Quigley's 2013 Mock

[Quigley]

Okay it is starting to get close to the draft and I am behind with this. I have done all my profiles but I am currently proofing it and with everything else going on this is taking longer than I would have liked. So this year I am going to post my first 30 and then post the rest over the weekend as I edit them up.

As per usual accept that I do not see a huge amount of these kids (in fact very little) and am making calls on very little evidence. Chances are high that I am overly influenced by particularly kids having really good or bad games when I am watching and I am not getting a true indication of their ability.

I do try and give both positive and negative feedback on each of the guys and hopefully I have been fair. I do try to be. I do have a bias in favour of Div 2 players and against Victorians because I feel that there is an inherent bias in the media and the AFL community itself and I am trying to redress this in my own little way.

 

[Quigley]

1 Greater Western Sydney

GWS do not need a KPF but Boyd too good to refuse. I think he is much better than Patton as a prospect and the combination of Boyd and Cameron could be historically good and could redefine the way the game is played.

Tom Boyd
DOB 22/8/95 Ht 201 Wt 102

Over the years I have tended to be less enthusiastic with key position forward prospects than most others. I recognised the talent of guys like Watts and Patton but I did not see them as the complete package that many people did. That is not the case with Boyd and I am well and truly on the bandwagon with him. I think he is the most complete KPF I have reviewed as a junior and barring injury I have no doubt he will be a very good player and quite possibly a star of the competition. There is a hell of a lot of Lockett in his ability and the thought of he and Cameron together in one forward line should scare the bejezus out of teams.

Boyd is a true lead-up full forward who will do virtually all his work in the forward 50. With the way the modern game is played he will float up onto the wing a bit but really if GWS is smart they will leave him as the deep forward and try and isolate him for any balls coming in quick. He is a massive man already and he will be too much to handle for virtually any FB in one on one situations. He measured in at 201cm at the Combine which might be a little tall but take it as a given that he is a 200cm monster. He is already powerful through the lower half and is getting there very quickly with his upper body. One thing he might need to watch out for is not to put on too much bulk. He is close to big enough already and if he put on some lean muscle whilst maintaining the same body dimensions I think it would serve him best.

Whilst he can crash packs this tends not to be his preferred way of operating. That is not to say he isn’t a physical presence up forward, it’s more that he likes to work in space or when in pack situations to work into places to give him the best chance of marking the ball. He judges the ball very well going forward or back and seems to be very hard to keep away from the ball. He does not get flustered in contested situations and watches the ball into his hands exceptionally well. It is the watching the ball all the way to his hands that I think is one of the real strengths of his game. Interestingly he has quite small hands but they are strong and once he gets his hands on the ball he rarely spills it.

He has an excellent stretch and just seems to be able to get that extra couple of inches when he needs it. Out on the lead he gets separation with ease and does a good job of marking the ball where the defender can’t get to it. He does a good job of timing his arrival at the ball and particularly not running under the ball. He marks it out in front of himself and with his height and long arms that makes it difficult for anyone to get at. He runs really good lines to dangerous spots and has a great instinct for when to lead. If there is space to lead into and his team has the ball he gets contact with the defender until the right moment to break it off and allows his teammate to kick to space for him to run onto. There are a couple of laziness things which need to be tidied up at the next level but I think they are easy fixes. Firstly once he gets on the break and the ball is coming to him he will power down a bit. If he does that at AFL level the defenders will close and go through him to the ball. He needs to maintain his strength through the contest. The other thing is that he does take quite a few gut marks. AFL defenders are going to be on his hammer more than he has experienced to date and are going to be getting a fist in. It would be preferable for him to get his hands out in front more rather than letting the ball come into the body.

His kicking for goal is excellent. With his set shot he has a slow, deliberate routine with a straight approach and a relatively low ball drop. It is pretty much picture perfect for what coaches try to team younger players. He has comfortable range to 50 and probably from 60 if pushed. He has a relaxed field kicking style but is not particularly quick to get the ball to boot.

Athletically he seems good and he moves like a much smaller man. His strength is simply too much for junior levels and he has the pace to get and maintain separation whenever I have seen him play. He works hard with his leads and is not just a one and done leader. His endurance does need to improve especially with the time out he has had this year but I think it will be fine for the position he plays. He is never going to be a hard chasing defensive presence up forward though. He will work the angles in the zone defenses and do his part but he is not going to a defensive forward like Darling.

Boyd did the ligaments in his ankle against WA at the Champs and was out for the second half of the year returning only for the TAC GF. In that match he managed 4 goals, 3 of which came in the first quarter after which he was pretty much done physically. In the TAC he ended up with 27 goals from 6 matches. He regularly kicks bags of 5 or 6 goals but if I had a criticism he rarely took full advantage of his massive physical and talent advantage to kick really big bags. This is a kid who could have been having 10 or 12 goal games playing for the best team in the competition but he just seemed to pop up (admittedly pretty regularly) for a goal here or there. Is that a function of endurance or is it just switching off for periods? Pretty stiff to criticise a guy who never had less than 3 goals at TAC level this year but I think it is a point worth making.

Anyway I think Boyd is going to be a star in the AFL and is the clearest number 1 I can remember.


2 GWS

I assume that GWS jumped up because they had a target in mind but with their drafting it could well be that they just wanted to make sure they get someone everyone else rated in the teens. If I was them I would be taking Scharenberg who I rate as the second best player in this draft and he would be the kind of defensive general that they could use to lead their attack out of defense (although admittedly Shaw would have been acquired to fill this role). He has the running height they like and is good both offensively and defensively. They are stacked with mids but their highly drafted running defenders have not worked out yet. Scharenberg just makes too much sense for me not to take him here – meaning it is an absolute certainty that GWS go with someone else. If you have been following GWS you would have noted a huge bias toward Victorian players which would be another factor indicating that they might look elsewhere.

Matt Scharenberg
DOB 18/9/95 Ht 191 Wt 88

I would rate Scharenberg as probably the most complete player in this draft. He quite simply does everything at a high level and has no real weaknesses. The one real problem for him is that he excels in a low value position and out of the top 5 prospects he is probably the most likely to fall for no valid reason. As we saw last year with Brodie Grundy the professionals are as capable of group think as anyone and if he does fall someone is going to get a real bargain.

Scharenberg is best suited to playing as a third tall in defense who can be a spare man and give great offenseive run from behind. I note that GWS drafted Plowman at number 3 last year to play that role and Scharenberg is a vastly superior player and prospect so it is not out of the question that he might defy expectations and be taken highly. Unlike Plowman Scharenberg has the athleticism to play the role well and the ability to actual defend when needed.

The defensive capabilities of Scharenberg are often overlooked when people talk about him. He plays taller than his 191cm and is capable of playing on talls but equally he can go to medium forwards and shut them down as well. He gave Lennon a bath at the Champs by way of example. He is rarely beaten in wrestling matches and if he needs to go shoulder to shoulder he has a great knack of getting in front and keeping the forward away from the pill. He is a bit undersized to be taking KPFs in the AFL but like Patfull (the two time Brisbane B&F who is the same size) has shown if you are smart about things and have good athleticism you can be effective. Scharenberg has the smarts and athleticism to take those bigger guys if needed.

I have also heard Scharenberg described as having no elite qualities. Personally I think he has two very valuable elite qualities. Firstly I would rate him as being the best judge of the ball in the air of anyone in this draft. Watch him play and he is millimeter perfect in his positioning to mark. He has great confidence in himself and he is in just the right position to take the mark whether there are others around or not. He is not distracted by what others are doing and has no trouble going from the front or behind to mark. The number of times he outmarks forwards who are going for the same ball is not superior athleticism or luck it is skill and better judgment. He has very strong hands as well and once he gets them on the ball the mark usually sticks.

