Review Grade your team’s draft

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I’m lucky enough to get to training and see some of our draftees and I’ve been pretty impressed with MacKenzie, Weddle and O’Sullivan who I’d not seen anything of pre-draft. He might end up a steal if he makes it. Tough, quick and smart.

No idea how Fox Footy gave us a D, but the fact we got two first rounders in, both being big bodied mids, as well as getting Hurstwaite later is a definitely a pass for mine.

Mate it's been years since I have trusted the wisdom of great judges like Brad Johnson...

Hawks had a fantastic draft and whilst you did give up a bit for Weddle, not as if your second/third will be used as you have an academy/FS (honestly forget which one) that will be in that range. So the pick is useless next draft, so why not get another top talent in. Trade suits Sydney too as it gives us some flexibility as we do have two academy boys but we may get a second pick in before the bids (that's the hope anyway). Not sure how you were worse than a B grade at worst.
 
Mate it's been years since I have trusted the wisdom of great judges like Brad Johnson...

Hawks had a fantastic draft and whilst you did give up a bit for Weddle, not as if your second/third will be used as you have an academy/FS (honestly forget which one) that will be in that range. So the pick is useless next draft, so why not get another top talent in. Trade suits Sydney too as it gives us some flexibility as we do have two academy boys but we may get a second pick in before the bids (that's the hope anyway). Not sure how you were worse than a B grade at worst.
Did Brad write them? I don’t honestly know, but that would make sense as I find him to be one of the bigger clowns pretending to be an thoughtful analyst in footy media.

Yes, I thought it was good business by Swans and Hawks. McCabe is our 197cm Father son prospect, was at training just before Christmas.
 

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Did Brad write them? I don’t honestly know, but that would make sense as I find him to be one of the bigger clowns pretending to be an thoughtful analyst in footy media.

Yes, I thought it was good business by Swans and Hawks. McCabe is our 197cm Father son prospect, was at training just before Christmas.

Any one of them could write them, I mean how many years have we have Shifter coming on saying every bloke drafted is the next Bont, Judd, Hodge or Franklin lol

That's the one sorry I didn't know whether he was a father son or whatever type. Knew he was there. Honestly lets think the worst and say you have pick 1 (for the record doubt you do), you get the best bloke in the land, match McCabe at say pick 18 and take a third/4th rounder. Thats a VERY good draft. If you want you could spilt pick 1 to a raft of top end selections too.
 
Any one of them could write them, I mean how many years have we have Shifter coming on saying every bloke drafted is the next Bont, Judd, Hodge or Franklin lol

That's the one sorry I didn't know whether he was a father son or whatever type. Knew he was there. Honestly lets think the worst and say you have pick 1 (for the record doubt you do), you get the best bloke in the land, match McCabe at say pick 18 and take a third/4th rounder. Thats a VERY good draft. If you want you could spilt pick 1 to a raft of top end selections too.

Shifter gets a pass for me. His unbridled enthusiasm over every kid on draft night is really nice. Draft night should be a celebration, this is the biggest night of these kids lives, similar for their families too.

He would be a monumental a-hole to come out and say that so-and-so was crap a few minutes after they have been picked.
 
Shifter gets a pass for me. His unbridled enthusiasm over every kid on draft night is really nice. Draft night should be a celebration, this is the biggest night of these kids lives, similar for their families too.

He would be a monumental a-hole to come out and say that so-and-so was crap a few minutes after they have been picked.

He doesn't need to being entirely down on a player but a bit of reality would be nice too.

Something like "he is tough as nails, very good in congestion, strong overhead mark, needs to work on his kicking a bit" would be enough.
 
Geelong got the best selections. Especially when you consider what they started with.
Lol Geelong were kissed on the dick with the Bowes trade.

If that doesn't go through they got in Henry and Bruhn while losing Stephens (a player not that dissimilar to Bruhn), r1, r2, r3 and r4 in 23 and r2, r4 and r5 in 2024.

Without the Suns charity (yet again) they have a mare!
 
He doesn't need to being entirely down on a player but a bit of reality would be nice too.

