ChaserJ

There are some questions on whether either will be GWS bound next year. Brander may be ruled ineligible due to his parents farm being outside of the GWS zone, and AFL look like removing Albury from the zone, which would put Spargo back into the pool. Add the possible 2017 draft penalties from the Whitfield affair and it looks like they might get fewer free kicks next year. Horse has bolted, but speculation is that AFL are now worried about the optics around the generous start up concessions GWS have been granted. Jack Powell from GWS Academy also looks a player. On a side note, how is there only one player from WA in the AFL academy? I know there have been issues over there, but there has to be more WA talent around.

FWIW here's Langdon's draft profile from AFL.com. Think what he has shown so far for Freo reflects what his strengths and weaknesses were as a junior. I'd be ok with acquiring if we parted ways with JKH (through trade) at years end, otherwise I'd be looking elsewhere.

It's quite extraordinary, isn't it? The last time we tried to build through the draft (ultimately unsuccessfully) and go down the youth path, and the only point where it vaguely looked like we were on the road back was 2010. The peak of that rebuild was arguably the big Rd 17 win against Sydney. Our age profile from then was: Average Attributes Melbourne Attribute Sydney 186.8cm Height 186.6cm 84.2kg Weight 87.2kg 23yr 4mth Age 25yr 10mth 68.8 Games 104.1 Total Players By Games Melbourne Games Sydney 3 Less than 50 1 4 50 to 99 1 5 100 to 149 5 10 150 or more 15 Our development program is so far ahead of what he had in place then it's not even funny, and the growth left in this team is scary. All things being equal, we're only seeing the earliest signs of what this team could do on a regular basis. Exciting stuff.

From an article in the Age last year on Hawthorn’s list management: Hawthorn's list management team have taken advantage of an interesting quirk in the market for AFL players – the fact that a player's value is relative to their team, rather than static. As mentioned, an AFL player will peak in performance from 23 and 25. However, they will only peak in value if their team overall is peaking in performance during that time. A player playing well in a bad team is of far less value - if the aim is to win a premiership - than a player playing well in a good team. Hence, if a player is reaching peak performance but a team is not, the player is of far more value on the market than he is to the team. Therefore he can be sold for over-market value. The caveat on that last point would be that if the player(s) is one who can protect the younger group on the field or drives standards on field and off, he may of greater value to the group. Also recall reading that St Kilda’s list build strategy was to accrue extra draft picks inside the first 3 rounds so they would have assembled a core of 18 players (taken in the first 3 rounds) within a span of 4 years. Their plan was to focus on picks and ignore free agency until 2016, when they felt they would have most structural areas covered. I think (and the club probably thinks) that we’re roughly a year ahead of St Kilda, which would explain why we rolled the dice and traded out of the 2016 draft. We must be confident the group is together and it’s now down to development and supplementing through trade and potentially free agency. Hope that’s correct.

Interesting to note these profiles from last Saturday Night's game: Carlton Attribute Western Bulldogs 188.0cm Height 186.8cm 87.6kg Weight 85.3kg 24yr 7mth Age 24yr 6mth 72.9 Games 77.9

Would be pretty close, and they were a year and 30 games per player more experienced than we were. The key is picking the age grouping of your elite talent and supporting/supplementing it, in the knowledge that their peak production will likely be between the ages of 23-29. Depending on which grouping of players you focus on, we’re probably 3 years away from the bulk of our talent hitting peak production, however players like Watts, Gawn and McDonald will still be within their window of peak production.

With Neale it might be similar to the Aish situation in him wanting to play in a footy town with more than 2 teams. Never said Neale's potential departure was a go home type situation.

Certainly a bit of chatter that Neale is looking to come to Victoria. Can see the Dockers putting him forward as part of a trade package. Less substantiated chatter that Gaff may be looking to head home.

Cheers mate, maybe you can put in a good word for me!

Footy IQ mixed with aggression. Great mix. Athletic potential is there too. Parish looks like being a good player too, but feels like JT and the recruiting team have made the right call again.

Especially after trading their pick 7 to GWS...

