Autopsy Rate Our 2014 Draft Class

[Ant Bear]

#56: Dougal Howard, 195cm KPF
#69: Logan Austin, 194cm KPD
#78: Jesse Palmer, 188cm med. fwd
#84: Billy Frampton, 199cm ruck

Firstly, welcome to these boys. You are about to step into the greatest football club in the land. I hope that it inspires you to achieve what 17 other clubs didn't rate you as capable of doing, and infuses you with belief and desire to be the best you can be.

Without the knowledge of our recruiters, I can only trust their judgement, and am at least satisfied that we have addressed our glaring needs in terms of positions and types. It is interesting to speculate as to who else was available at these picks.

From the highlights packages, which can be misleading, it seems that all will be project players developing in the Magpies for a couple of years, except perhaps for Palmer, but none are glaringly under-developed for their size; all seem to move well and have good pace; and I haven't seen reports or excuses of injuries from any of them
They have obviously been selected with an eye to addressing deficiencies or shortfalls in our list, and with a settled team we can afford to let them develop at their own pace.

I give us a b minus at this stage.

 

[RossFC]

Happy with what we got would have liked a back pocket player but we can easily get one in the rookie draft.

Give me more than 3 minute youtube clips to give a good grade. Will see our SANFL games next year and wish all 4 players the best of luck.

 

[Dalfino]

Yeah, really early to give the boys a rating, but I'm happy we've now got at least a glimpse of future for our KPP positions. A really balanced squad at the moment in terms of players for each position, but now its up to them to put in the effort and earn the right to wear the V. Welcome to Port Adelaide

 

[n4nirvana]

All 1st year All Australians and joint brownlow medallists

 

[scottjr]

I just don't know. Everyone is welcome and I'll be backing them 100%

 

[Traveling_Power]

I think our draft class has been good although we could have gone with some picks who were a bit taller

who we picked ........ who we could have picked
#56: Dougal Howard, 195cm KPF........ Sean McLaren 197cm KPD, KPF, Ruck
#69: Logan Austin, 194cm KPD ........ Ryan Tester 198cm KPD
#78: Jesse Palmer, 188cm med. fwd......... (haven't got a pick here - maybe Oleg Markov 186cm)
#84: Billy Frampton, 199cm ruck.......... Cameron Loersch 203cm Ruck

 

[Shaucob_Burjan]

Ryder isn't the player that puts us over the top in 2015.

Frampton is.

 

[Magpiespower]

Doogie, Stone Cold Wolverine, um, Laura (?) and Peter... happy with three outta four big units!

 

[Kickpuncher]

1 possibly 2 won't be on our list at the end of 2016. That's what you get when you enter the draft late though.

 

[Portmanteau]

The greatest draft class of the modern era.

 

[tamba]

1 possibly 2 won't be on our list at the end of 2016. That's what you get when you enter the draft late though.

welcome to the club fellows, but are we looking to supply the 36er's for next year

 

[Concussion]

Probably should have taken Reece Mckenzie, but we will see over the coming years what these lads are made of.

 

[klem22]

Very hard to judge what we have here can only hope that our recruiters have been meticulous in the way they have made their judgements. Would be fantastic to see these guys develop into first class players at PAFC.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Probably should have taken Reece Mckenzie, but we will see over the coming years what these lads are made of.

I was pissed off when I saw Reece McKenzie got to 77 about half an hour ago and we took Palmer at 78. Sounds like Kenny really liked Austin so no wonder we didn't pick Reece at 69. Bloody hell, I hope we wont be saying if only in 6 years time.

 

[Byrons Firen]

Welcome lads
to a club
a family
and yourselves.
We are
what we are
because
you
are what you want to be.
We will get you there.

 

[Coobk001]

So I'll comment on both sides of the coin, to get some convo going....

If I'm to be pessimistic...

I think after watching the vids and thinking about our needs I'm pretty happy with Austin and Frampton, although I think Frampton's highlights are pretty poor from a ruckwork point of view and he looks like he isn't super tall. I could see Austin being ready to play AFL footy in 3-4 years when Carlile is on the way out, and in 4-5 years Frampton may develop but I guess you've gotta have a crack at developing a young ruckman while we've got some players filling that spot.

Palmer looks like he is P Stewarts clone, moves the same way and plays similarly. Not sure what need he fills, or what he really brings. Think he is a pretty weird selection so would be surprised if we ever see much of him. Kinda reminds me of the Glenn Dawson selection.

