RalphiusMaximus

Interesting point from the game today. When Pedersen was dumped over the boundary at HF, Oliver was a few feet away and turned to jog off and set up for the throw-in. A teammate (I think vandenBerg) yelled at him something along the lines of "He's your teammate, give him a hand up!" by which time Pedersen had already picked himself up. Still, it's another example of team-building and player-driven standards in action.

A previous coach misread his name as Clarence rather than Clayton. It was mentioned in an article a while back.

Just looked this up. Aaron has three boys. Marley (2010) and twins Archie and Isaac (2012) Green has two. Oliver (unsure) and Wilba (2012?). Bruce has one, Ben. Not sure when he was born. Either way, it's going to be a while before we are looking at any of these lads joining the side, but we can hope right? Sometime around 2028-2030, assuming the rule still exists, we may have access to some pretty good talent.

How old are the Davey boys? Come to think of it, didn't Bruce and Green have a couple of lads in the same bracket?

I think there was a photo of Billy as a 14 year old playing representative footy in SA. I'm not sure on Jack, but probably a similar age. It would be amazing if this kid came on to be the athlete his Dad was. He'd be a very handy forward with that height and leap.

So that's an extra 12.

For now. Love that film. Vastly underrated.

Cotchin has better skills than Jones, but he goes to pieces under pressure. Jones has far more fight to him which is why he's so valued in our club. He will always put up a fight.

Can't argue that, but he is a Hero for the club. He's been the one player to stand up and fight through the years of rubbish, he's taking personal responsibility for mentoring the next generation of players who will hopefully surpass him and he's never even considered leaving the club for a cheap premiership. Given that Oliver has moved in with the Brayshaws, I'm really hoping to see Jones (and Gus) doing the same job of mentoring he did with Gus last year. You can clearly see the benefit Brayshaw gained from having a mentor like that just around the corner, taking him out of training runs, making sure he got out the door and in to the club on time and just driving home the professional habits needed right from the start. The training reports, including from Gus himself, say that Oliver loves the physical stuff, loves to tackle and wrestle and is a ferocious competitor. It sound like he's setting himself up to have a Brayshaw-like first season. If we get that sort of output from him this year then we're way ahead of the game and should be thrilled.

Within the first year if he shows he can do it right.

One of the photo sets from Six6six shows Petracca dummying right then stepping left to go around him. Oliver looked like he thought it was the best thing ever. I get the impression that the smile is pretty much a permanent fixture for him when he's playing. Looking at those photos shows that he has a lot of muscle to build to catch up with Petracca.

I don't know if it's been posted before, but there was a nice little article on the lad before he was drafted in The Age. Talks about his OP, struggles with fitness at the start of the season and the amazing work his parents did to help him out.

This bit kind of worries me. Comparing him to a totally ordinary and uninspiring player isn't a great look.

I just think we should be really careful with those injuries. It's not such a big deal if he misses games in his first year making sure he's fit, but if they develop later into a problem it's going to be much worse.

I really don't think the Weed will or should play seniors next year. They need to take their time and make absolutely sure that his ankle problems are behind him before anything else. Then they can build his fitness base over the course of a few years and by the time we're really challenging we'll have a fit and firing forward pair.

You did see those big crunching tackles right?

I have to admit, when I hear the name I keep thinking of the guy from the Crows. Different spelling of course.

Does anyone have a link to his combine scores? I'd love to get an idea of exactly how he scores on speed and endurance. He was third for agility which is amazing for such a big guy, but you can see it in his highlights.

I thought that too, but he looks like he's really slimmed down in the second half of the year judging by the latest shots of him. I think it speaks very well of him that he's done that on his own before being drafted. He's coming into the club ready to train. In the SEN coverage, they said he hurt himself during the agility trial (which he killed) and had to sit out the beep test, but refused to sit out the 3km time trial because he'd put so much work into improving his running and wanted the chance to show what he could do. I'm still worried about our side's overall poor disposal, but this kid does look like he may be a player.

Sounds pretty happy to have joined us given the quick interview he just gave on SEN. Oliver now on for a chat. Likes Roos, likes the look of the list...

VERY welcome to the club Sam. Here's hoping you enjoy the next decade teaming up with the Hulk.

Well, we have the Raging Bull. Best of luck to you in playing next year Clayton.

I still have him up there in our options. I worry less about the draft tests than some I think. I'm more interested in getting footballers than athletes.

The numbers indicate one of three things to my mind: 1 - He's not over his issues yet 2 - He hasn't kept himself in shape while not playing 3 - He's faking it to lower his value and get to the Pies. Quite frankly any of the above could well be the case, and none of them make him more attractive as a draftee. However, all but #3 we could deal with.

In all honesty, while I do have my preferences I'm not terribly concerned by who we take at three and seven. I maintain that this group of players are all very even and we'll get two quality kids whichever way the draft goes. As long as we don't waste a top ten pick on that big KPD, I'm happy.