Whispering_Jack

The AFL’s talent ambassador Kevin “Shifter” Sheahan has filed his list of top draft prospects. Kevin Sheehan's top 40 draft prospects: Who has traits like the Bont?

If there’s one player at North Melbourne who represents hardness at the contest, that man is Ben Cunnington. Kangaroos rally around Cunnington as he heads into chemotherapy We wish him well as he faces a round of chemotherapy with the same courage he displays on the football field.

Also along club lines is this article in today’s Melbourne Age:- How your club stands ahead of the 2021 draft MELBOURNE PICKS: 17, 37, 49, 57, 94 KEY DEFENDERS: Steven May, Jake Lever, Adam Tomlinson, Harrison Petty, Joel Smith SMALL/MEDIUM DEFENDERS: Christian Salem, Trent Rivers, Jake Bowey, Michael Hibberd, Jayden Hunt, Deakyn Smith, Daniel Turner MIDFIELDERS: Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver, Jack Viney, Ed Langdon, Angus Brayshaw, James Harmes, Luke Dunstan, Tom Sparrow, James Jordon, Oskar Baker, Fraser Rosman KEY FORWARDS: Ben Brown, Tom McDonald, Sam Weideman, Mitch Brown SMALL/MEDIUM FORWARDS: Bayley Fritsch, Kysaiah Pickett, Charlie Spargo, Alex Neal-Bullen, Bailey Laurie, Jake Melksham, Toby Bedford, Kade Chandler RUCKS: Max Gawn, Luke Jackson, Majak Daw It is an obvious take after a flag triumph, but the premiers could not be more primed for a sustained run at success. Headline midfielders Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver are only 25 and 24 respectively, while there is a mix of young and senior depth. Luke Dunstan provides an experienced back-up option as James Jordon and Tom Sparrow establish themselves. Precocious half-back winger Jake Bowey is yet to lose a game, Kysaiah Pickett is already one of the best pressure forwards in the league and Luke Jackson will be a frightening ruck prospect for the next decade. Winger-forward Blake Howes would offer something different with his height and athleticism, while Campbell Chesser would provide more slingshot and speed off half-back. Sam Butler could come into the Dees’ thinking as an attacking outside player. A key forward is not out of the question given the senior ages of Ben Brown, Tom McDonald and Mitch Brown, and West Australian Jack Williams would be a fine option if he slid into the third round. Melbourne are committed to father-son Taj Woewodin, who may not attract a bid until later in the draft. The son of Brownlow medallist Shane is skilful on both sides of his body and can adapt to multiple roles.

As we enter the home stretch and move into the week of the 2021 National Draft, the scribes are looking more and more at the individual clubs and their needs. Rookie Me Central has come out with its 2021 AFL Draft Preview: Melbourne These are their key questions - Will Melbourne again make moves in the first round via live trading? How early will the Woewodin bid come in? Will Melbourne pick for needs, or select best available talent for pure squad depth?

… or John Cleese for that matter.

A decade before the Tigers won their 13th premiership, they were sitting on 10 VFL/AFL flags, the last of which came three decades earlier in 1980. They had been in the football wilderness for much of the interim period and, at one stage came close to folding in the midst of a financial crisis. New CEO Brendon Gale made this statement in 2010 ~ ''By 2020, we aspire to have won our 13th premiership; consistently provide the most exciting and powerful match-day experience in the competition; once again have the strongest support base in the nation, and enjoy the strongest emotional connection with our members and fans.'' The Tigers achieved their aims and today, after breaking our own drought, we are level with them on 13 premierships and are striving for more. What are the other things besides a flag that you think we should be aspiring to and are we achieving those aims?

Noah Yze is around 15 years of age. He’s 2 - 3 years away from draft age. Let’s not forget however, that not every child of an AFL star is necessarily the “son of a gun”.

