ChaserJ

Add Jake Lever to the mix. Apparently we're big fans and more likely to take him over McCartin if we take both picks to the draft.

Anyone watching the Northern AllStars v Aus Academy game? The curtain raiser for the GF being streamed on AFL.com. Good kids on show for this years and next years draft.

Cheers mate, appreciate that. Interesting that his acceleration isn’t great. Probably a must for a player of his type. Is his pace reasonable in the open? Sounds like he could be a Roosy project type.

A penny for your thoughts on Josh Deluca, PSD. Looks like he’s had a good finish to the season, sounds like he should be in the mix with McLean and Lonie as draftable small forwards this year.

I'd be more than happy with that outcome. Both are fine players and would slot in nicely both in terms of ability and mentality.

Essendon have an end of first rd compo for being drug cheats (part of penalty negotiated with AFL) and GWS got a compo pick traded back to them which they have activated for this years draft. It is likely a comp that was originally given to a club for having a player poached by GWS in the first place.

I think the current philosophy at the club is overall improvement of the list without fixating on one player being the saviour of the club. It's why the top pick as well as virtually everyone on the list is on the table.

I suspect our chances of securing Petracca are drifting. I think Saints may take him, if they don't, I can see them trading the pick to the Giants if they were keener on McCartin. Consensus now has Saints taking him though.

I think there’s always a chance that Petracca won’t make it to our pick regardless of whether we trade pick 2 or not. Saints could decide he’s the best available and go with the pick, or they trade the pick to GWS and still get the tall they want at pick 3 or 4. Saints could well flag a strong interest in Petracca to help along any prospective deal with GWS. In either scenario we miss him, but I get the feeling that Roo’s is happy for us to flip the pick and get either a more established player and another asset back. If we have 2 and 3 I still wouldn’t be surprised if ended up dealing pick 2 and being happy to take Brayshaw even if we had a play at Petracca. I think the likelihood of us ending up with Petracca is prob at around 50/50 if not less.

Profiles on the medium mids invited to the Combine: http://www.afl.com.au/news/2014-08-26/medium-midfielders-unveiled

I'm inclined to agree with you, especially given that next years crop (and apparently the year after as well) is loaded with midfield talent, but light on for talls. If you're a club that needs high end key position talent, this is your chance. I'm happy enough to snap up McCartin or Wright if we miss out on Petracca. That said, Wright and McCartin have a couple of extra chances to impress in the TAC Cup finals, unfortunately Petracca's Eastern Ranges have missed the eight and won't defend their title.

Peter Wright today: 29 disposals, 14 marks, 4 goals. Peter putting his own substantial case forward in a big win for Calder.

Big fan of Ahern, & IMO would be gone by pick 9. I have him going at around 6 or 7. With TAC Cup finals coming up, a good performance or two could push him up further. It was this time last year that Bontempelli pushed himself well up the order.

Agree that you can tell a lot about a player's character by how they perform in a losing team. Good to hear that Smith has tidied up his decision making and ball use. Probably the biggest area for improvement following a patchy Championships. Following the champs, he seems to have slipped down the order to the extent that he's generally seen as a second round pick. I still think Smith has first round talent and offers tremendous value if available in the second round. Thanks for the write up PSD, much appreciated.

1:56 of this clip (they cut short the second tackle)

Yes. Loves it. One passage of play that stood out for me when he played for Metro was when Petraccae was guarding the mark, WA player tried to fake and take him on, Christian took him down hard, ball spilled free to another WA player, and Petracca rag dolled him to boot.

Paige's latest phantom draft: http://boundforglorynews.com/paige-cardonas-phantom-draft-3-0/ I hope we're doing our homework on Viojo-Rainbow, he's one I would like with our second round pick.

I agree. I'd be looking to start him up forward to give our moribund fwd line a bit of spark. He can roll up into midfield from there.

Stringer's a pretty good comparison. Didn't see as much of Stringer in the midfield due to his injury, but I'd imagine the playing style would be fairly similar.

Both. Talent in the top 10 doesn't look as good as last year, but the pool probably has greater overall depth than last year.

I'd rate Boyd as the better player, both on performance at the equivalent stage in his draft year and also on potential. I'm not all that worried by his start, it's unrealistic to expect young kp players to come in and fire straight away. Theres a bit of Matthew Lloyd about his game, particularly his kicking. When Boyds confidence is up, he's automatic in front of goal.

Haven't seen him live yet PSD, but hope to see him in action next weekend. He's kicked bags of 10 & 7 in recent TAC Cup outings and had a haul in the region of 16 or so for Marcellin in between. A basketball convert who's probably sitting in the second round at the moment, but could push up a bit further if he maintains this form. To date the asterisk on his big hauls are the opposition he performed against weren't high end (relative to the competition).

Just going on Roo’s past recruiting strategy, I feel it’s unlikely he’ll draft a ruck type this high. The policy at Sydney was always to pick up the rucks through trade, after they had matured and were ready to contribute straight away. With Max Gawn coming through, & Jamar as first ruck for now, I think we go for Wright only if we are one of the clubs that feels he can play full time kpf. I believe most clubs think Wright’s a ruck/fwd at AFL level, and as of yet Wright hasn’t excelled in the ruck for Calder (he did have one excellent game in the Champs there).

Daniel's got excellent endurance to go with his pace, makes good decisions and has a good kick on him. I'd take a flyer from the third round onward. Like Billy, he's doing reasonably well in SANFL seniors at the moment too.

At this stage Petracca is well ahead of Brayshaw. His endurance is ok, I think he runs a 15 beep, and right now I think his inside game is ahead of Brayshaw's. He's shown more composure and awareness in contested situations. Brayshaw a slightly neater kick out in space, but doesn't have the same tricks Petracca has. Petracca's output this season has been very consistent, I think the only issue is whether we are picking behind GWS in the draft, because if we are, they will take him.