His second elite quality that I see for him is his ability to read the play. Scharenberg is a smart footballer who takes the best options available to him. He makes good decisions about to whom to kick and when and where to run. With the game open in front him he reads what to do to break things open and then executes quickly and decisively. With the press and the increased pressure on the defenders coming out of defense this is a very good skill to have.

Skills wise I think Scharenberg is very good both by hand and by foot. He has good penetration on his kicking but also a good ability to hit the short and intermediate targets if they are the better options. Scharenberg runs hard from defense and regularly gets involved in chains of passing. When he goes he goes hard.

Athletically I think Scharenberg would be good but not exceptional for pace, agility and endurance. I do not have his test results but I would expect him to be around the 3.05 for the 20m and 14 for the beep. I would expect his jumps to be in the top echelon had he tested. He is a bit short for a KP but he has a nice physique and should develop into a powerful unit before he is finished.

The question many have is whether he has the ability to play midfield. I would suggest he certainly could play midfield, the issue though is whether it would be at the same level as he has shown at the back. I would think the odds of him being as good a mid as Kelly say would not be huge but there would be some chance. I would suggest those odds would be much greater than the chances of Kelly as good a defender as Scharenberg though. With the way modern football is played I am happy to leave him excelling setting up things from the back rather than push him into an area where he is not going to be as effective.

Scharenberg will kick his fair share of goals in the AFL. He has shown he can be a useful forward when asked to play as a leading target but he also shows nice ability to sneak forward from the back and catch out the opposition. His set shot is fairly composed and he seems like an accurate shot for goal in the limited time I have seen him play forward.

At the Champs he had 22 disposals and 6 marks per game and really stood up in the games that counted and assuring SA of their first Div 1 win in a long time. He was the runner up in the Larke medal. He played senior football in the SANFL both this year and last and looked pretty comfortable and assured.

As you may have guessed by now I am very high on Scharenberg and think he has a chance to be a regular AA once he settles into the AFL. This is a guy supporters are going to love having control the backline for years to come. I see him as the player Sam Fisher could have been if not for the off-field inhibitors. Inside Football has reported that some teams were left with go home concerns coming out of the Combine interviews and this was one reason he has been falling. This is a bit unusual for an SA kid and hopefully not true.

3 St Kilda

There is some talk of the Saints taking Kolodjashnij here but I do not see it myself. The way I read it they are pretty much a lock to take either Billings or Kelly and I am going with Billings. They need some class through the midfield and the classiest player going around this year is Billings. Kelly I am not nearly as sold on. Billings will start in the forward half but by the time Montagna moves on he will be right for a full time midfield role.


Jack Billings
DOB 18/8/95 Ht 185 Wt 77

Billings is one whose season has been interrupted by knee issues. He has had quite a bit of swelling over the year and had knee surgery in late August or early Sept. The knee problems has meant we have not seen as much of him nor as high a standard of play as we did last year. He played only three TAC games (one at the beginning of the year and the last two games of the season) this year after injury, school and other commitments kept him otherwise occupied. Still his timing was excellent when he played very good games at the Champs in the two televised games and this got him AA selection for the second year running.

Generally when I am writing these up I am usually a tougher marker with the Metro guys than many others. I think it is not necessarily that I am tougher on them it is more that I don't give them the extra marks for being Victorian that others seem to. That is especially the case this year where Metro in particular has been the weakest it has been for quite a long time. With Billings though I have no trouble slotting him in high in this draft. The kid is class and has shown over the last two years that he is going to be a fine AFL player and more than likely much better than that.

His knee issues has resulted in him not playing much through the midfield this year but I have no doubt that he will be a midfielder after a year or two playing on the HFF for whichever teams picks him up. I am also not expecting him to be a purely outside player. If you watched him closely at the Champs this year you would have seen him win his fair share of clearances from stoppages in the forward 50. He reads the ball off the rucks hands really nicely and slides through traffic exceptionally well for a player who has played mostly up forward. With some time on ball I see him becoming a very good all around midfielder. Whilst this is my expectation I do concede that it is not a certainty and that there is a real risk he will not make it as a midfielder. If that happens whoever drafts him will just have to console themselves with having the best small forward prospect in this draft.

What Billings does better than anyone else in this draft is deliver the ball inside 50. Billings is a superb at identifying the open forward and then getting them the ball in a place which gives the forward the best chance to mark it. He leads his forwards and weights his kicks exceptionally well. Overall he is a very good decision maker and his kicking off either foot is particularly strong. He is a natural left footer but sometimes you might not realise that.

Up forward he is regularly described as a very strong mark of the ball for his size. Whilst I think he is a good mark I am not quite sure it is as good as advertised. What he does do with almost ridiculous ease is get separation and this allows him to take a lot of marks with little pressure on him. He works his man over with multiple leads, changes of direction, physical plays and running good routes. He has a great feel for where and when to run and reads the ball very well in the air. If the ball is going over the back he reads it early and gets a body on his man to give him time to run onto it. In short he is one very smart forward and is very difficult to match up on. The gap in class between he and his defender is going to be less at AFL than it was as a junior but he has Milne like smarts up forward and that is going to translate to goals early in his career. He has good goal sense and is solid set shot.

Up the field he reads the play really well and is someone who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. He reacts quickly and his reading of the player makes him a player who is one step ahead of everyone else around him. His endurance does not seem great but he gets to the dangerous space well and provides an option for his teammates. He reads the lines really well both in the forward half and through the midfield. He didn't test at Combine given he was still recovering from his surgery but it is worth noting that he was in the bottom 10% in both handspan and arm length. If I am going to guess on his athletic ability I would suggest he would be around the 3.00 mark for the 20m sprint, 8.20 for agility and in the 13s for the beep. In short he needs to work on his endurance but there is plenty to work with from an athletic perspective.

Overall I think Billings is an excellent prospect. As far as player comparisons go a lot of people have compared him to Stevie J and there is a fair few similarities there. I personally see him as being a pretty similar prospect as Sam Mayes was last year and it is possible that he could develop much like Gary Ablett. His ceiling is that high in my opinion.

4 Western Bulldogs

The Bulldogs are not a rich club and have become reluctant to invest in talent from outside Victoria which they could lose to the go-home trend which is becoming more popular. Last year they had a heap of picks and went completely with Victorians. This year I would expect them to be hoping that one of Kelly or Billings fall to them and if they are there I don’t see them passing. If those two go at 2 and 3 I think Aish is a fair chance to end up there if they can bring themselves to take a non-Victorian otherwise Bontempelli I assume.

Josh Kelly
DOB 12/2/95 Ht 184 Wt 74

I have to admit swinging back and forth quite a lot about where to take him. I have had him as high as 2 and as low as 6. I find it hard to believe he would fall past Collingwood at 6 and all media indicate he will be well gone before then. He would also be a big favourite to go to any of the Saints and the Bulldogs if he is available when they pick given there would be certain appeal for those teams going with the local lad and also to GWS given their Victorian bias.

The big feature of Kelly's game is his endurance. He did a 15+ beep at the combine and came within 2 secs of the 3km record. At junior level he runs the legs off his opposition and racks up the disposals as a result. He covers a lot of ground and runs to smart places. One of the things which I really like with his running is the way he sneaks into 50 from the weak side and is often left standing on his own to mark the ball. In the open field he runs hard and has decent pace and elusiveness which rarely if ever sees him run down from behind. Despite his running being his major weapon he is a good judge of when to use his run and when not to. That sees him avoid running himself into trouble too often.

