Where have they gone? And why?

[king_carey_018]

Having flown to Perth for last year's Under 16's National Championships there were, as usual, a number of standouts. And while the hype surrounding some has grown, others have drifted.

Andrew Walker was a standout at the carnival, made the AIS Squad and hasn't taken a step back. And duly will be picked up with Pick No.2 on Saturday.

Brock McLean also showcased his talent and should be a Top 10 pick. Farren Ray was another one, and despite his injury, Billy Morrison has a huge future. Troy Chaplin is still around the mark although he may have slipped the pecking order a bit from where he was a year ago.

BUT after the carnival we felt safe to assume players like Josh Willoughby, Andrew McQualter, Tim Schmidt, David Trotter, Kyle Archibald and Brent Stanton would all be certain Top 10-15 picks in this year's draft based on their performances. However this is now not the case. These guys have had a dramatic fall from grace since those Championships and it begs the question - at 16 and 17 year of age are the kids too young for anyone to get a good understanding of how good they really are/are going to be?

[mick ryan]

It's a very interesting question, some would argue that it clearly is and many others would have the opposite view. I think there are a lot of other factors that come into it as well eg., social pursuits, academic workload, lack of motivation and interest etc.
I guess that also leads to the question is the Draft age too young and the various views that are held on that topic.
Perhaps many of the people who are involved in the talent identification and recruiting process are too quick to categorize kids and write them off or over rate them without taking all the possibilities into account.
I don't know the answer but hopefully someone else might have some constructive input.