RalphiusMaximus

Pretty sure those are the wrong colours.

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.

Buckenara lost me when he had us take another key defender. Defence is the last thing we need to shore up at this point. We need mids, another forward and probably another ruck in that order.

To be honest, the one I really want is The Demons. I'd be thrilled if they turned out to be the big surprise packet of 2016.

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.

I honestly believe that there is very little difference in talent and ability between the half-dozen or so players in contention for our picks. We'll be getting a couple of pretty good players regardless of who we go with, as will the Bombers. Personally I want us to get Parish because I consider the ability to hit a target to be one of our greatest issues and he is as good as we'll get on that front. If we were to land Parish and a tall then I'd be thrilled, but as I said, any two of this group will serve us pretty well.

The academy bids slot in at the point in the draft where someone bids on them. All other bids are shuffled downwards. It has a slight effect on the price of later academy picks, but no real impact on the actual picks.

I'm not sure if they can use future picks to match bids, but if not then Sydney can't match pick 1. I haven't looked into the other clubs with academy and FS picks.

I know this was discussed in the media a while ago. I thought the consensus was that you couldn't use your pick to keep bidding on all of the players, but I could well be wrong. As for the predictions, I would probably have the Bombers taking Francis and Curnow with Weideman falling to us, but aside from that pretty much spot on for mine.

Interesting that the article says he doesn't use the ball well given his results in the testing. That would indicate poor decisions more than actual skills. I wonder if that is easier to fix? Come to think of it, I used to call Mzungu "The Butcher" because he got the ball 30 times a game and turned it over 28 of them, but he came good.

I kind of agree with this. I think the points system has worked reasonably well for a first run. We're seeing Sydney taking themselves out of the first two rounds to secure Mills which is fair. GWS traded away top picks to get more points and will still not have a live pick before the fourth round or so to get their two guys. Some have complained about trading top ten picks for multiple lower picks to get extra points, but I think this is a good thing. It's giving clubs that don't have access to academy picks a better chance to pick up top end talent by trading for those top picks. I was very skeptical at first with this whole system, but it really does appear to be working.

At what point does it become prohibitively expensive for them? We're all assuming that Melbourne will bid pick three for him which is 2,234 points, but if Brisbane go early that's 2,517. Where are they going to find another 283 points to match it? Then there is the admittedly remote chance that Carlton will bid on him at 1, which would jack the price up to 3,000. At some point Sydney would have to look at what they're paying and just say "hell, we'll trade for him in two years." For reference: If we bid they have to burn their first three picks and downgrade their fourth (1,787.2 required). If Brisbane bid they have to burn their first four picks and downgrade their fifth (2,013.6 required). If Carlton bid they don't have enough points to match it in this draft (2,400 required).

Just an odd thought here. What would happen to the draft if pick 1 or 2 were bid on Mills and Sydney declined to match it? I suspect chaos would ensue, and I really wonder how it would shape the remaining picks. Would we take either Schache or Weitering if they were still there? I would assume so, but we DO need mids rather badly. But then if we did, we would still have access to a very good mid at seven.

Watts! I maintain that with decent vision and disposal from our midfield Watts will be a ten mark a game better player. Sorry, I just felt that I needed to get that off my chest.

Imagine if all of those fringe players were to come on at once for us. If we see Petracca have a season like Hogan did this year, Kent show the form he had at the start of the season all year without injuries to stuff him up and Hunt and White secure places in the starting side. That would be amazing and the side would be giving finals a serious shake if that happened. Add King to the wish-list, who knows? So basically imagine if all of our gambles paid off all at once and we had no injuries to any of them for the whole season. Wouldn't that be nice.

I'm not telling. It'll be a nice surprise when it happens.

Thanks to all who put themselves out in the heat and provided us with commentary, especially Tas for that epic report. Reports like these give us a sense of almost being there ourselves, and are great value for those of us who cant get up there to see it in person.

Sadly true. Our Women's league is world class (as opposed to the A-League which is ranked around 100 in the world) and deserves far more support than it gets. The players are paid below minimum wage and nobody ever shows up to the games and this is entirely due to the prevalent bias against women's sport. It sucks, but I don't see it changing any time soon.

Do you think Francis will be available at pick 40ish?

That's pretty much where I'm seeing it too.

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.

We have all the tall backs we need right now. I can see us using one pick on a tall forward, but the real need in our side right now is midfield class.

My mail, from admittedly lesser sources than some others, is that if we take Parish at three the bombers will go Francis and Curnow. If we took Curnow at three they would snap up Parish at four and probably Weideman at five. Of those two possiblities I think I'd prefer the first, but having missed out on two absolutely outstanding young forwards who looked a little small in the recent past, it is very hard to not want Curnow. You just have to wonder if he could be another Darling or Stringer.

This and Lyon was in better shape a well. Especially if you count a relatively fit Jakovich in there as well. That's some serious firepower.

Are there highlights for the academy kids out there as well? I'd be very curious to see how they compare.