Fat Tony

This was a pretty weak draft overall and we should have gone hard at O'Meara in hindsight. GC got him for a steal.

I am not tearing my hair out with Toumpas, but surely we are allowed to evaluate the success of our drafting, even early on.

It isn't about impact this year so much, it just that Wines has now proven he can cut it at AFL level. I think Toumpas will be okay eventually, but Wines is already a good player. To say that means nothing is not considering all the evidence.

If the draft were re-held today, Wines and Mayes would be taken before Toumpas, Ploughman and O’Rourke, and possibly even Whitfield. But recruiters don’t have the benefit of seeing players under AFL pressure before they are drafted and things can change significantly as players mature from 18 years old. Given Wines and Mayes are not at Judd, Selwood or O’Meara’s level, it is too early to conclude that Toumpas was a mistake, although it looks probable at this stage. This is particularly so given Toumpas is coming off an injury interrupted preseason.

I believe he can elect to go in either the PSD or the ND.

Caddy is very overrated by the AFL community. He is not overly quick and not great by foot. He is not worth pick 13 in my book. In saying that, a potential path we could take is to offer him a high dollar i.e. $750K one-year contract to come to us via the PSD (so high that it puts GWS and GCS off taking him) and agree to trade him to Essendon the year after for their first round pick. We need to spend the salary and we would gain a first round pick the year after. Caddy would pick up extra money and eventually get to Essendon and GCS would lose out on any compensation. The other option would be to offer to trade down pick 13 to broker the deal a la Geelong and Mark Williams from Hawthorn to Essendon. (i.e. gain two picks in the early 20s).