Axis of Bob

We are unlikely to get many opportunities to bring in a young player who can be the centrepiece of our future midfield. We have long term talls at each end but we've seen the weakness in our midfield once Clarry and Trac were out of the picture. I would be shocked if we didn't use our early pick to pick up a contested, centre square midfielder to be able to build around. To this end I think we'll keep 5 and, if anything, we're more likely to trade up than trade down.

The thing that should translate across to AFL well is his clearance work. He’s very similar to Gus Brayshaw in the way he moves through a stoppage.

I doubt that Nibbler was only set on going to Adelaide. He has a huge amount of goodwill at the club to send him to SA and is not doing his negotiations through the media. If an announcement has been made it's likely to either be because a) Port aren't interested in him/can't bring him in (salary/picks etc), or b) Melbourne and Adelaide have already reached an understanding of what a deal looks like. I suspect the latter.

I’m with you. I think Lalor could be the best in the draft, from what I’ve also seen. There are so many parts of his game that should translate across at a high level. If we had to trade up for Lalor I would do it without hesitation.

Definitely, although this is not necessarily an unusual thing for monster mids. I'm also not convinced he's a natural inside midfielder in the contest at the moment, as he is quite poor at winning the ball in stoppages unless the ball is hit straight at him and he monsters his opponent. I also don't think he has great composure in the contest either. But he's a 6'4-6'5 monster, with a unique trait that will definitely translate across to AFL level and good coaching could have him develop into a very good player. I just have concerns int he back of my head that he's actually not as good a footballer as people think. But I'm just a YouTube judge, so I am likely wrong with some or all of this.

I’d be interested. If the club is looking to have McVee and Rivers play more midfield and to play a more dynamic style then we need more distributors from half back. We only have Salem and Bowey now as distributors, so Daniel is a proven player down there that fills that need well. The Bulldogs have many players of that role, do his opportunities have been more limited. Daniel is a good player and suits our team. I’d be keen to get him.

This is just plain inaccurate. We didn’t want to give up Bedford and were very disappointed that he chose to leave. We had contract for him but he got a bigger one at GWS.

Great size, absolutely ragdolls opponents in juniors which will still happen a bit at the next level at his size. My questions are around whether he has the work rate and natural inside midfield ability to go with his size. There’s absolutely no reason to have any doubts on the ability of someone like him to be a great AFL inside midfielder, yet somehow I still have some. Has some unique attributes but is definitely not a finished product.

I see Langford as being much more ‘in the eye of the beholder’ than most, so this makes sense. Some will see the things he does really well and others will see some holes. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes on the day.

He’s a very JT style of player and I suspect we’d pick him if available, however I’m dubious that he’ll be available at pick 5 TBH.

I guess Tom Stewart is going to need a new lawyer then!!

Drink!

If ANB wants to go home then we should shake his hand and wish him well. He’s earned the right to be sent off with a minimum of fuss and our best wishes.

It’s the players that nominate for either a 6 month or 18 month contract as part of entering the mid-season draft, not the clubs. The length of Kentfield’s contract is irrelevant to the club’s thoughts because Kentfield nominated for the draft with a 6 month contract. Source: https://play.afl/sites/default/files/2024-05/2024-MSRD-Information_FAQs.pdf

Kentfield is a ‘big boy’ forward who does his best work when he can physically dominate opponents. These types of players usually take a lot of time because, no matter how big you are at 18, you can’t play like that against mature players until your body matures as well. It’s different for a key forward like Cadman etc who can rely on athleticism to get separation from his opponent. He’s much more akin, in style, to Tom Hawkins where he’ll likely have a long term strength advantage over opponents but it will take time until that eventuates. Until then you’re likely to get good effort, small glimpses and inconsistency based on his match up. This is what we saw with Hawkins, who was a dominant junior and much more developed at the same age. Most of these types of players will require more development to be AFL players than athletic key forwards like, say, Jamarra or Cadman. Judging this type of player based on two months is silly.

It's a tough game to play into the wind when you're down 23-5 in clearances. We've lost the top end of our AFL midfield, so we see that lack of depth for inside midfielders the most at VFL level, particularly when you're up against genuine quality like Sanders and Macrae.

