Axis of Bob

I was down there from quarter time onwards. Firstly Brayshaw. Yes he's going to be a very good player. He was the dominant clearance player for Casey. He's deceptively quick and just super strong over the ball. Also tended to use it well. Rotated heavily through the bench, but when he was on the field he was very good. I'd say that, as a first year player, his tank isn't where it needs to be for AFL footy. It's a very common theme through most first year players. It's likely that he'll play some AFL footy as the year goes on, but I think that his tank will limit the amount of game time he sees (like with Salem last year). But he looks to be a lock in 12 year centre square midfielder. Stretch was good in patches. He looks like he'll be an excellent foot soldier for a long time, Stretch. He's a really hard runner, which makes him valuable. Makes long, end to end efforts and gets on the end of them to set up attacking opportunities. He also manages to find a bit of space and use it neatly. He's a good executor of the skills and seems to be a good old 'doing the common things uncommonly well' type of player. Kent worked into it well late in the game. When he started motoring he looked a class above the rest. Strong and fast, playing as a half forward. Kicked a couple late, when it looked like we may pinch the game. Spencil was excellent in the ruck. He worked hard to link up and did well to interrupt the Port players in general play. McKenzie was solid and did what you expect him to do. Michie worked really hard for the ball and spread hard, which is what it appears he has been asked to do. Pedersen was OK, but looked a higher class of key forward on the ground. Fitzpatrick played in deep defence. He looks like he's still learning the ropes a bit back there, but his athleticism gets him out of a lot of situations. Took some excellent marks. Oscar McDonald started forward and was moved back to curtail a tough forward. He did reasonably well down back, but not as good up forward. Competed hard and looks a good mover. Needs a few steaks, but the athleticism seems to be there. Harmes played at half back and did reasonably well. Didnt notice heaps of him, TBH, as I was focussing more on some of the new kids. White was another I didn't notice much of. Funny gait. Max King played up forward and did a few nice things, but needs to work on his aggression as a big man. He's still skinny and was playing more like a resting ruckman than as a key forward.

I am concerned with the opinion of anyone that thinks that they can make consistently accurate judgements based on almost no information.

That you are making those judgements after a single game of VFL football (let alone one where he was coming off a long term injury, playing limited minutes out of the goalsquare) is more concerning.

And this, as I suspected, is the crux of your argument. You are looking at his career backwards rather than forwards. You decided that he wasn't and top liner and then were shoehorning reasons why his talent never allowed him to become one. I am looking at his career the other way, where I look at the player he could have become based on his talent level and attributes (which he showed as an ultra-dominant junior).

I disagree. He liked to play as a KPF because it suited his low work rate. However he had genuine midfielder attributes. I also believe that you have a very narrow view on what a midfielder is, as Sylvia should have been one. Is Adam Goodes a top line midfielder? He plays a straight line game and just uses his raw power when playing as a midfielder. Is Travis Boak a top line midfielder? He's basically a straight line player who uses his awesome power running to win the footy. Griffen? Dangerfield? Deledio? Sylvia was/is a power player. He takes the ball and runs hard and direct, cutting the game open with this running. They are a very rare and valuable type of player to have in the midfield. Tyson, the player you compare him with, is at the exact other end of the midfielder spectrum. He is not particularly quick, but is very clever. But their talents lie in different areas and they are different types of midfielder. Just in the same way that Buddy Franklin and Kurt Tippett are very different types of player, but still top level key forwards. Your expectation of what a midfielder should be is too narrow. Sylvia could have been a top line midfielder that killed teams with his brute power and power running talents. But to be a top line power runner you need to have the deep seated willingness to outrun your opponents .... which requires hard work. His ultimate talent was as a power runner, but he never gave himself the opportunity to exploit that fully.

His peripheral vision wasn't elite, but it was certainly more than good enough to have allowed him to be a top line footballer based on his other elite talents. He's Patrick Dangerfield, minus the desire to be Patrick Dangerfield.

What was the the fatal flaw in his natural talent that would not have allowed him to be a top line player?

Yep, but it's still not the argument.