Dougal looks like he could be a solid SANFL forward in 4-5 years. Who knows what else he could do. For mine he is a weird selection because we are loaded up massively with key forwards and ruck/forwards. We'll have Redden, Shaw, Harvey, Butcher and Dougal all trying to squeeze into a forward line in the maggies at times. So for me his selection is quite strange. I also am one that believes key forwards usually come from the top end of the draft and you need to fluke it to find someone that bucks that trend.


If I'm to be positive.....

Austin looks a great mark and fills a need beautifully. Should develop quickly with some big SANFL jobs.
Frampton looks to be very mobile for a big man, good disposal and 2nd efforts. Hopefully with a few years in the gym training with quality ruckman he will develop that area of his game and force his way into the AFL side as Ryder is coming to an end.
Dougal has a good kick on goal and a good mark, looks versatile like he can play both ends and with our key forwards finishing up in the next few years maybe he can be the next JWest.
Palmer looks like he could be one of those little goal sneaks that moves onto a wing in the future and/or replaces a Monfries in the forward half. He certainly looks a bit like P Stewart but hopefully he can find a way to be more dangerous when the ball is on the ground than when it is in the air.


But at the end of the day, the key is we have a solid list with not much work required. We've picked some kids who we'll try to develop and hopefully we can develop them to an elite level. Nothing really much to lose from that. So welcome to the club boys and good luck. Hope to see you all fulfilling all the potential you have ever had in the next few years.

 

[Byrons Firen]

They are all likely types
early days
my reaction

I'm biased tho.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Our draft was better than Controversial Capel's call that Port would be drafting a fleet of hard runners.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Port Adelaide: The team that doesn't draft South Australians.

 

[Byrons Firen]

Port Adelaide: The team that doesn't draft South Australians.

We are not that fragile.
We are what we are
and its plenty good enough

 

[Spadge]

i didnt read jack s**t about any draft players this season
i didnt watch the draft
i didnt listen to the draft
the first i even thought about it today was when i got an email from the club introducing our new players
why? well pick in the mid 50s being our first pick and a few very late ones... = very little interest

that this translates to is we have picked 4 guys who are project at best... may be ok.. may be duds
at least we have given a few big guys a crack so will be interesting to see how they go

 

[Portress Hill]

All I keep thinking is that a lot of good key position players have come from rookies etc.

Absolutely none of the players I wanted to slide made it, with the exception of McGrath who wasn't really a slider. Gore, so close, McDonald, so close, Marc p the big ruckman, so close.

Overall. I don't have a lot of hope for this draft crop, I give us a D. Can't say we passed cos realistically, I don't expect any of these guys to make it. But s**t I hope I'm wrong

 

[Ford Fairlane]

Ask me in a couple of years ... I usually do poorly at the draft game but I have an idea of the players that might be around at our picks at least in the first couple of rounds.

This group I swear the first three I had to look up every one of them. Hadn't heard of them and knew nothing about them. Admittedly as we were out of the first two rounds and starting at the back end of the third I hadn't studied form too closely but I had 10-12 names in my mind from phantom drafts, the podcast, other discussions. None of the first three names came up in any of those. Frampton I had heard of and checked highlights but I thought we would go for one of the monster kids who looked like you could at least pitch into leading a $anfl ruck division. I'm not sure Frampton is ready for that although I expect he will compete hard.

Still, the club had a plan to bolster its tall division despite its draft ranking and followed through. We would have had the pick of the second and third tier talls and took each one without hesitation, so we more than likely scored the players we wanted. Even when Gore went before our first pick Port were straight into Howard. The recruiting team didn't even save a pick and took Frampton as the last man in the draft.

So it looks like the club did get the kids they were after, all the talk of Glenn, McGrath, Bampton, Fordham, Beasley was to naught. Cripps and Parker might well rate the haul an A given where we were placed and who we wanted.

 

[Janus]

The only time there was hesitation was the Palmer pick - we were definitely into McKenzie because we were all ready to say his name but Richmond pipped us. Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the selections. Two years is enough to see whether any of these guys are gonna make it, and it's not like there's a lot of space in our midfield to develop.

 

[Ford Fairlane]

We had already picked a big key forward when we came to our second pick so I'm not convinced we were interested in McKenzie. There has to be a problem there, the guy slid from top 10 in the amateur phantoms to the 70s in the real thing (and the back end of where Cal Twomey who talks to the clubs nominated him landing). No one was into him but Richmond were prepared to take the risk with a very late pick.

If we wanted McKenzie we would have taken him at 56.