AFL NATIONAL DRAFT ORDER with Draft Points ROUND ONE 1. North Melbourne 3,000 2. GWS Giants 2,517 3. Gold Coast 2234 4. Adelaide 2,034 5. Hawthorn 1,878 6. Fremantle 1,751 7. Richmond 1,644 8. Fremantle 1,551 9. St Kilda 1,469 10. West Coast 1,395 11. Essendon 1,329 12. Port Adelaide 1,268 13. GWS Giants 1,212 14. Brisbane Lions 1,161 15. Richmond 1,112 16. Sydney 1,067 17. Melbourne 1,025 18. Brisbane Lions 985 ROUND TWO 19. Fremantle 948 20. North Melbourne 912 21. Hawthorn 878 22. Geelong 845 23. Western Bulldogs 815 24. Hawthorn 785 25. Carlton 756 26. Richmond 729 27. Richmond 703 28. Richmond 677 29. West Coast 653 30. Geelong 629 31. Sydney 606 32. Geelong 584 33. Adelaide 563 34. Geelong 542 35. West Coast 522 36. Collingwood 502 37. Melbourne 483 ROUND THREE 38. Collingwood 465 39. Sydney 446 40. Collingwood 429 41. Brisbane Lions 412 42. North Melbourne 395 43. Western Bulldogs 378 44. Western Bulldogs 362 45. Western Bulldogs 347 46. Collingwood 331 47. North Melbourne 316 48. Collingwood 302 49. Melbourne 287 50. Geelong 273 51. Essendon 259 52. Western Bulldogs 246 53. GWS Giants 233 54. GWS Giants 220 55. St. Kilda 207 56. Essendon 194 57. Melbourne 182 58. Collingwood 170 ROUND FOUR 59. Hawthorn 158 60. Fremantle 146 61. St Kilda 135 62. Port Adelaide 123 63. Carlton 112 64. Hawthorn 101 65. St Kilda 90 66. St Kilda 80 67. West Coast 69 68. Fremantle 59 69. Sydney 49 70. GWS Giants 39 71. North Melbourne 29 72. Port Adelaide 19 73. Port Adelaide 9 74. Adelaide ROUND FIVE 75. North Melbourne 76. Adelaide 77. Hawthorn 78. Carlton 79. Richmond 80. Fremantle 81. St Kilda 82. West Coast 83. Essendon 84. Sydney 85. Port Adelaide ROUND SIX 86. Gold Coast 87. Adelaide 88. Essendon 89. Sydney ROUND SEVEN 90. Gold Coast 91. Essendon

Tiernan Stynes is still a couple of years away. However, he was also regarded very highly in basketball ranks and made a state junior representative side a little while ago,

The author here seems to feel that there's more risk involved in drafting ruckmen and KPP's than midfielders which is more or less the general view taken over the past decade and a half. The underrated zone where real value lives; how to avoid early mistakes: Inside the AFL draft "A potential key position player at the age of 18 is going to be further away from his physical prime than a midfielder, particularly since mids don’t need to fill out with quite as much muscle. "Rucks and KPPs also require skills that must be trained against fully-grown men - which is impossible at an early age - whereas the endurance and speed required in the midfield can be brought from the underaged ranks into the elite game." Of course, every once in a while, a tall KPP ruck or KPP comes along as the exception to the rule. Luke Jackson at #3 from two years ago is one of them.

The Herald Sun today published the names of 863 players who have nominated for next Wednesday's National Draft (and therefore the subsequent drafts). They include recently delisted Melbourne players, Kye Declase, Marty Hore and Jay Lockhart, Melbourne NGA's Mac Andrew and Andy Moniz-Wakefield as well as Kobi George and Ryan Koo Kwet Kim (not known if theyve been registered as Melbourne NGA's for the purposes of being drafted by the club. There's also a number of Casey players who have decided to try their luck and Father-son prospect Taj Woewodin. There may be others with connections - I'm not sure if it's an exhaustive list. Mac Andrew, Dandenong Stingrays Jack Bell, Casey Demons Andrew Courtney, Casey Demons Kye Declase, Melbourne Demons Corey Ellison, Casey Demons Zac Foot, Casey Demons Tom Freeman, Casey Demons Kobi George, Dandenong Stingrays Marty Hore, Melbourne Demons Ryan Koo Kwet Kim, Dandenong Stingrays Jay Lockhart, Melbourne Demons Tom McCaffrey, Casey Demons Lachlan Modica, Casey Demons Andy Moniz-Wakefield, Nightcliff James Munro, Casey Demons Miles Shepherd, Casey Demons Mitch White, Casey Demons Taj Woewodin, East Fremantle

Probably a firewall behind this but it contains some quotes about him from his coach at Bendigo, Danny O'Bree - AFL draft 2021: Bendigo’s bonanza crop of talented players The tallest Pioneer of them all, Jed Brereton, 201 cm, hailing from Leitchville Gunbower, could be a draft smoky, according to O’Bree. “His growth this year has been significant,” he said. “We tried him as a ruckman to start with but with his skillset we put him back as a defender and his improvement just went through the roof. “He just got better as the year went on “He’s a very, very good kick and he’s very good below his knees for a 200cm player. “His improvement in the next 12 months is going to be a really big watch.”

