Axis of Bob

For me, it depends on Weideman’s form. If Weed is able to hold down a second key forward slot then I’d much rather have him replace Frost. But I also think that he’s playing some of his best footy up forward and we do need someone to complement Hogan. If Frost wasn’t such a liability then I’d rather play him forward. What I suspect will happen (probably healthily) is that he’ll play forward and Weideman will develop properly in the VFL with the occasional AFL game. But that keeps Frost in defence ....

It doesn’t matter about the other countries because the punishment handed out will be done in the best interests of the Australia as a sporting nation. It may well be that other countries accept cheating from their sporting teams but, culturally, Australians don’t. Check out what happens after every sledging episode, with people arguing for and against, especially with those who have played being mostly for it in the right context. And what happens with ‘spirit of the game’ things, like walking. These are wishy washy things that are not specifically illegal, so it comes down to gamesmanship. Even whacking players in Grand Finals, which is exploiting the rules. Then check out what happens when Essendon is done for drugs .... year long suspension and almost everyone (except Essendon supporters) say “good riddance, drug cheats”. And in this episode it has been universal condemnation and an appetite for a fair and substantial punishment. This is different in other countries, where the deliberately cheating is not viewed as badly as in Australia. But they may also view things like sledging much worse than us. There are cultural differences between the playing nations, which is why the ICC is so weak on ball tampering. We are a country of laws and the rule of law is held much higher here than almost anywhere. So pushing the boundaries within the law is often accepted, but deliberately breaking the law is not. They need proper suspensions to show the public that the team still represents the values of Australians because, as of a few days ago, they do not.

Warner's runs are totally irrelevant. If he's there to "shut up and make runs" then he shouldn't be VC. That's CA's mess. The players and coaches need a strong blueprint for what the team should look like (culturally), provide support to the players to change and put in place people in key positions who live those values already. It's not a short term fix.

It's the risk CA has taken in giving a relatively young Smith, an ultra-competitive and single minded player, captaincy without providing the support around him on the field to temper him. Instead they have made Warner vice-captain, who is older, hot-tempered and prove to overstepping the mark under pressure. Smith is being guided towards this end of his personality rather than counterbalanced with a calm, rational leader. I can see how this happens in that team. The conversations are about reverse swing, SA's success with it, linked to Faf's history of tampering and how they need to do it to make it a level playing field. If they keep agreeing with each other then eventually it seems acceptable. But with a wise, calm, older and respected head on the team that conversation gets shut off before it gets anywhere near that point. If a young Michael Clarke (purely as a hypothetical) starts down that path then Hussey and Gilchrist quickly tell him to pull his head it, and the train of thought ends there. I'm sure Smith could well have been a fine captain, but there's nobody in the team to tell him to stand up to him when required. The only senior players are Warner and SMarsh. Warner will egg him on and Marsh has never been a leader. As a result, Smith has had too much say, whether he's been right or wrong, and has never been able to learn how to lead properly. While Smith is ultimately responsible for the ball tampering, Cricket Australia has failed him badly. I hope that this sad day can be used as a catalyst for genuine culture change within the team for the betterment of Australian cricket.

I think there are two reasons: 1- They are being ranked in relation to their peers, but their peers will develop more in their final year (or the latter half of it). As a result, any development of the injured player is invisible to recruiters, while the uninjured players continue to improve. So the recruiters need to extrapolate any potential development to be able to rank them equally with their peers. This represents a risk, especially for a player like Spargo who may have developed earlier than others. 2- It may actually be a really nasty injury that could affect the player. Burton was, Stringer was, Lever could have been (see Menzel). I agree that shoulders are unlikely to, but there are others. Will they be the same player again? Probably, but it is a genuine risk when you have invested a top 20 pick and a lot of money. I think the first is more relevant to Spargo. When you are 17, a year of development is a lot. So he may have been an earlier ranked player with his peers before he was injured, but the rest are now better players than Spargo was before he was injured. The risk is in the unknown.