I wasn't talking about the teaser! 😁

Very presumptive of you to make that judgement of them, DS.

I find it so hilarious that you are a poster that basically only comments on a single issue and that, of all the possible issues to get heated about, drafting a developing young key forward with a nothing pick in the mid season draft is the issue you’ve chosen. The world is a weird place.

My understanding from what Taylor has said in interviews is that the recruiter will give those doing the trading (footy boss, list manager, etc) the players that they project to be available at each point in the draft so that they can understand the value that they are dealing with when trading picks. The recruiting team is not the trading team and Taylor has little to do with it aside from providing information about potential draftees. I have no problem with discussions about list managing/drafting/trading etc, but when you provide a provocative title specifically tying the performance to a single person then I think it's important to understand the role that this person actually plays. As for the last line, if you want to post your thoughts without comment then set up a blog. I appreciate the effort that you've put into it to stimulate conversation .... but you can't get upset that what you've put out for discussion is being discussed. I was hoping I was providing positive contributions to the discussions, even if part of that questioned some of the things that you said.

Why are you providing a rating of trades in a thread ostensibly about Jason Taylor, who is our recruiter? It's like complaining to the bootstudder about corporate hospitality. Taylor has been on record before saying that the top 3 were McCartin, Petracca and Brayshaw, and we would have selected whichever players were left at 2 and 3. Lever was going to be the target, AFAIK, for pick 10 which we were trading Trengove to Richmond for (but subsequently failed his physical).

Just another one here because I missed it the first time around. GWS had picks 1 and 2, and whiffed on pick 1 (Tom Boyd) and selected Kelly at pick 2. Kelly is a very good player and a very good pick, but Tom Boyd played 9 games and was out of GWS at the end of the year. He only played 61 games in total and, barring one glorious half of football, was a total bust. Hawthorn chose Billy Hartung two picks before Zach Merrett. How come they get a pass on that whilst Taylor doesn't for selecting Salem 17 picks before him, even though Salem has been a high level player in the competition for many years whilst Hartung was not? If Melbourne was a 5/10 in 2013, what ratings would you give to GWS, Bulldogs, Carlton, Essendon and Hawthorn in 2013?

Interesting. You talk about one player from each of those teams in the 2013 drafts, which is very convenient because each of those teams only really drafted one good player! The only possible exception is GWS, who also drafted Rory Lobb (who went home) and Cam McCarthy (who went home) with top 30 picks. They selected the 5 players you mentioned with picks 2, 4, 13, 26 and 56, so we only had access to Cripps and Merrett (over Salem) and Sicily (over Jay Kennedy-Harris). Placing Taylor behind GWS and Bulldogs because he didn't draft Kelly or Bontempelli is disingenuous. Those 4 clubs (GWS, Bulldogs, Essendon and Hawthorn) plus us selected 40 players between them that draft (we drafted 7 of them, including 4 rookie picks). There were 10 of those 40 players that played as many games as Jetta after being drafted. The 4 players you mentioned, Rory Lobb and then 4 players drafted by Taylor (Salem, Hunt, Harmes and Jetta). And only 7 of the remaining players played more than Jay Kennedy-Harris! The strike rate from those other 5 teams (with, generally, much better picks) was 19% chance of getting a 'Jetta+' players and a 41% chance of getting a 'Kennedy-Harris+' player. Melbourne had 57% 'Jetta+' and 71% 'Kennedy-Harris+' rate. From picks outside the top 39, where we had 1 successful pick, there were only 4 'Jetta+' players .... and we had 3 of them (the other was Sicily). I think a 5/10 rating is silly. Team/ND picks (all others rookies/PSD) players selected. Yellow are players selected that played as many games as Jetta, Blue are those that played as many as Kennedy-Harris.

The picks between Laurie and our next pick (aside from academy selections etc) were Brayden Cook, Matthew McLeod-Allison, Nathan O'Driscoll, Sam Berry, Seamus Mitchell, Caleb Poulter, Liam McMahon, and Shannon Neale.

I know, I was backing your comments up. 🙂