Demon Dynasty

Put football smarts....with lightning reflexes. A genuine football brain... with grunt, a bit of nasty and follow up 2nd efforts. Add to this some class finish around stoppages and in front of the sticks. Clever unselfish knock ons, amazing agility / awareness in traffic and a super leap for his size ...and what have you got!?? Football's Masiah? Nope...just lil ol' Kysaiah!

Looking for a small guy that will chew up opp mistakes and force opp mistakes then punish on the counter. Someone that eats crumbs off the pack for breakfast with lightning quick reflexes, a great running leap for his size (equal 9th in the National Combine) and super goal sense and finish? At a pinch he could even play short cameo stints in the mid given a decent pre-season or two. Is it Weightman? ... Nope! Henry? Serong?....ummm...nah none of those. Taylor, surely it's Taylor!...hmm close but no cigar! "Whoever it is, he can't be worth pick No.8 though. That's just sillly" i hear you say. Well think again fellow minions!! Another piece in the premiership puzzle awaits...

In 2021 quite possibly 55. If not it's still Hibb & more likely Young assuming we pick him up. I'm not talking about replacing Salem as such. Is there room out wide if Hannan, Langdon, Tomo and possibly Young and Gus are running around there? Tomo can drop back to a HBF also. I'm sure there's room but just not sure what his role is with so many options now.

https://m.afl.com.au/news/2019-10-23/cal-twomeys-2019-phantom-form-guide-october-update

Ball always travels faster through the air. This bloke will speed our transition up faster than any amazing sprints off HB or around the wings. His decision making will also assist here. It's lightning quick and tends to pick the right options most of the time. Short, medium, low long rakers....this bloke is a kicking guru. We've been screaming out for his type for years.. "Frosty has speed....can't kick". Frosty has great pace...but a massive turnover king". ANB great runner between the arcs...but murders the ball". Well here's a bloke who is elite with the ball... ready for the plucking.

If we miss Young at 3 it will go down as one of the worst trade decisions of all time imv.

Surely this is a joke? Only the clinically insane would waste a top 10 pick on another 'untried' Jack the giant when we already have two running around and one is A grade. Pert needs to step in immediately and have a word to Goody & the FD if this is genuinely on the cards. Will go down as yet another mega MFC blunder if we overlook Young, Stephens, Kemp and/or Pickett in favour of a third lumbering giant.

If Young comes in and with a fit/in form Hannan/Gus i am struggling to see where Salem fits in tbh. He's a great accumulator don't get me wrong and a solid player....just not that damaging with run or penetrating kicks to damaging places. Very classy in close and dishing off to players in immediate vicinity but that mostly delays the ball from transitioning quickly inside 50.

Yes i agree. He'll be gone by 97 or whatever it is. Unless we can somehow split the pick and still be g'teed of landing Young with the first. That might give us 6, 8 and something in the 20s/30s that's more appropriate.

Not at all 247. Watched all highlight vids (about 5) via the league App and he looks very solid. I've been keen on him for a few weeks but that was prior to seeing Pickett. Taylor might be a step up on both but haven't seen any videos. I'm not worried about sources or draft positions. I trust what i see albeit i realise it's limited vision vs Weightman but the eyes don't lie. This bloke is a cat with the X factor we need imv. Having said that i doubt anyone would pick him up in the top 20 or so as they'll be too scared of getting the pick wrong i reckon. Necks on the line.

Correct...and from a running jump it looks like he is able to. Once he gets launched and he is on someone's shoulders or back though, a whole lot of other factors come in to play. Eg; ability to recover after hitting the deck if ball spills or he marks etc.

I am talking running jump Watts. He matches Weightman with the leap factor. A standing jump to get hands on the pill? I don't know about 7cm but yes Weightman would appear to have him covered finishing equal 5th in the vertical jump.

That is how i saw it after watching all highlights of both Young & Weightman (about 16 videos in total). Get Young.....consider Pickett (or Taylor?) before Weightman. Weightman will be solid, don't get me wrong, but he doesn't have the cat like sixth sense crumbing & goal reflexes that Pickett has. He is sleight of hand lightning quick...and not so much across the ground. It's the full reflex package and instinct with both hand and foot. It just happens naturally with deft touch and amazing skills. Not sure about Taylor as i can't see any highlights other than the draft reports which are postive. Anyone worrying about his height...Pickett came equal 9th with Weightman and Oscar Lewis in the running vertical jump in the draft combine and he's 7cm smaller. Still a few centimeters to go also from now till 20ish.

Came 10th in the National Combine running vertical leap WW. Check the first video at the 1 min mark for the launch capability!

I've changed my mind on Weightman. Rather take a chance on this bloke tbh... Super green and possibly a year or so off it but....Genuine X factor, cat like around goals and can take a nice speckie. Came 10th in the National Combine in the running leap test as well. A small that has the tall traits a la Cyril (speckie at the 1 minute mark)... Bit of mongrel never hurt either.... Sixth sense around goal...

Bump. Good pick up Oli. Somewhat wary of a reserves outcome in a secondary league but this bloke might be the ideal small crumbing forward in the draft. Don't let his height bother you. The bloke can leap as demonstrated with the cracking speckie about half way through the vid above. As well as coming 10th in the running vertical jump at the national combine. Cat like reflexes, reads the crumb beautifuly, super mobile and great balance. Clean pick ups & lightning finish around the goals. The ball will be sailing through the goals before half those around him will even know where it is! Big step up to AFL but looks to have it all. I'm now switching from Weightman to this guy as our No.1 small forward target.