Last year I had some concerns about his pace and I thought he was a bit one paced. When I have seen him this year I have not had the same concern and he managed to come in a tick over 3 seconds in the 20m at Combine which put him in the top third of those tested which is a great result for him. If you had asked me last year I would have thought he would be closer to the bottom third than the top third over the 20m so either I was deluded (not out of the question) or else he has done a significant amount of work on his sprinting and that is paying off. (Okay on reviewing this I realised I could easily check this and he was in the bottom 10% of those tested last year although last year’s times were much quicker and that same time would have been around the 40th percentile this year). I note he was in the top 10 in the repeat sprint which to me demonstrates that he has really good functional game pace. He might not have the highest top end but he is a guy who can use his superior endurance to maintain that top speed longer than most. He showed some very good jumping ability but was surprisingly only mid pack on the agility test. All up you have to say that Kelly is one of the best athletes available this year.

Kelly has a reputation for being an elite kick but personally I think this is overstated and personally I would not have him in the top bracket of kicks in this draft. Sure he will drill 2 or 3 lovely left foot kicks each game but he will have at least that number which miss the target. He looks pretty good on his non-preferred right but again misses targets a bit too often. I don't think he has particularly good feel on his kicks and is prone to over or under kicking. Under pressure his kicking breaks down more. I would classify him as a below average shot for goal. He is not a bad kick by any stretch but I just do not think he is as good a kick as many assume.

His inside game is disregarded by some but I think he is a pretty fair clearance winner. Around the packs he is more of a receiver than an inside presence but when it is his turn he put his head over it and fight for it and he is pretty effective at winning the ball. Once he gets the ball in tight he is not terribly effective with it but I expect that to improve with more experience. At the moment he tends to throw it on the boot or take the first handball option with the results being 50/50 whether it ends up to his team's advantage.

Defensively he needs a bit of work. He will pick up a tackle or two a game but he is not a very focused tackler and he arm tackles too much. In fact I would describe his technique at the moment as more cuddling than tackling. He is still only lightly built and he lacks strength in lots of areas of his game and in particular his tackling. I do not really see any of this as a problem though. He looks like a very willing worker and with the increased focus on his defensive game at AFL level I think he will rise to the occasion.

There is a lot of negativity in this review and you might assume that I do not rate him but that is not correct. I think he will be a fine AFL player with a genuine chance to be an elite player. He is a fantastic runner who knows where to run, is capable ball winner and great receiver with above average skills. He is a very similar prospect to Lachie Whitfield from last year although I would say Whitfield is the better kick.

 

[Quigley]

5 Gold Coast

I have a confession to make. For the first time ever I actually would not have rated my first Div 2 guy ahead of where he is likely to be taken on the day. I had Kolodjashnij at 9 when GWS were in that slot and I thought I was being adventurous. With GC looking like taking KK at 5 I think I am constitutionally bound to push him up to this slot. Combining KK with McKenzie certainly gives the Suns some firepower behind the ball and as a loose defender KK has a lot of appeal. Personally though there is no way I would be passing on Scharenberg if I had the choice of the two. Scharenberg can do everything that KK can do offensively and is a much better defender.

Kade Kolodjashnij
DOB 9/8/95 Ht 191 Wt 79

I saw Kolodjashnij a grand total of once this year but it was a good game to catch. It was the game against the NT at the Champs where he finished with 34 disposals, 10 marks and 2 goals. To say that I came away impressed was an understatement. He has improved his game a lot since last year and I think there is a lot of potential for development left in him yet. He has put a few kgs on since the Champs but he was very thin at the Champs and needs to get a lot more muscle on his bones. He lacks strength at the moment and that is really the only thing which is going to hold him back initially. Give him a year in an AFL system though and he should be fine. Looking at his frame I doubt he is every going to be a big guy but he doesn't need to be to play the way he prefers.

At the Champs he played all over the park and was effective wherever he went although admittedly he was not as good on ball as he was elsewhere. Still he got in there and mixed it up and as he gets stronger and puts on bulk his inside work should improve. At the moment he gets buffeted around a bit. He is pretty clean with the ball on the ground and he has reasonably quick hands.

The needs of his team will probably dictate whether he starts up forward or down back. I think he will probably end up being a back but he could easily start his career up forward. Up forward his defensive work is very good and he is great at poaching kicks from the defenders. He has really nice pace, is a great jump and he judges his closing speed really well. He works hard and is a big kick so is dangerous anywhere out to 55.

As mentioned, long term I see him as a back, probably a flanker, given he is never likely to be a particularly solid guy. He is not the defensive player that Scharenberg is but offensively they are very similar. They are both about the same height and both are superb judges of the ball in the air. They are the generals at the back that direct things coming out of defense and they both do it very well. Kolodjashij is a longer kick than Scharenberg but he actually probably uses his longer kick less. He picks out short to intermediate targets really well and he takes the right option virtually every time. There is a lot of class about Kolodjashnij when he has the ball. He is a left footer but he can go on his right if needed. He is a little inconsistent on the right, sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

Defensively he needs to improve a bit. He is great when he can zone off and play as the loose man. He will float around and take mark after mark. Teams need to match him up and make him accountable. When they do so he is conscious of his strength issues I think and he is not nearly as confident. His agility is pretty good but not elite and he can get turned around a bit when he is on smart forwards. With all that said teams hide these kind of issues and design schemes to highlight a player’s marking strength all the time. Hell, Nick Maxwell is a terrible one on one defender and Malthouse designed a scheme that let him become an All Australian. Kolodjashnij I think will be a better defender than the likes of Birchall but I doubt he will ever be considered a shut down defensive player.

Athletically Kolodjashnij is a stand out and he was one of the stars of the Combine. He killed the jumps finishing first in the standing vertical and right foot jump and was in the top 20% of his non-preferred left foot. He went under 3 seconds in the 20m and was just outside the top 10% in the 3km. He managed to go over 14 in the beep and his agility and repeat sprint were in the top half. Overall he is one of the most impressive athletes in this draft and when you combine that with the fact that he is actually a very good footballer he is an attractive package for teams in an age of "running height".

I think what set Kolodjashnij up this year I think is his late call up to the AIS tour to Europe. He seemed to take enormous confidence from that and grew in leaps and bounds after that. He worked out that he was an elite talent and that he could go with anyone in this age group. From there he went on to average 27 disposals per game at the Champs and was an All Australian. He was also a joint winner of the Div 2 medal and was the Tasmanian MVP. Kolodjashnij has only just realised how good he can be I think and he will continue to develop into a very good player as he matures. If your team picks him be glad.


6 Collingwood

Yes I know Sheed is not going to go this high but he would if I was picking for Collingwood. I think the Pies need to start to strengthen their inside game in preparation for the departure of Ball and Swan in a couple of years. Sheed would definitely help in this regard. Sheed is the kind of player Collingwood likes withi him being able to work both inside and out very well. His inside ability though sets him apart from most and his ability to read Grundy’s superior tap work would give the team a lot of first use ball. Aish and Bontempelli are both good chances here. Salem has been talked about a lot but personally I can’t see it.

Dom Sheed
DOB 10/4/95 Ht 187 Wt 83

If you don't to see these guys much and a player has either an outstanding or terrible game it can really colour any other games you see from them. That is the case for me with Sheed. I only saw him once live all year and that was against Country where he dominated and coming out of that game I really cannot understand how guys like Twomey cannot have him high in this draft. Twomey admittedly has trouble seeing past the Metro kids but really did he have his eyes closed at the Champs this year? Sheed missed the last game but still won the Larke medal and rightly so. He was the stand out midfielder at the Champs without any question I thought.

One issue for him might be the lack of exposed form this year. He had injury issues early in the year (groin issues from what I read on clipboardbinocs run down on the WA guys) which affected his preparation and meant a late start and missing games in between. From what I can see he played only 4 games before the Champs all in the WAFL seniors and then obviously the broken collar-bone suffered in the Country game ruled him out for the rest of the year. In the WAFL he averaged about 14 disposals a game which was pretty modest given his 19 and 21 disposal finish to the year last year as a bottom ager. As a bottom ager he dominated the Colts going for about 23 disposals a game (all figures worked out in my head so subject to being wrong ). So he was certainly on the radar but expectations were probably down a bit given his start to the year.