...... you have a terrible, terrible memory. First of all, Cam Hunter was 6 foot 1, while Spargo is 5'8. Hunter was very light for his height, unlike Spargo, who is a nuggety player. Hunter was a high flying aerialist with psychotic courage, while Spargo is a fall of the ball player. Hunter was a bad kick, while Spargo is an excellent kick. Hunter was a flanker who played above his height (but lacked 'little man skills'), while Spargo is a midfielder or small forward. Hunter was drafted based on size and athleticism without form, while Spargo is a footballer who has been dominant at junior levels. Hunter was a massive smokey who only played APS, while Spargo has been well known for many years playing at TAC and carnival level. But you played footy in the same team as him ..... like my brother. You may have been in the same team 15 years ago, but you are either terribly forgetful or a terrible judge of players. Spargo and Hunter are completely different types of footballer, both in playing style and how they were drafted. As I said before, I would struggle to find a worse comparison.

I could not think of a worse comparison. You obviously didn't watch Cam Hunter play at all.

Pace and competitiveness. It's definitely a theme.

Dangerfield was also a free agent. Geelong could have got him for nothing, but instead paid more than we did for Lever.

Fully agree. We haven't been in this position for a while, but now is the time to use good picks to get guaranteed value in important positions. More kids doesn't help us much anymore. If we picked Lever at pick 4 with 3 years of development, then we'd be very excited.

Two things. We could drag it out, but getting a deal done early means that we can do other deals too. We have consistently shown players and player managers that we are a club that can get a deal done. That makes us a more attractive club for players. It's probably post of the reason why Lever chose us.

I think Petracca is going to be the better player, but I'd be reluctant to go too hard against McCartin. He could easily be an excellent player. If you want a comparison, I think Josh Kennedy is the right one for Paddy, in terms of style. Straight line, hard leading, contested marking forward inside 50. His output was similar at the same stage of their careers. I'd rather Trac, though. We don't desperately need McCartin for structural reasons, and Trac is a special talent.

A lot of talk about the quality of Oscar McDonald. I think it's important to see how the development of key defenders is generally different to most players. Oscar gets pushed around a bit by the really powerful tall forwards (Hawkins is one) but he competes a hell of a lot better with them than almost every key defender of his age and experience. At this point in their careers (just turned 21 years old): Frawley was playing as a medium defender (on smaller marking players), Tom Mc was playing as a back up to Frawley and Dunn, Harry Taylor was not yet drafted Brian Lake was still undrafted (and was still Brian Harris!) Heath Grundy had played 11 games in 3 years as a forward. His games were ... underwhelming. Ted Richards has played 12 games at Essendon as a forward. Very underwhelming. Josh Gibson had not yet debuted (and would not debut for another year too) Ben Stratton had not yet been drafted. Zac Dawson spent that season and the following season in the Hawthorn VFL team. Sam Fisher had not yet been drafted Ben Rutten had played 2 games as a struggling forward. Dale Morris was still a year away from being drafted in the rookie draft. Rance had just rejoined the team having spent the majority of the previous year in the VFL (he was being kept of the AFL side by Luke McGuane, Kelvin Moore and Will Thursfield!) Scott Thompson was still not yet drafted Sam Rowe was still 4 years away from being drafted! Jeremy McGovern was still a year away from being drafted Now, far be it for me to labour a point, but it takes key defenders a lot longer than most players to develop into AFL standard (even the exceptional ones) because their job involves being able to physically compete with big, physically strong opponents. Oscar does this very well at this stage, given that he is not yet fully physically developed. He is tracking waaaaaaaaayyyyyyy ahead of where he should be at this stage. We're very lucky there.

Many people are talking about McCartin like he's a bad player. He is not. McCartin is an excellent contested mark and tracking pretty well for a young key forward. He's tracking a lot better than Josh Kennedy was at this point, who is probably the type of player that McCartin is most similar to. Just because we have a great talent like Petracca, doesn't mean that you need to rubbish McCartin to justify it to yourself. We are not the basket case we were. Petracca being good doesn't automatically mean the alternative is bad.

