ChaserJ

This week’s Gettable is up:

I was watching Brian Lara being interviewed by the late, great Dean Jones in St Kilda that night. I had the Fox coverage on mute streaming on my phone. Had to stifle a Riv related cheer whilst Lara was recalling how he retook the test hs record against England.

And the corresponding Gettable ep is up as well:

Apparently was managing injury and illness at times through the year.

Cal’s latest phantom form guide is up: https://www.afl.com.au/news/1248177

Wouldn’t be disappointed with that outcome. Big fan of how Lindsay can change the angle of attack with his kicking. The sort of player Hawthorn has a habit of loading up on (and that we sorely lack). Langford’s had a magnificent season and well worth a pick in the top 5 (even if his pace is lacking).

He showed so much improvement this year (noting that he won last years B&F for Bendigo ahead of Harley), and was so competitive on field, I reckon he will get as much out of himself as possible. I agree Daz, I think he’ll take off once in an AFL system.

That would throw a cat amongst the pigeons. Apparently the Tiges are bullish on him as well and is a possibility at 6. Clubs will be spending a lot of time between now & draft day going back over vision. Not uncommon for the order to get thrown around a bit as recruiters revisit prospects. Smillie’s early season stuff in CTL was compelling. He dominated games early on, winning clearances for fun and kicking goals. Tapered a little, but probably only suffered by comparison with his earlier output. It’s hard to say O’Sullivan or Lalor had better seasons than Smillie given their injury woes, but both have been sitting higher on experts boards (FWIW I also rate their potential higher as well). A case of exposure not being a prospects best friend I guess, but maybe some recruiters have gone back and reassessed.

Salo should have been in the All Aus team that year. He was outstanding in ‘21.

He’s a high IQ footballer and is very clean with his skills in all conditions. Stood out as one of the best for Metro in wet conditions against the Allies…his cleanliness and quick mind gave him much more time than others. His creativity in tight is as good as I’ve seen at junior level. Went on to dominate champs. Can see him being a game breaker, BUT the limitations with his pace had created a perception that he won’t become a true mid at the level (won’t be able to break away on offence, run quick enough defensively on transition). He’s a smart footballer, so maybe he’ll find a way to compensate, he had been compared to Pendles, but SP has around 8cm on him and has always been good overhead. Probably sits in a rung just below the first group and it gets very even there. Could go 8, could go 18.

If North are comfortable we won’t take Tauru, I reckon they’ll split the pick with Tiges for p6 (+ one of their other bazillion picks).

On the topic of small/medium defenders, Shifter Sheehan’s profiles for this year’s crop of defenders: https://www.afl.com.au/draft/u18s?webview=true

Our biggest issue here is connection from defence/midfield into the forward line. We lack polish and speed with ball movement (partially in order to preserve defence first focus), in trying to change the game plan last year it really exposed our lack of polish by foot. We tried to address at draft by bringing in Windsor (& trade by bringing in Billings), but it takes a couple of periods to reshape your list to facilitate that change in ball movement (when you don’t have the personnel already) Clearly this was at play with our chase of Houston and will probably inform at least one of our selections at the draft. We could have had Carey in his prime up forward and he would have battled with our entries.

Ecstatic. Have zero expectation that we'll get both.

Yep, there was always a high degree of uncertainty on the talent pool due to the loss of underage footy in that period.