At the Champs though he dominated averaging 28 disposals a game over his four games and in the televised game against Country he kept the Sandgropers in it with 29 disposals and 4 goals before his injury. He was the WA captain and the one his teammates looked to control play through the middle of the ground. It was like watching Ablett at the Gold Coast. He was winning it on the inside and outside and his teammates looked to use him at every opportunity including those little duck around behind the guy who has marked the ball to get a cheapie possessions.

With his injury there has not been a chance for him to build on his good Champs form but too many people seem to be overlooking it and instead promoting guys ahead of him who are simply nowhere near as good but just happen to have played decently in the, below normal standard, TAC at the end of the year. There have been some reasons given for dropping him down the order but quite frankly I do not think they stand up.

The one which seems to have gained the most traction is that Sheed has a lack of pace. Hopefully the Combine results have put paid to that furphy. Sheed does not have the explosiveness off the mark that many of the indigenous players are renowned for but neither is he slow and over 20m he was in the top 25% of those tested. Once he gets up and going he lopes along really nicely and covers the ground well. He has great awareness of where tacklers are coming from and will rarely be run down. He tested poorly at Combine in the beep test but I have not noticed his engine being a problem from what I have seen. I give him a pass on this one on the basis that his shoulder injury has probably restricted his ability to keep the miles in his legs. The test which did surprise me was the agility test where Sheed finished in the bottom 10%. I am not sure what is going on there as he seems to slip through packs pretty well and I would have expected him to have tested reasonably well on this one.

My biggest knock on him is probably his hands in tight. They are not as clean as I would like for an inside specialist especially one I am taking this high. He does fumble quite a bit when collecting and this is something which needs to be worked on. It is not terminal by any means and he is probably cleaner than most of the other inside mids available this year but it is something which can be improved on. He has big hands and is a really nice mark of the ball and it could be a simple technique thing to fix like keeping his head down a fraction of a second more.

Where I see him as being elite is in his ability to read the ball off hands in the ruck situation. He is easily the best in this regard in this draft. He does not position himself at the feet of the rucks but is always on the move and finds himself in the right place at the right time more often than anyone else. With him being on the move this also allows him to collect and go and gives him more of a chance to come out the other side. Once he gets the ball he has great awareness of where everyone is around him and he has quick hands and can get the ball to boot quickly. If he goes by boot in the clearance situation he can be a bit indiscriminate which is pretty common in those situations. By hand he is good, reads the play well and takes good options. He also has good awareness of where tacklers are coming from in close and keeps his arms free nicely and does not panic when under physical pressure.

From the clearance he spreads nicely and has a good feel about where to run to receive in space. When he has time and space he is really dangerous by foot. He makes excellent decisions and executes pretty well when the time is there. He is a left footer with the typical easy style that looks very pretty and is effective although he does occasionally weight a little strong. I have heard it said that he goes long too much and there might be a little in that but he assesses the play well enough for me to consider this an easy fix. He has good skills on his non-preferred right. Up forward he has a nice, easy, slow set shot which he often guides rather than kicks through. He is an effective set shot.

He will be an inside out midfielder at AFL level who can rest up forward but I do not see him starting his AFL career as a small forward. When he is up forward though he can be dangerous, particularly in crumbing situations where his ability to read the ball off hands makes him very dangerous. In marking situations he needs to work on his leading but he does judge the ball in the air well and in that Country game he protected the drop zone on a couple occasions which gave him opportunities.

When I saw him last year I made the comparison to Simon Black given he was a slight, lefty midfielder who was excellent inside. Turns out I wasn't so clever and every man and his dog was making the same comparison this year. He has grown a bit this year and will end up being bigger than Black and could be Judd-like in physique. Sheed is not a sexy pick but he is one player I would welcome with open arms if my team picked him up. He is a low risk, high ceiling type player.

7 Brisbane

There is absolutely zero chances that Crouch goes this high in the draft but I think looking back in a couple of years people are going to say that he should have. Brisbane need an inside player and Crouch would be in that argument as the best with Sheed and Dunstan. Brisbane will not select him though as he does not meet the stereotype that have established for all their players – 187cm+ with a minimum 14 beep. For that reason expect them to take Scharenberg if, as rumoured, he is here (please god) or Bontempelli. Aish I think is also not out of the question with Acres the smokey.

Matt Crouch
DOB 21/4/95 Ht 183 Wt 80

I occasionally get very hyped on a bottom aged player only for that player to have a slightly disappointing top age season. That has been the case with Rich, Wingard and Mayes and now with Crouch. Experience with those other guys says I should stick with Crouch and I am doing that by slotting him in high this year. When you look at Crouch’s numbers he actually did really well but it was the lack of development across a couple of his weaknesses which would be the concern with him and will likely see him taken lower than this. It is not out of the question that he could drop like a stone in a similar way to Grigg did a couple of years ago. His weaknesses are significant in how they might impact his ability to be effective at AFL level.

In that case why don’t we start with the weaknesses in his game. First up would be his kicking. Like many inside players Crouch is a below average kick at this stage of his career. He is a left footer who regularly scrubs his kicks and lacks penetration. He does not pick out targets well and definitely lacks hurt factor by foot. He is not a terrible kick like Clay Smith was coming out but there is certainly a lot of room for improvement and he is going to need to work hard to improve.

The other major question mark would be his athleticism and in particular his engine. 6 weeks off with a hand injury did not help his conditioning but he looked underdone and probably poorer getting around the park than last year. He is a very solid kid and is never likely to be a massive runner but he needs to up his running ability to be able to impact at AFL level. At the moment there is too much walking when the ball leaves his area and his spread is quite poor. His lack of endurance also results in a lack of chase on too many occasions.

Most kids have started to realise that they need to work both ways at AFL level and they should show some of that work rate at junior level. Crouch seems to have missed that memo. He shows no inclination to work defensively and wanders around doing his own thing. He tends to get a lot of ball from ignoring the defensive side of the game and getting into space to receive if his teammates win it back. He is going to be in for a rude shock when he hits the AFL.

At the Combine he actually did solidly I the beep test finishing just below the average mark with a mid 13s time. His 3km time though had him in the bottom 25% of those tested. He was also in the bottom 15% in the repeat sprint and the bottom 10% of the 20m and each of the jumps. He certainly does not look quick on the park but I was expecting better than that. His agility testing results were relatively good though finishing in the top 3rd of those tested.

So all that sounds pretty bad and you could rightly question why I have him as high as I do. Well the answer is that he is the best two or three inside ball winner in this draft and is very capable of being an absolute beast in this regard at AFL level. At times he does get a little too close to the ruckmen but generally his work inside is first class. He reads the ball off hands very well, is very strong over the ball, is very hard to tackle and keeps his arms free well. He is a great combination of having quick hands and excellent instincts for when to hold the ball and absorb the pressure waiting for a man to free up. He was sweated on a lot at the champs but he still managed to do a lot of good work in close. He works very well in the phone box and has good awareness of what is happening around him. He is also good at getting the ball to boot quickly when he needs to and is dangerous around goals in stoppage situations because of that. His awareness for where the goals are is good.

He played a bit of time in the forward half at the Champs and caused a few issues playing in a body on body sort of role a bit like Swan does for Collingwood. He judges the ball in the air well and his strength makes him difficult to move. As a crumber he is dangerous with his clean hands and good goal sense. He is not going to start as a small forward or anything like that but he can rest up there and pick up a goal every now and then.

The other big selling feature for him is that he is an absolute ball magnet. Last I heard he was averaging 38 disposals a game in the TAC and he managed to rack up 25 disposals in his only VFL game this year. For some reason he played most of his TAC football as an outside mid this year. Maybe the coaches were trying to develop his spread and outside game and he certainly got a heap of it but I am not sure they highlighted his strengths during his draft year. Anyway I expect his endurance levels to be significantly higher when we see him next year and his feel for where to go to receive the ball will result in him being a high possession winner at AFL level.

