investing in the athleticism and natural traits, and then letting him develop over time into whatever the best version of him there is. He appears to be a late developer so there will be a range of potential outcomes for him, even if his worst case is as a serviceable and versatile key defender.

@Demonstone Here's another one for you. I've seen this version of Tauru written so often that I thought Admiral Yamamoto and Commander Fuchida had started posting on Demonland.

Tauru doesn’t need to have a specific role already in mind when we pick him. As Chaser says, he’s so young and developing late with an awesome athletic profile. I think we would just get that talent in the door and see how he develops in a professional setting. I think he could become a good tall defender as a worst case scenario but he really could be anything with his skill set. Sort of like a turbo Weddle. I could see a version of reality where he becomes Goodes, one where he’s Curnow, one where he’s Caddy, one where he’s Allie, one where he’s Stewart …. and also one where he’s May. An athlete like that will always have a role somewhere, and they’re so hard to get.

If there’s one thing we’ve prioritised when we’ve had early picks it’s been power. Windsor, Tholstrup, Jackson, Koz, Oliver, Petracca, Brayshaw ….. trying to trade up for Humphrey and Reid. Every year people are flummoxed that we pick some power player that doesn’t have the heavy statistical output of some others. JT drafts AFL footballers, not junior footballers. Amateur observers will always overweight statistics when assessing players because they are subconsciously trying to pick the best players in the team, rather than thinking about the massive difference between junior footy and AFL footy and how those players will translate. Grabbing an awesome power athlete in Tauru, with size and a good mark, is absolutely true to form. Bo Allen is another stark example of selecting a power player who can play AFL, since his athletic profile and size makes him valuable no matter how he develops.

Then how do you ever get a decent key forward? Who are the key forwards that you can pick up with late or rookie picks? The top 7 in the Coleman this year were drafted with early picks or were father son picks. Key defenders are often available later on but it’s exceedingly rare that good key forwards are available with anything except early picks.

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.