Something like "he is tough as nails, very good in congestion, strong overhead mark, needs to work on his kicking a bit" would be enough.

I dont mind it. They are scrutinised for the rest of their careers, let them enjoy draft night.
 
He doesn't need to being entirely down on a player but a bit of reality would be nice too.

Something like "he is tough as nails, very good in congestion, strong overhead mark, needs to work on his kicking a bit" would be enough.
Are you telling me that Shifter doesn’t need to suggest that there’s 3 Pendleburys and 3 Patty Cripps in every draft?
 
Lol Geelong were kissed on the dick with the Bowes trade.

If that doesn't go through they got in Henry and Bruhn while losing Stephens (a player not that dissimilar to Bruhn), r1, r2, r3 and r4 in 23 and r2, r4 and r5 in 2024.

Without the Suns charity (yet again) they have a mare!

If we rated stephens we wouldnt have chased bruhn to begin with we clearly rated bruhn higher (time will tell there).
We were only ever using 2 picks due to list spots so our late 2022 picks were worthless to us as they were to other clubs given how many late picks were traded.

So in essence we brought in a top 10 pick (clarke), a former top 10 pick (bowes) plus 2 r1s from 2020 (bruhn and henry) for the grand price of pick 21 and 38 plus late chaff in a weak draft, and a mid 30s and a 50s pick next year, and a mid who was about player 30odd on our depth chart (and i like stephens). If that isnt a win i dont know what movie you are watching.
 
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If we rated stephens we wouldnt have chased bruhn to begin with we clearly rated bruhn higher
I think Cats rated Bruhn highly, but not sure their targeting of him says any more about how they rated Stephens than anyone else on the list in that age range. I’d think Geelong just took the opportunity to get more young talent in the door.

Stephens only requested a trade after Bruhn had declared he wanted to go to Geelong.
It’s not like Geelong pushed Stephens out or told him to look for suitors. He asked Cats for a trade as Mitchell had been into him and offered opportunities.

Mackie even said as much publicly when quizzed about blocking Ratagolea’s trade.
“We allowed Cooper Stephens (Hawthorn) to go and Jordan Clark (Fremantle) last year for more opportunities, but with key position players, they’re so hard to come by.”
 
I think Cats rated Bruhn highly, but not sure their targeting of him says any more about how they rated Stephens than anyone else on the list in that age range. I’d think Geelong just took the opportunity to get more young talent in the door.

Stephens only requested a trade after Bruhn had declared he wanted to go to Geelong.
It’s not like Geelong pushed Stephens out or told him to look for suitors. He asked Cats for a trade as Mitchell had been into him and offered opportunities.

Mackie even said as much publicly when quizzed about blocking Ratagolea’s trade.
“We allowed Cooper Stephens (Hawthorn) to go and Jordan Clark (Fremantle) last year for more opportunities, but with key position players, they’re so hard to come by.”
Stephens really needed to cement a b22 spot somewhere and he was long odds at the cats after the Bowes trade. Bruhn he's a bit different to but Bowes is same height and same leg speed.

I think if the Bowes trade didn't happen Stephens 50/50 doesn't look for the exit so it's a bit simplistic to take one trade out and say it was a failure if X doesn't happen.
 

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If we rated stephens we wouldnt have chased bruhn to begin with we clearly rated bruhn higher (time will tell there).
We were only ever using 2 picks due to list spots so our late 2022 picks were worthless to us as they were to other clubs given how many late picks were traded.

So in essence we brought in a top 10 pick (clarke), a former top 10 pick (bruhn) plus 2 r1s from 2020 (bruhn and henry) for the grand price of pick 21 and 38 plus late chaff in a weak draft, and a mid 30s and a 50s pick next year, and a mid who was about player 30odd on our depth chart (and i like stephens). If that isnt a win i dont know what movie you are watching.

2 Bruhns?!

Yeah it was a very good period, my point was without the charity from GC it was a nightmare. That's how good the Bowes trade was, it was essentially two good young players for free.