Weideman's got good composure when kicking off both feet too. Combined with very good groundball ability (crucial for key position players now IMO), I think he'll be a very good foil for Hogan. The ability of medium and key forwards to compete at ground level is one of the key elements to Hawthorn's forward line structure. They were the number one team for groundball gets in the forward line. For all of their kicking efficiency, the ability of multiple forwards to beat their defender in multiple ways is what makes the Hawks forward line lethal. I think Hardwick was selected for Hawthorn with this in mind. He'll create match up headaches if he becomes a best 22 player. Could become a Breust type medium forward for them. Jason Taylor talked about Weideman's forward craft, which is where Jesse has been phenomenal for a first year player. No more one trick ponies who are just lead and mark or just wrestle in the goal square types. Key forwards must be able to work opponents over in multiple ways. I think this is the message Beveridge is sending to Boyd now. Develop more tricks, otherwise you wont get a game. If Weideman has strong footy IQ and understanding of forward craft, he should be a beauty.

Love how we grabbed Weideman with the pick that belonged to Collingwood prior to trade week. That'll drive some Pies fans nuts! (Treloar's a decent consolation…) SW listed at 196cm. Genuine KP height.

Apparently some (not all) clubs still have concerns.

Agree with you to a point WJ, but what if your budding young superstar forward, in a meeting with Roos, Goody & Mahoney said something along the lines of 'I want to sign an extension, BUT I want a quality big body to support me up forward. That's what I want, because I don't want to be the sole focus of opposition key backs, double teaming, triple teaming me and increasing the strain on my body and reducing the length of my career. I want a long term partner to share the load and I want to know what the forward line looks like going forward before I seriously consider putting pen to paper' What would the response be?

So, a hypothetical then. What if the club knew, definitively, that the player we originally wanted at 3, would be there at 7 (ala Hawks and Franklin in 05). Would you still take him at 3?

Think Sanderson said 12 on the AFL podcast, but think it was Francis who had double figure marks in defence against Northern. Weideman had 7, but as many as five might have been contested. Weidemans first half or so against Northern was very,very good.

I believe it's a range of tests that usually would have occurred at the Combine (20M sprint, agility, possibly 3k time trial and beep). In other news, here's the reason we have to bid on Cal Mills with pick 3: http://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/draft/afl-draft-2015-melbourne-expected-to-bid-for-sydney-academy-product-callum-mills/story-fnyc10cj-1227613753378 Bidding on him will move our pick 46 (and 50) up 4 spots in one hit. If Essendon bid on the GWS academy kids, our later picks will get up a bit higher.

Yes on both counts.

Here's an article on him as a bottom ager last year. You get the feeling that he and Petracca would enjoy working together up forward. http://afldraftcentral.com.au/2014/04/15/afl-bloodlines-weideman-wants-to-forge-own-legacy/

Brendan's son also played for the Falcons this year, so another reason from B Mac to be present at Falcons games. Would imagine we have some decent intel on the Falcons lads in contention for our picks.

I'm more inclined to think the club's looking at possibilities if we take a key forward at 3. If I were to take any prompts from it, it would be that we're considering passing on Parish. Given our acknowledgement in needing a partner for Hogan, I'm comfortable in assuming we will take a key forward with one of those two picks and that it is very much a priority for us. As we've added so many mids through the last three drafts, I'd be highly surprised if we took two more mids at 3 and 7.

Collins is very, very good. Strong in the contest, reads the ball well and looks like he added a bit of run to his game this year. The other thing to consider is that he's a December birthday, so will be considered to have a fair amount of development in him. Who knows, if he was a month younger, we might have been talking about him as next years Weitering. I think in an AFL.com draft podcast Gary Buckenara rated him (personal rankings) as third best this year, and Bucky's got a pretty decent track record. I think we'd like to get another key back in, and would not be surprised if Collins is in our thoughts. Especially if we take Parish and Curnow & Weideman are gone by 7. We may need a Kieran Collins thread.

Needs to be upgraded I believe. We can have up to 6 cat A rookies & 3 additional Cat B rookies. Must have min 38 on primary list and 44 in total (prim & rookie), so a lot depends on whether we want to go with a primary list with as few as 38 (unlikely). Might see something like 40 + 4 again. Few more delistings to come I fancy.

Vaguely heard about this 6 months ago, but hadn't heard anymore. Welcome and good luck Joel!