In close he gets his fair share of tackles but as noted above he is not an enthusiastic defensive player.

Last year I thought he would be a better player than his brother who I expected to start like Heppell as a back flanker. Brad has been better than I thought he would be, showing some excellent form for Adelaide both inside and out. Matt is not as athletically gifted as his brother but is more of a true inside mid and has the same kind of potential to excel imho. I would put up Sam Mitchell or Matt Priddis if I had to compare him to a current AFL player.


8 North Melbourne

Father/son selection done and dusted. Solid but not great value here I thought. If you play fantasy AFL make sure you get him in your team though. He will play early and should have a back designation.

Luke McDonald
DOB 9/2/95 Ht 190 Wt 85

McDonald has had a pretty inconsistent year. He has had some excellent games including in the VFL and looked like a star in the making but at other times he disappointed and looked like the most overrated prospect in this year's draft. He had a very mediocre Champs for someone with his reputation and if you were drafting based on Champs performances alone he would be going in the second or third round. He didn't make the AA team and given how much Shifter likes to stack it with "name" players that is a pretty good indication of how ordinary his performance was.

At the Champs he played mostly as a HBFer and that is where I see him starting his AFL career. He is not a shut down defender and I doubt he is going to be given responsibility for the dangerous small forwards in the AFL. Teams are going to try and isolate him and take advantage of him defensively. Where he is valuable is attacking from defence. He is a very long kick and when he gets up and going he provides very good run.

He lacks a little explosiveness off the mark but once he is up and going he lopes along with long strides and he is not going to be caught all that often. He will not be the quickest out there but he has enough pace for it not to be an issue. Endurance wise he seems to run out games okay at VFL level but I would not have him in the same class of runner as Kelly for example. Agility wise he seems pretty good and he is quite evasive with the ball in hand. He did not test at Combine. He has really nice height and is solid enough given his age but needs to get bigger through the chest and improve his strength. He is a willing tackler but is a bit of a grabber at this stage and needs to work on his technique. At the Champs I saw him try to put a big hit on Crouch only for Crouch to effectively run through him and this kind of thing is going to happen to him quite a bit early in his AFL career.

McDonald's kicking is seen as one of his big strengths and rightly so but again there is work to be done on it. When he is given time and space he can bomb accurate 60m kicks. When under pressure though his kicking breaks down quite a bit and his hurt factor drops right away. If a man is near him he either bombs it indiscriminately or else goes short or even backwards. He short kicked entirely too much at the Champs and really did not have the influence he should have. He needs to work on speeding up his kicking under pressure and to look more for the intermediate targets whether under pressure or not. This is one of the reasons why I see him starting in defence. At the back he is more likely to have space and be able to see where the defenders are coming from. His long kick and run would also be effective zone busting weapons if he can improve under pressure.

In the middle McDonald has a bit of a reputation for being pretty good in clearance situations. I don't really see that at all to tell the truth. He is very much like Aish in being very strongly an outside player. He will go to contests but will sit off the pack and look to receive from the clearance player. He is close enough to be involved but he rarely gets first hands on the ball. When he does get his hands on the ball he has nice quick hands. Unlike with his kicking he seems pretty composed when he handballing under pressure and he will keep his hands free and take his time. He is certainly not afraid of physical contact and is reasonably elusive and well balanced in the tackle. His awareness seems pretty good in the phone box.

McDonald can be a bit inconsistent with his spread from clearance situations. Sometimes he is good and other times he does not do enough. Most often he will follow the ball rather than working to space. What he does do really well is following up after giving off his short passes or handballs. Leigh Matthews was always a big advocate for passing and then sprinting 15m and then evaluating the situation. When you do that things happen and McDonald does that very well and so often gives the ball and gets it back on the run. This racks up his possessions and often catches defenders trying to turn around and stop someone coming at speed. It is very effective and should continue to work nicely at AFL level.

McDonald was the Metro captain this year and, as I understand it is highly regarded for his leadership ability. North I am sure are very happy to add another future leader to their squad.

Heppell is the first player that sprung to mind when I was thinking of someone who he reminded me of at AFL level. On further reflection I think that comparison remains a good one but Joel Corey is also apt. Like Corey I do not see McDonald as being an out and out star of the game but likely a very important cog in a flag contending team. Someone likely to finish in the top 10 in the B&F every year but not likely to be in AA contention.

 

[Quigley]

9 Melbourne

“Wah, wah, wah”. “No freaken way we pass on Aish if he is here.” “ Pass on Bontempelli are you crazy.” If you want a particular player do your own mock. Melbourne need mids and ones that can win their own ball. Dunstan is a high character guy who is really underrated on here I think and whichever teams ends up with him is going to get a bargain. I think he fits the Roos style very well and he is the kind of player who will make the other young Melbourne talent better. By the sounds of it they are taking Freeman here though. He is a reach but his athletic qualities do make him intriguing.


Luke Dunstan
DOB 29/1/95 Ht 184 Wt 83

Dunstan and Scharenberg with the driving forces in SA team which won the Champs this year and is probably not getting the attention he deserves. He was the SA capt and was the fulcrum around which the midfield operated. He is one of those players who you don’t fully appreciate from watching on TV and I thought he was more impressive live where I got a better impression of how he worked on and off the ball and how he interacted with his team mates. He was lauded for his leadership abilities on the AIS tour to Europe this year and I can understand why. He leads both by voice and example and if I was going to pick anyone in this draft to be a future captain at AFL level it would be Dunstan. He makes his team better and that is an underestimated quality in a game which many casual observers reduce to stats. If I was looking to add some leadership to my playing group I would have no trouble reaching a bit for Dunstan.

At the Champs he was an All Australian and, with Scharenberg was named the SA MVP. He averaged 22 disposals per game and really stood up when the team needed it. In SA last year he dominated the under 18s as a bottom ager averaging 27 disposals per game and this year played 4 SANFL reserves (averaging 24 disposals per game) before finishing the year in the firsts. He returned to the SANFL seniors in round 18 and in the three games that followed averaged 21 disposals and he picked up 3 goals in round 19. He has stepped up to excel at every level he has played at and there is no reason to think that he will not do the same at AFL level.

Dunstan is an inside out midfielder who can go forward and be effective. Dunstan is one of the best inside players in this draft. He is a physical player who really imposes himself on the contest and goes hard for the ball or the man with the ball. His hands are pretty clean in contested situations but I would not put him in the elite category and he can fumble a bit. In the clearances he also tends to be standing still a bit when he gets the ball and when he gets the ball he is grasped or tackled regularly. When he is in the tackle he is strong and composed and does not give out panic handballs. He keeps his arms free pretty well and takes good options which are not always the first to appear. I would suggest that up against stronger AFL players he might struggle a bit initially being not particularly agile or quick but as he gets stronger he could play much the same game. Defensively in the contest he is good and tackles aggressively.

Up forward he has been pretty effective and he reminds me a bit of Swanny up forward albeit he lacks Swan’s pace. He leads hard, is strong and holds his ground well, can take a mark, is dangerous at spillages and is generally a good shot for goal. I have my doubts about how effective he will be up forward in the AFL where the defenders are virtually all going to be taller and quicker than he is and judge the ball coming in just that bit better than he has faced to date. It’s all about expectations I think. He will be a part timer that can go forward for a rest and is dangerous enough that teams will have to match him up. That has value in itself.

Athletically he seems pretty middle of the road. Endurance looks good without being elite (in the 14s I expect) and he seems to get around the park well and his spread is reasonable. I noted at the Champs that he covered a lot of ground when the game was on the line and would pop up deep in defense when needed. I think his tank will be fine. Agility and pace I expect to be on the poor side for a midfielder. I am thinking 3.10 to 3.20 in the 20m and there are plenty of AFL mids who tested in this range. Like most inside mids he is not a leaper.