Not exactly a small forward but the guy is a dead eye [censored]. The most accurate in any form of professional footy right now. Has a decent leap on him also. Wouldn't be dissapointed if we picked him up as a mature rookie outside the draft somehow. A big step up from much of the chaff on our list at present.

Thanks you two. Now i'm really confused. MFCSS extremism or 'Fake News' !!?? Which one is it?

Not that we need another genuine inside mid but there's a smokey who got a late invite to the combine after being left out of the Vic Metro's Squad. Not overplaying the combine but just out of interest he came 8th in the vertical jump, 1st in the 20m sprint and 6th in the yo yo. Supposed to have blistering break away (from congestion) speed which allows him to escape outside, with the 20m combine result appearing to back this up. Something we truly lack with our core insiders at the moment and something i've been calling for us to address (as a weakness) for quite some time now. I notice he was selected as an 'around the mark' player for the Aints in the Twomey article up there. I'll try and check for some highlights off the NAB app tomorrow. Some on Bomblitz are rating him in their top prospects (with Essendrug needing inside mids). Anyone seen him up close who can shed some light i wonder? Sam Philp An inside midfielder with great speed, Philp has transformed his game to develop more hurt factor as the season went on, becoming a premier midfielder in the NAB League while many of his contemporaries were off with Metro or Country duties. When they returned he matched it with the best of them and could be one of the feel-good stories of the draft given he missed out on Metro selection. Just bullocks his way through stoppages and is hard to stop around the ground. His strong season was rewarded with a National Draft Combine invitation, meaning at least four clubs like what they saw in 2019.

Gould should be in this poll IMO

Watched all 11 of Young's highlight wraps from the the NAB League app, Weightman > 6, Kemp > 3, Serong > 5, Flanders >11, Ash 10 plus the rwo main reels for Stephens & Gould. Based on what we need and who is the best available i would go... Pick 3. Young Pick 8. Weightman/Stephens (can't split those two... haven't seen enough of Stephens and unsure of his actual height with one report saying 183cm another saying 172cm). I seriously don't see much upside for us in the other options aside from Gould IF we were after another tall running HB and i'm not sure we need another. Although who knows, if one or two key backs go down during 2020 with significant injury. Also a handy option for when May hangs the boots up. If we were assured of getting young should we split and received say 6 and a 20 and he Gould was still there around then i would go. Young, Weightman/Stephens & Gould.

Club doesn't have the luxury to wait two years for a rookie inside mid in Kemp to come back from knee surgery until he is fully loaded etc. Big Max might not be at his best in two season's time nor some of the core. The present group might look completely different again if we don't have two very solid years from here and at least one serious finals campaign. Chosen Young, whose kicking and ground ball work is sublime. His follow up work and second efforts are also commendable. Kicks either side as well which makes him that much harder to match up on counter. Only downside is a turn of pace which might see him a little less effective and under a higher degree of pressure at senior level. Missing more kicks and handballs. Seems to have great awareness and knows when to shoot the lights out with a kick (short, medium and raking) or a handball forward to a free running player . Lovely to watch and might end up one of the better AFL kicks in that regard (subject to the lack of speed / step up effect mentioned above). Would hate to miss Young. If for some moment of insanity we did, the next best down the rung for mine (potentially depending on height) is Stephens for outside blitz run and finish. Looks a little raw though and im not sure he is the 183cm player i saw listed somewhere. The official stats have him much smaller at 172ish. Weightman as the second pick for the small forward. Has more X factor, smarts than the more bullocking small in Serong (who reminds me a little of Luke Beveridge!). While Serong looks like a gruntier bull around the ball, Weightman can also play a little tall at times up forward as well as clever work on the outside of stoppages. Goal kicking seems ok even from reasonable distance. Dennis Lillee run up Ben Brown style! Not necessarily a game changing player but very very clever and handy. Knowing when to knock the ball on (a la the Tiger's method) instead of taking possession all the time like so many of our boys do at present. Sometimes you can't teach that so this and ability to play tall up forward is a slight advantage over say a Serong imv. We won't land a 1st string KF this year to take over the No.1 mantle from T-Mac but hopefully we recruit well to fill most of what else is required prior to doing so. To not land even a 2nd string KF with the likes of Jenkins was the club's biggest fail in the trade period imv, although we don't know whether Mahoney/Taylor even tried or not as there's been no comms from the club either way vs say Elliot, where we had reasonable info forthcoming. This should be one of the key questions asked at the forum imv ie; did we make a serious attempt at landing Jenkins for peanuts? If not, why not?

Moon there were patches of this unselfish style from us in 2017/2018. When we did so we rarely lost and it usually included bits of play at some point from Jeffy. We need to find some genuine smalls and a genuine KF. Remembering that the Tiges aren't there by just playing unselfish footy either. They are there due to a very solid 22 and some genuine quality depth players that can fill 5 or 6 gaps when some of their best 22 drop out. They also got Lynch as a top up / back up player for Riewoldt. Not a bad back up! Probably the difference between top 8 and top 4 ...the difference between a place in the big dance vs no place and ultimately another premiership.

Bennell is a massive unknown quantity and his manager didn't sound super confident about his prospects of playing injury free once more. Having said that i wouldn't mind rolling the die on both if we have the space for Martin but tbh i reckon he isn't worth more than about 550k a year. Also would need to put bennell through a serious trial test.