Chris25
Moderator
- Oct 30, 2007
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Tyler Keitel
Height: 194cm
Weight: 86kg
From: East Perth, Western Australia
Position: Forward, Defender
Height: 194cm
Weight: 86kg
From: East Perth, Western Australia
Position: Forward, Defender
Everyone loves a KPP, and Tyler Keitel flashed enough potential at the U18 Championships this year to gather a few fans and become almost one of the 'big name' players in this years draft. He's been a bit all over the place in terms of BigFooty speculation, one week being a top 10 pick and the next he is back in the second round. It seems as though he has settled into a fringe first round pick at the moment, but he could probably stand to drop a little further in my opinion. A lot may well depend on what role clubs view him as being best suited.
Always a talented player, Keitel was playing as more of a half forward a few years ago before a growth spurt suddenly took him to key position height and opened up a bunch of new opportunities. The 2013 WAFL Colts season saw him play as a genuine key forward for the first time consistently, even rotating through the ruck with his newfound height. And it was a successful underage age season, averaging over 5 marks a game and kicking 39 goals in 18 matches. Keitel was also selected as a 17 year old in the WA squad for the 2013 U18 Championships. At times when he was playing in the ruck, he'd float down into the back lines - but he was a forward first and foremost. And not much has changed in 2014. Back in the WAFL Colts for East Perth, he is averaging nearly the exact same figures - 5 marks and just over 2 goals a game. The only difference is that he is staying in the forward half, as opposed to going into the ruck too.
So heading into the U18 Championships, Keitel figured as one of the key players for Western Australia and the best of a talented but underperforming group of talls. And overall, I'd say Keitel was good without being great. His best game was easily in Round 3 against South Australia - kicking 3 goals and 3 behinds from 13 disposals and 7 marks. That game was very promising, he was marking everything coming his way and he was simply too good for the South Australian defenders. It was that one match that saw him jump into top 10 calculations on BigFooty. But, Keitel only kicked 1 other goal in the remaining 5 matches of the Championships. Part of that was due to him doing more work around CHF as opposed to the goal square, but also because he was moved into the back lines for one of the few times in his career. Injury to Dylan Winton and a lack of other options saw Keitel moved back, and I was pleased with what he showed. So much so, that I would seriously consider developing him as a defender. The fact that he wasn't always key position height really showed in his willingness to run the ball out of the back lines. He's surprisingly agile for someone his size, and isn't afraid to take the game on. And his ability in the air translated well into his role as a defender. Still confident enough to go for his marks, Keitel also proved himself as a capable spoiler and read the incoming ball well enough to know when and where to drop back to.
I think I covered a lot of his strengths already - agility, versatility, overhead ability, confidence. Another pleasing aspect is the way he just finds the ball. Throughout his career at both WAFL Colts and U18 Championships level, Keitel has always averaged around 15 disposals a game. He's not one who will generally go missing for long periods, because he can play further up the ground and find his own ball if he is struggling deep.
But as I mentioned at the start, I don't view him as a certain top 20 pick. And a large part of that is because I don't view him as a #1 tall at either end of the ground. Up forward, he projects best as a second tall - more that leading forward who plays around CHF. Like Jarrad Waite at Carlton, who is a very good player with quality around him but struggles as the main target himself. And it's a similar case down back. With more experience, he could well develop into more of a key defender. But at the moment, I see him as more of that third tall - dropping back from CHB to help out defensively and then rebounding. Otherwise, I think he could stand to improve his work rate defensively in terms of chasing and tackling. He just looks a lot more interested when there is the chance that he gets the ball himself.
And when it comes to draft position, predicting where talls go is one of the hardest things to pick. In recent years there have been a few different trends - the first round tends to be the talented and consistently performing talls, the second round features those with enough traits to suggest they could develop into a #1 tall with time and then the third round is more those who are good but project more as second or third talls. So where does Tyler Keitel fit? Well, it'll probably be different for every club and what they see his role as being. Best case in my mind would be something similar to Ryan Schoenmakers at Hawthorn, a talented swingman. Worst case would be more along the lines of Jackson Paine - a capable tall, but you'd still be looking to upgrade if possible. So using them as a guide, that would mean a draft range of anywhere from 16 to 50 - although dropping out of the top 40 would be a bit of a surprise.
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