Dunstan does have a bit of an unusual body shape having a long torso and short legs and arms. Despite that he often seems to play taller than he actually is and after watching him live I was surprised he only measured in at 184cm. I was expecting a measure of about 188.

Skills wise he has a very big weapon which I have not really heard anyone comment on and that is his long handball. Being a Brisbane supporter I hark back to Michael Voss who was one of the best handballers in the game and could drill out a quick 30m handball to set the man away and that is the kind of thing that Dunstan can do as well. His powerful handballs will go 25m from nothing and hit a man in stride. He set up a couple of goals at the Champs in the games I saw with this and he can get them away from tight situations as well which is a big plus.

His kicking has improved a lot over the last year but it can still be a bit of a mixed bag. He has a bit of an unusal style with a high release but he is generally effective. He is a natural left footer and like most left footers is fairly one sided. He is serviceable off his right but not really any more than that. On the left he has good penetration and is actually a very good long kick and he hits his targets very nicely at distance. A bit surprisingly he is not so good at short to intermediate distances where his kicking can at times be slightly over or under hit. His short kicks usually get there but they are often not pretty. As I said though he has improved his kicking a lot over the last year and given the improvement so far there is no reason to think it will not continue to improve.

I struggled for a comparison at AFL level and have seen a few which were thrown up like Ball and Mitchell. They have some merit but I would probably go with Scott Thompson with the handballing and leadership skills of Luke Hodge. Dunstan may not have the ceiling of a few of the top prospects this year but he floor is probably higher and his intangibles elevate him as well in my eyes.



10 Collingwood

I have had McCarthy in this slot for a fair while and thought I was being very clever. Now it is circulating that the Pies are actually seriously interested in him and I am a bit miffed to miss the effrontery from the Pies fans. Collingwood are quietly rebuilding their team and that next generation could use a FF to work with Cloak and I think McCarthy would complement him really well once he has a year or two under his belt. Hine likes to take his tall talent early and McCarthy looks like the kind of raw potential that he can stash away in his development program for a couple of years and see what happens.

Cameron McCarthyDOB 1/4/95 Ht 195 Wt 89
With a birthday on April’s fools’ day it has to be asked whether he will be fool’s gold or not for a team taking him (Dad joke licence no. 564732). There is very little exposed form for McCarthy after bursting onto the scene this year and teams will be nervous given he broke his leg at the Champs just when he would have been coming onto most team’s radars. He started the year well in the WAFL Colts returning 20 goals from 8 games and consolidated this start with 12 goals in his 5 games at the Champs. The injury though put him out for the rest of the year and so teams would not have had a chance to look closely at him and how he followed up a really good Champs.
He did not have a preseason this year and coming from cricket background, nothing much was known of him. He attended the Combine but did not test and he is one of the very few players who teams have absolutely no testing results for. Players will do these tests several times over their years in the elite programs and it is getting rare for someone to get through without any hard times but that is the case with McCarthy. Teams will have to use the old eyeball test and if I were to give my estimate I think he would go around 2.95-3.00 in the 20m, 8.4-8.5 in the agility test and maybe 14 or a tad under in the beep. Looking at the way he plays he has shown good pace, excellent agility for a bit guy and his repeat work both offensively and defensively suggests a pretty good tank. So all up I consider him one of the better KP athletes available this year.
I have to be honest and say that initially after the Champs I was against taking McCarthy high (I was thinking more late teens) but as I have gone back and had a look at him again and considered his potential for improvement I have moved him up my draft board considerably. After Boyd the talls this year are particularly weak and although McCathy is still very raw he looks to me to have the potential to be a 50 goal per year FF and with that being the case someone is going to take him before most people think.
If you are looking for a comparison I would say he is a bit of a combination of the West Coast duo of Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling. He is an excellent hard leader like Kennedy and will get up the field onto the wing to make something happen. He will give multiple efforts and is capable of extending in packs to pluck marks. He has good spring and excellent judgment of the ball in the air, timing his arrival at the ball very well. He is a very good pack mark and works through traffic as well as anyone in this draft. He seems to have good instincts for where and when to lead and he gets separation fairly easily. He will occasionally spill a relatively easy mark but overall I think his hands are very good.
He is a bit underdeveloped in the upper body never having done much gym work but he looks to have a decent frame and a solid bottom half. He is a real physical presence on the field and throws his weight around really well. Although he is not really a wrestler up forward he is smart in the use of his body and is strong in holding his position and protecting the drop zone. He has no problem crashing packs and defenders will know he is around. He attacks the ball with everything he has whether it is above his head or on the ground. Below his knees he is very clean for a big man and he doesn’t mind leaving his feet if a ball is in dispute.
Skills wise he needs some work, particularly his field kicking and set shot, although he is okay on his non-preferred. It is obvious that he has been working on his technique but there is still a long way to go. He waives the ball around in his set shot approach, entirely too much, and he has not settled into a consistent routine. His set shot will vary from shot to shot although it is worth noting that it held together very well in his after the siren shot to win the game in Geelong. I was at that game and he wanted that ball and wanted the responsibility for taking that shot. I love that in a key forward.
His goal sense is pretty good and he has an array of baulks and other tricks that he brings out on occasions. He has pretty good awareness of where his teammates are up forward and has no trouble handing off to others in a better position than he is.
He is very enthusiastic on the field and has great determination that I think will be infectious. Not only does he lead hard he also chases very well for a junior key position player and in this he is a lot like Kennedy and Darling. He hunts down backs with the ball and pressures and tackles as well as any KPF I have seen over the last few years. His tackling technique is good and he rolls players in the tackle well to avoid giving away frees.
Size wise he needs to put on some upper body bulk before he plays AFL but I would expect that to be able to be achieved pretty easily. His running style also needs to be smoothed out a bit but that will not be so easily achieved. His gait is a little awkward atm.
By all accounts he is a fairly easy going composed guy off the park who is not afraid to work hard. He is a KPF who will not just be defined by the goals his provides but I think having him in a side will make the team better. All up I have really warmed to him as a prospect and would have no trouble taking him in the top 10 if I needed a key position forward.

11 West Coast

West Coast need to add some class through the midfield and Aish should be able to give them that. They could also use some pace but he really would not help much there. Still if he was on the table it’s hard to see West Coast passing him by even if I see them lining up Sheed or Acres to be taken here.

James Aish
DOB 8/11/95 Ht 184 Wt 74

I feel like I am killing bambi or something by actually not being overly enthused with Aish and thinking there are quite a few in this draft who I would take ahead of him. Aish seems universally lauded and whilst that usually does not worry me too much the sheer amount of positive feedback that comes from those who play with him does make me think I could easily be wrong about him. All the SA guys seem to rate him as the best player in their team and you regularly hear him described as a "Rolls Royce" or similar. Aish was the clear stand out of this class at under 16 level and like Rich and Darling who were in similar positions he also seemed to plateau in his draft year. It is entirely possible that like those two he could fall a bit in this draft and also like them, when he is challenged in an AFL environment, step up to the occasion and shows why he was so highly regarded.

There is definitely some class about his game but I tend to think a lot of his flaws are being overlooked. Empirically he is a slight, outside player who has trouble dealing with a tag even at under 18 level. He is not really an option either up forward or down back and through the middle he does not win his own ball. He is not as quick as he thinks he is, nor is his disposal skills as consistently fantastic as you have heard they are.