Correction. The HS update this morning and they now have 863 players including Kobi George. However, what we don't know is whether he remains an NGA for the purposes of the draft.

Alas, George has not nominated for this year’s draft according to the list of over 700 players published on today’s HS on line subscriber pages.

I think he’s somewhat better than Kobe Farmer who was overlooked by both AFL clubs who could have claimed him as a father-son. Woewodin has been nominated by Melbourne so he’s a bit ahead of where Kobe was last year.

I’m not certain whether this has been mentioned or not but a bigfooty poster Davo-27 has an interesting perspective on the draft. He ranks players in tiers starting with the elite tier and going down:- Elite: Daicos, Horne-Francis, (Callaghan, Darcy) (4) Top Tier: Hobbs, Erasmus, Ward, Goater, Amiss, Fahey, Van Rooyen, Wanganeen-Milera, M Johnson, Rachele (10) Quality: Roberts, Sinn, Long, Knevitt, Bazzo, Gibcus, Andrew, Chesser, Conway, Banks, MacDonald, Browne, Draper, Sonsie, Wilmot, Dittmar, Clarke, Curtis (18) Quality with some question marks: Molan, Windhager, Ferres, Hough, Aleer, Regan, Brown, Soligo, Owens, Jones, Tunstill, Lohmann, Taylor, Benning, C.Hamilton, Beecken, Rankin, Burgoyne, Jackson, Uwland, Motlop, Rayson, Archer, Willis, Sheldrick, Dib, Williams, Murray, Rossimel, H.Hamilton, Butler, Bergman, Howes, (19 yr olds) Doultree, Trudgeon, Cleary, Gribble (37) This is a good way to look at the overall list of players - there will be some players missing and some disagreements about how high or low players should be ranked but I think it’s a different way to look at the players available to be drafted.

I'm a big fan of Sheldrick - he impressed me in all of the games he played in but particularly, in the last one against South Australia. I regards him as a real junk yard dog type of player who will do the hard work work for his coach and can learn under Jack Viney. I understand that Geelong are very interested in him.

I’m not questioning what he said in an interview. These measurements were taken on Monday by AFL staff at the training session.

Running alongside that draft on the Herald Sun’s subscriber pages is a feature covering Monday’s training session at TBBO for Victorian draft hopefuls run by the AFL Academy coach Tarkyn Lockyer where players also had their measurements taken for the first time since the pre-season. There were reports last week that Mac Andrew had bulked up considerably from 70kg to close to 80kg but the official figures show that he’s still only 74kg. He’s also added 1cm in height.

There’s only eight days to go until the 2021 AFL National Draft so this is Cal Twomey’s last Phantom Form Guide. It’s not actually a phantom draft but rather, his ranking of top draft prospects.

All a bit strange this. A few weeks ago the Suns were struggling with their salary cap to the point where they tried desperately to ditch a player who ended up not wanting to leave. Now, they've managed to ditch a player to North Melbourne which is taking up the Suns' contractual obligations. I'm not a conspiracy theorist but ...

Rookie Me Central has finally put up their Taj Woewodin profile here.

Now … wasn’t that a time? We’ve certainly had some bizarre activity searching for that elusive flag, but that surely takes the cake!

Depends on what you mean by nailing every pick. Like everyone one of us who work, we can only do it with the tools we’re given. We can’t expect JT and his team to draft Jason Horne-Francis or Nick Daicos because they don’t have access to pick 1 and can’t match a father-son selection. It’s what they do with the selections they currently hold and if they can trade them and then it’s up to the coaches to develop the players they pick. On their past form, I’m far more confident than I was in the past that they will do well again for the club. That’s what nailing it will mean to me.

Yes - someone else’s hamstring and someone else’s ankle. However, because of the competition for that position, it’s also important for Jayden Hunt and Joel Smith to have strong pre seasons to win back their places.