That isn't the argument. The argument is the talent level of Sylvia.

The game requires you to run harder for longer and then to win your own footy. The recruiters at the time, in retrospect, did not place enough emphasis on this, as each of those players struggled in one or both of these aspects. I wish these players all the best of luck in the future.

Really. You are arguing that Sylvia didn't ever have the ability?!?!? Wow.

Yep. Sylvia was a phenomenal junior footballer. They'd just kick the footy in his general vicinity and he'd beat everyone around him and win it, or make his opponents wish he had. And he'd take a hanger every week. Plus he did it all whilst playing with osteitis pubis. The scribe of that pen pic was right to write so glowingly about him, as he could have been a proper champion footballer. It's actually a testament to his enormous natural ability that he has been able to play 200 decent games despite not having any work rate. If anything, what the OP should have been saying is that everyone is different and we should understand those differences when judging players. But unfortunately he took the opposite angle, which was a poor one.

Do yourselves a favour and check out the MFC branded highlights for Brayshaw on the club website.

Given that Oscar is a little bit bigger, would there be a possibility that he could pinch ruck as well? It would make a lot of sense if he could.

Do we need another key defender, or was he just too good to let pass?

ANB looks to be a really clean, quick thinking runner. Another contest winner who can use it.

Guff.

Agreed. He's dynamic and physically dominant, which gives a point of difference with our other midfielders.

My (uneducated) guess would be that St Kilda would take McCartin. Why? If they turned down the GWS trade then it's because there was a player in the top 3 that they wanted badly. The difference between Petracca and a pick 4 midfielder is probably quite small, but the difference between McCartin and the next best key forward (Wright, may not be top 10) is enormous. They would probably take the multi if they were interested in midfielders. But maybe they see Petracca as a standout and this theory comes crashing down.

We should draft him. He's got heap of talent and an AFL environment would really help him get his life back on track. Besides, I'm so sick of Melbourne drafting choir boys.

It's interesting when you put all of those names together, BB, because it's interesting to see why they didn't have the success of Roughead/Buddy et al. F Watts: Too slow. Smith: Too slow. Hansen: Not sure he deserves to be in this group, but he's not physically dominant enough to beat his opponent up forward. Thorp: Tool, and injury. Dowler: Competitiveness, body size and injury. Tarrant: Bit left field at the time (talent?) and injury. I think that the general idea is that you are looking for athleticism or an AFL dominant physical trait. None of those players has a physical AFL dominant trait. McCartin is quick, so even if he doesn't become an AFL monster wrestler then he'll at least have the speed to beat his man. He looks like he can get the footy out by himself or on the lead through athleticism, rather than simply by jumping over packs (like Watts/Hansen), reading the play (Smith) or being good an the small man stuff for a big man (Dowler). I suppose you'd be looking for power rather than just strength, which McCartin seems to have. That said, I agree that it's really tough to project.

Would you trade Chris Dawes for pick 1?

I both agree and disagree. I agree that Frawley is a very good player and there many posters here who cannot see it for some unfathomable reason. He's a very good lock down defender and he provides some very good rebound for a player of his type. He will do an excellent job at Hawthorn, probably even more than he has for us given the class that he'll have around him. I also think that, overall, we have done very poorly to get 3 and Lumumba for Clark and Frawley, based on where we were 2 years ago. The bit that I don't necessarily agree with is whether we would be better off with Frawley, based on where we are now. Frawley is an exceptional player, but the role he plays is not super important for us at the moment. Pick 3 may give us more improvement than a mature shut down defender would. Our resources are probably better invested in positions that have more impact on games, such as running players or key forwards. I think that this is especially the case now that more number are getting back to help in defence, rendering the shut down tall defender a luxury when you get to the top of the tree rather than a key plank that helps you rise from the depths. That said, I would have preferred to turn pick 3 into a mature player.

That fact that you considered it in the first place leaves you in the category of 'NFI'.

If we are only using picks 2 and 3 (which is unlikely) then we practically traded Frost for nothing. In other words, we traded him for a pick we wouldn't have used. We may as well have traded him for pick 123.