Okay in a bit more depth. Aish is not a purely outside player in that he goes to ruck contests. But he does so as a receiver rather than as a clearance winner. Occasionally a tap will fall his way and he will pick up a clearance but mostly he will sit off the pack and try and receive from the inside mids. When he gets the ball he will look classy doing not a hell of a lot. He has a nice shimmy that he uses a bit and he backs his evasiveness more than he should. He is fairly elusive but again probably not as much as he thinks he is. He can burst away from a pack and I think he gets up to speed quickly although it seems to me that his top speed is anything to write home about. I saw him run down a few times at the Champs including from Salem who has speed of a tick under 3 secs for the 20m.

Why Aish gets so much attention is that he regularly brings out a “wow” play be it a moment of skill or judgment and people remember those moments. He will weave through traffic and deliver a wonderfully waited kick across his body to a player in stride amongst a couple of opposition and your jaw will drop. In between those moments though he shoots a lot of handballs to players who are in no position to do anything with them or he kicks is long to no-one in particular. He does seem to have time when he gets the ball but I don't rate his decision making that highly. He takes a lot of first options whether they are good or bad and even when something great comes off it often is a product of a great bit of skill rather than being a sensible option to take. A lot of these are not going to come off at AFL level and it will be interesting to see if he can adapt.

Another big concern is his ability to deal with attention. There was a lot of talk about him getting a hard tag at the Champs but honestly there were plenty of times when there was no-one in his vicinity and he just did not seem to be working hard enough to get into the play. He only averaged 16 disposals per game at the Champs and was returning about the same in the SANFL in the games I saw the stats for. There were reports of him being tagged at SANFL level as well but I can't say whether that is the truth or not. He seems to have a pretty good endurance but does he have a good feel for where to run to receive on the outside or is his lack of possession a function of work rate? When he gets the ball on the outside he is a nice mover and when he has time his use of the ball is improved.

Aish had surgery on his shoulder at the end of last year to tighten it up and was slow to get into things this year and this probably did slow things a bit for him at the Champs. As Fyfe has shown shoulders can cause ongoing problems and this is something else which should be noted when assessing him. Aish needs to build up strength and bulk with him currently being only 74kgs and I worry that he will not ever really have much of either given he has been been an elite program basically since he could walk.

Aish has won just about all the honours there are to win going along. Despite only averaging 16 disposals per game he was still selected in the All Australian team and was an AIS academy player. For Norwood he was their youngest ever player when he debuted for them at 16 and he was the youngest ever premiership player when they won last year.

I had high expectations going into the Champs last year and I came away disappointed. That was similarly the case this year and I honestly am having trouble getting excited about him and seeing what the fuss is about. Sure I have seen a game or two on tape where he has looked very good but whenever I have seen him live I have come away not overly enthused. At his best I would compare him to Nick Dal Santo who like Aish started his career with a significantly outside game and who had very good skills but struggled dealing with tags. Whoever picks him up will be hoping he develops like Dal Santo did.

12 Richmond

Richmond have been adding some blue collar workmen to their group over the last couple of years in the likes of Vlastuin and Conca. I think they could use some more flash and Bontempelli if they could arrange it would be an excellent get for them. In the real thing I reckon they continue with their blue collar rebuild and take someone like Dunstan or Dumont with Sheed also a possibility.

Marcus Bontemepelli
DOB 24/11/95 Ht 194 Wt 84

Bontempelli looks like the kind of mid that all coaches are trying to bring in at the moment. Everyone is trying to add height to their midfield and he certainly offers that. He seems to be working his way up the draft boards and at the time of writing I would be surprised if he fell past the Lions at 7 and he is a real chance to be taken in at 4 if Kelly and Billings are off the board.

It has been widely reported that Bontempelli measured in at 194cm at the combine and then also reported that there was a problem with the measuring and that they could have been up to 2cm out. Working out who measured right and whose height has been inflated is an impossible task without looking at what they have measured before (information I don’t have). With that said Bontempelli is one guy who I expect to have measured a little above his actual height. It could be right though as he is definitely a tall guy and with a November birthday he could well have grown since he was last measured.

The November birthday is something that should be kept in mind when assessing him as it would be a fair assumption that he may have a bit more natural development to go than others, some of whom are almost a year older than he is. He has really developed over the latter part of the year after finishing the Champs strong. He was a little disappointing before that but now he has really reasserted himself as a top prospect and would be on everyone’s radar.

It is worth noting that he only averaged 14 disposals across his 4 games at the Champs and 16 disposals in his 9 TAC games. He played a fair bit of school football this year and when he returned to TAC action around the Champs time he finished in the best for the Knights in every game he played from there to the end of the year. His last Champs game against Vic Country was also impressive with him returning 21 disposals in a very good game for him.

One of the things which gets talked up with Bontempelli is his kicking and personally I think his effectiveness is overstated. He has a very stylish left foot kicking action but quite a few of his kicks do not go where they should. I am sure people will point to his good kicking efficiency percentage but that is bolstered by the fact that he goes long mostly and as far as I am aware anything over 35m is considered effective. He can deliver some really nice passes but fairly often his kicks are to no real advantage. Often he looks so good with his kicking that you assume that he is hitting his targets but that is not always the case. I think his decision making seems good and he takes the right options it’s just that his execution is not as good as it perhaps could be.

On the other side of the coin one feature of his game which I really rate and which is largely being overlooked is his handballing. Bontempelli is a very attacking handballer who sets up a lot of good forward movement through his use by hand. He is not super quick by hand but quick enough and he assesses situations quickly and executes his handball skills very well. He hits his targets in stride and where they need it. He is not a particularly long handballer he just gets it to the right spots.

Bontempelli will start his career probably on a flank but will move into the midfield as he develops. He has worked on his inside game and it is coming along but it is still not a strength of his game. At clearances he tends to sit off as a receiver mostly but when the ball comes to him he will put his head over it and he is reasonably effective. It is likely he will start as a fairly outside player but the potential is there to add an inside game as he develops.

In the open field he runs really nicely. He has very good endurance and good top end speed. He lacks explosiveness though and takes some time to get up to top speed. At the Combine he was in the bottom 10% over the first 5m of the 20m but was able to finish in the 50th percentile over the 30m repeat sprint. He is tall and lean and presents as a pretty big target for tacklers but he is surprisingly strong and elusive and does a good job of shrugging or making tacklers miss. When he is tackled he keeps his arms free nicely. When tackling himself he is willing enough but tends to arm tackle too much and this is something which will need attention when he hits the AFL.

The obvious comparison that I have not seen made for Bontempelli is to Brendon Goddard. Both have the same lean build, excellent height and can play at either end or through the midfield. Bontempelli is going to be drafted higher than his performances this year warrant but I do like the potential there and I can understand teams doing it. He is a tempting package.

 

[Quigley]

13 Carlton

Carlton are in win now mode and I see them taking someone who is going to be able to step in and play right away. I think Dunstan and Dumont are both big chances here given both have stood up in senior company and both offering an inside game which would assist Judd and Murphy. But with Dunstan gone and Dumont not being at the top of my list I am going with Acres instead. Acres should be right to do a full preseason and to play round 1. He is a bit more outside than Carlton would ideally want but he could come in in round 1 and play in the roles that Scotland and Simpson have been playing. If Carlton were planning for the future McCarthy should be a big show here and Cripps maybe an outside chance.

Blake Acres
DOB 7/10/95 Ht 190 Wt 87

Okay on what I have seen of Acres he does not deserve to be this high but I am slotting him in here in deference to the near universal acclaim he receives from our WA brethren. He is very highly thought of by the WAFL watchers on here (see clipboardsbinocs write up) as well as the WA coaches from my understanding as well as a few other watchers that I know from WA. Given that he went into the Champs having just returned after a shoulder injury I am willing to concede that he might not have been at his best. He did his shoulder in May and had one or two games back before playing his two Champs games. After those two below par games he decided to go in for surgery which put him out for the rest of the year. He did test at Combine but the results were significantly below what he tested earlier in the year although I have a few queries about the veracity of those results.