Im not sure on the Stephens/Bruhn stuff. Geelong had committed to Bruhn and like all decent clubs, they were obliged to get it done. Same goes for Henry and in doing this, they had no choice but to lose Stephens, which from reports was not part of the plan.

I personally dont see a lot of difference between Bruhn and Stephens given their draft profile and body of work so far..
 
2 Bruhns?!

Yeah it was a very good period, my point was without the charity from GC it was a nightmare. That's how good the Bowes trade was, it was essentially two good young players for free.

Im not sure on the Stephens/Bruhn stuff. Geelong had committed to Bruhn and like all decent clubs, they were obliged to get it done. Same goes for Henry and in doing this, they had no choice but to lose Stephens, which from reports was not part of the plan.

I personally dont see a lot of difference between Bruhn and Stephens given their draft profile and body of work so far..

Sorry the 2nd bruhn should be bowes who was top 10 in 2016..mistype from me.

Fair enough on your last sentence and only time will tell im simply (correctly) saying that geelong rated bruhn higher than stephens because they knew bringing in another mid would make stephens more likely to ask for a trade and they did it anyway. Will geelong be right? Time will tell but thats the call they made.
I dont think saying they had no choice is accurate...at the end of the day geelong could have traded sav to generate the extra pick/player (33 was on the table for him) for the henry trade so they had other options..they clearly rated the other options more than they did stephens.

On the other bit i get what you are saying about bowes being a big win but theres no way its a "nightmare" without it. Even if bowes and clark dont exist getting bruhn for pick 21 (18) and henry for basically pick 38, a future 2nd and a non best 22 depth mid is 2 very good pieces of business. When you consider that those 2 players were taken in the 1st round 2 years agp to get both without giving up a top 15 pick for either is still very good business and that has nothing to do with bowes.
 
I think Cats rated Bruhn highly, but not sure their targeting of him says any more about how they rated Stephens than anyone else on the list in that age range. I’d think Geelong just took the opportunity to get more young talent in the door.

Stephens only requested a trade after Bruhn had declared he wanted to go to Geelong.
It’s not like Geelong pushed Stephens out or told him to look for suitors. He asked Cats for a trade as Mitchell had been into him and offered opportunities.

Mackie even said as much publicly when quizzed about blocking Ratagolea’s trade.
“We allowed Cooper Stephens (Hawthorn) to go and Jordan Clark (Fremantle) last year for more opportunities, but with key position players, they’re so hard to come by.”

Thats partly true in the sense that we were always more likely to hold onto kpps purely because we have less depth in that area of the list and most of our kpps are close to or over 30 (whereas we have more young smalls and mids). But what mackie doesnt say is they were aware of hawthorns interest in stephens BEFORE they brought in bruhn (because hawthorn had enquired about him prior to that) and they knew that in a contract year (stephens was ooc 2023) that stephens would need to be playing for his own sake, so they knew by trading bruhn in stephens would be more likely to take the hawthorn offer and they did it anyway so they clearly i would say rated bruhn the higher of the two.

The rest from there was just about helping the player get to his desired club with a minimum of fuss which we often tend to do.

Ftr i like cooper he's a solid citizen and i hope he goes well at hawthorn.
 
Thats partly true in the sense that we were always more likely to hold onto kpps purely because we have less depth in that area of the list and most of our kpps are close to or over 30 (whereas we have more young smalls and mids). But what mackie doesnt say is they were aware of hawthorns interest in stephens BEFORE they brought in bruhn (because hawthorn had enquired about him prior to that) and they knew that in a contract year (stephens was ooc 2023) that stephens would need to be playing for his own sake, so they knew by trading bruhn in stephens would be more likely to take the hawthorn offer and they did it anyway so they clearly i would say rated bruhn the higher of the two.

The rest from there was just about helping the player get to his desired club with a minimum of fuss which we often tend to do.

Ftr i like cooper he's a solid citizen and i hope he goes well at hawthorn.
Yeah, I think it was a decent thing for Cats to let him go for opportunities.

Sam spoke to an online members forum after the draft and said that they intended to chase Cooper hard at the end of 2023, but were happy to get him 12 months earlier.
 

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