Our first rounder for this year is Weideman. You can't look at this draft in isolation.

There is also a chance that we knew we could always do the trade for this year's pick, and were just waiting until late in the period to do it in case a really interesting opportunity came up in the meantime.

Also, not doing that deal has meant that they haven't been able to do other deals. In the past we have done the deals quickly, allowing us to look at trade period as a whole. Essendon have sucked at trading because they have only looked at deals in isolation. Given our desire to do fair deals over last period, I'm happy to back our club's judgement on this at the moment.

Dunn is capable and none of those things you mentioned are really important. But being capable is different to actually doing it. I am capable of baking a chocolate cake. But if my boss asks me to bake a chocolate cake and I keep on making bicycles then my boss probably won't trust me to make him a cake for a while. In the same way, Dunn is capable of playing a role in our defence. But he didn't do it when required and now needs to show the coaches that he can be trusted to do it when required.

The stats don't mean anything in this case because when you are looking at a zone defence the more important thing is that everyone is playing their role in the zone. If he got 100 kicks a game it wouldn't matter because the team as a whole is worse while he isn't playing his role in the zone. The number of kicks he gets becomes irrelevant. If Oscar is playing the role asked of him, then we are better off as a team than we are playing someone who isn't playing their role. It can be hard for older players to change the way they are used to playing footy, so he's probably being given time to work on that in the VFL (where it isn't costing the AFL team goals).

Even the sole Sam Wiedeman thread, a player we drafted less than 48 hours ago, is hijacked to become another Jack Watts thread.

If you get a chance, do yourself a favour and watch the first quarter of the AFL Academy vs Northern Blues match from the beginning of the year. Wiedeman plays at CHF and is the dominant big man of the ground, taking 5 marks and kicking 2 goals. He could probably have grabbed another one or two with better delivery. What stands out is that he marks the ball in a range of ways; he's not just a lead and mark player or a body on body player. Instead, he took marks leading straight up at the kicker, marks bending his lead to space, jumping over the top of players, in a one-on-one push and shove, and pushing back hard into an opponent to mark in front. It makes it much more difficult to defend because you can't just play him one way, but you have to protect a range of options. He'll need to build up his running significantly, but he was supposedly in the top couple of runners at Eastern a few years ago, so I suspect he has at least some natural endurance to him. But if he can get his running up then he could be very dangerous with Hogan, because they are both players who can beat you in a number of different ways. Both players will need a multi-talented key defender to look after them.

The thing I like about Oliver is that I think he has the attributes to be a better than good player. That's not to say that he will, but he has the attributes. He obviously has the power in his game, which is great, but he has the ability to beat players using his sidestep in traffic. He is actually able to create his own pocket of space where there is none, and this often separates good players from really good players. For example, Bernie Vince is a good player but that's all he is. He gets the ball in congestion and gives it off quickly or hacks it forward, both of which are legitimate options for a good player. Whereas Pendlebury is a really good player. He can get the ball in congestion and then beat an opponent to create space for himself, which means that his clearance is now an attacking opportunity with clean possession retained. Oliver looks like he could create opportunities from contested situations with his combination of power, agility and composure. I'm not saying that he'll automatically be a superstar, but I'm certainly feeling bullish at this very early point. And if I can't be bullish now, when can I be!

FWIW, he averaged 6 tackles a game in the TAC Cup this year. For comparison's sake only, Parish averaged 3.

I like that he clearly looks like a talented player, but he had almost no fitness base and looks to be carrying a bit of weight still. He should improve significantly, I would think, given AFL preseasons to trim down and get his running capacity up. But his stoppage work and ability to create space and time for himself seem to be excellent. The highlights look great, but they always do, however I think need to be looking for snippets of him doing things that are a bit special, which I think it does.

Same. I still think he'll be a good player but not what you'd be hoping for at with pick 3. Heppell is an excellent endurance athlete and is 189 cm. The frame is not what worries me, it's his running.