There is a comparison of his results on his player thread on this board and given there were a couple of results that had me raise my eyebrow I asked someone at a club whether the results were true. He confirmed that those were the results that were provided to the clubs. Call me sceptical but when the repeat sprint time is almost 2 seconds better than the best ever Combine time I am thinking that maybe they are not as reliable as they could be. He managed to run only a 13.08 at Combine in the beep and earlier in the year he had a 15.2. His ran a 3.05 in the 20m at Combine and is down for a 2.94 earlier in the year. There were also very big differences in his results in the jumps which were borderline elite when tested earlier and similarly in the agility. From watching him play I take his playing athleticism somewhere in the middle.

He gets around the park very well and I think he certainly has decent endurance. At the Champs he did not do particularly well but his best quarter did come in the last quarter of the SA game where he ran out the game very well running hard to provide an option. His speed I would not put in the elite category and he is occasionally run down but generally I think his functional speed is good. I do not think he is particularly elusive and when he tries to shimmy or step he does not really sell it and is often collared or at least forced to shrug off the tackler.

He has good height for a midfielder and probably plays even taller than he measures. Even at the Champs where he had his shoulder issue he was a strong mark and before that in the WAFL Colts he got high and clunked quite a lot of nice marks in traffic. He judges the ball well in the air and is not distracted by what others are doing. He is strong going up for the ball and is not easily moved off it. He only played 9 games in the WAFL Colts this year in a variety of roles. He got forward toward the end of this stint and finished with 9 goals in his last 4 games. It will be interesting to see where he ends up playing at AFL level. Personally I think he will start as a HBF as that is probably likely to be easier on his shoulder than up forward.

He reminds me a bit of Heppell and like him he should start at the back before moving into the midfield as he develops. He has nice height and is a good mark and has the athleticism to do a job when required. It is possible that he could start as an outside mid but that would depend on the team who selects him. He is a smart footballer and should do well wherever he starts. His inside game needs some work but he is a fair chance to get up to speed as he plays more there. He has good strength and balance in the contest but his hands are not particularly quick. He can on occasion be a little slow getting the ball away and can miss his targets a bit when under pressure.

By foot some people think he is elite and some think he is fairly poor. At the Champs he was probably somewhere in the middle. He certainly missed his fair share of targets and had he lacked a bit of punch in his kicking. His penetration was somewhat inconsistent with sometimes it being very good and at others coming up short. He is a right footer and fairly dominantly so. With the shoulder injury he seemed to go on his left more at the Champs and the results were fairly erratic with a few targets missed badly. It was not all negative with his kicking however. He also hit some very good targets and when in space seems to evaluate things well. Around goal he balances up quickly and is a good shot.

Acres only played 9 WAFL Colts games this year and none in the seniors. In the Colts he averaged 27 disposals per game but only 11 disposals in the games in the Champs. So we had two very different players in the competitions. Which one is the true player will be the important question that teams will need to decide.

14 GWS

Everything is set up for GWS to take a KPD here. Gardiner would be their typical pick being from Victoria, a bit undersized and overrated but still every chance to be taken by a GWS team which goes its own way with a lot of picks (thank god for Gubby otherwise the rest of the teams would have no chance). Personally I go with Giles though who I see as a much better long term prospect. Better size, better athleticism and just a better all around player.

Cameron Giles
DOB 5/5/95 Ht 195 Wt 95

You know its a weak year when the first KPD I take is a guy who disappointed me a great deal at the Champs. I was really looking forward to seeing Giles in action at the Champs but playing as a FB he showed very little of the form he was exhibiting in the SANFL U18s. Giles did the team things at the Champs and tried very hard to stick to his shut down role and he did not really get off his man much on the way averaging only 12.2 disposals a game. Compare that to the 21.5 disposals a game he averaged in the U18s and you can tell that something had changed. It wasn't that he was having trouble with the step up in class more that he was playing a different role.

The role that I think would have showed Giles to his best advantage at the Champs was actually the one that Scharenberg played. Giles played a very similar role to that in the SANFL U18s where he was nominally the CHB but was given license to roam and read and react as he wished. He has a lot going for him as an attacking CHB and I am sure that is where the teams will be looking to slot him in. He loves to take the game on offensively, he is really confident and does things like show the ball and start bouncing it from deep in defense. He is a strong bodied player who has really good pace and is fairly evasive. When all that is combined and he decides to take it and go he is difficult to handle. He moves nicely for a KPD and he can clear the forward pressure quickly and turn defense into attack.

What sets him apart from virtually any KPD is the quality of his disposal skills. For a guy his size he is an excellent kick. He had an insane disposal efficiency percentage in the SANFL U18s for a KPD and whilst I have been reliably informed that I should completely disregard all DE% figures from the SANFL and WAFL as they are very generous, I still think they are worth noting even if just by way of comparison with others in that competition. Compared to anyone his DE% was very good and it is not like he just gets it and pumps it long to get his DE% up, this is a guy who picks his targets nicely at all ranges and hits them. He is a right footer and has reasonable length on his kicks. If needed he can punch in nice low passes but he tends to go with weighted kicks most often. He regularly took the kick ins for SA at the Champs and he did a good job. By hand he is also pretty good and can bring out a long HB when required.

So offensively he is an excellent prospect. Defensively though there is quite a bit to work on. It is worth noting that this was his first season in defense and when all things are considered he did reasonably well. One on one is where I think he most needs to improve. When he was isolated in a man on man situation he got lost a bit much and did concede goals fairly regularly. There were several comments in my notes in the Champs games I watched which were critical of him for letting his player get free too easily. Some of his start positioning with the ball coming in needs to be worked on. When he is in a shut down role he is at his best when he plays in front and can actually go for the ball rather than trailing his man to the ball.

When he is given latitude to zone off and read and react, he is much stronger defensively. He reads the play pretty well and is an above average mark of the ball. He does tend to go for the mark more than he should and he will need to add a punch to his arsenal at the next level. He is not at the same level as Scharenberg in regards to reading and controlling the ball coming in but there are not many others I would put at the same level as Giles when he is green lighted to play that role. It is worth noting that he is 5cm taller than Scharenberg and has an excellent stretch on top of that and so might actually be able to do this role better than Scharenberg at the next level (I don't believe that will happen but it is possible).

As mentioned up until this year Giles had played mostly up forward or in the ruck. Ruck is not going to be an option at AFL level but it is possible that he can play some time at forward. He has the pace to get out on the lead and is a reasonable shot for goal. He does play quite a bit like Harry Taylor in defense and it he might be able to swing forward and be effective but I am not seeing it at the moment. You never know though. A few others I have spoken with think he reminds them of Frawley when he was this age and I can definitely see the similarities there as well.

Overall I think there is a lot to like with Giles. He needs to be given some time to develop and gain experience and throwing him to the wolves next year would be counterproductive. If he was used correctly and maybe started off as a third tall with a license to float around and help out as needed I think he would come on very nicely.


15 Sydney

Sydney are in the enviable position where they can just take whoever they rate the highest. I am going with Templeton who as an outside in player would complement the Swans inside brigade. With a year or so of development I could see him playing the role that O’Keefe does through the midfield.

Eli Templeton
DOB 19/8/95 Ht 181 Wt 73

It is my usual practice to put a Div 2 player in my top 10 each year and for once that was easy and I could legitimately slot Kolodjashnij in there. Usually it is not that easy and I have to reach for someone and, if KK had not been there, this year Templeton would have been the guy. If I am honest he would not have been as much of a reach as some of the other guys I have included.

Templeton is a good footballer whose superior athleticism makes you think he will transition well to the AFL once he puts a little weight on. He has put on about 6kgs over the season and, although still light, if he could put on another 3 or 4 over the preseason he would be a chance of getting games early. Despite the extra weight he still managed to test exceptionally well, going over 15 in the beep and finishing in the top 10 in the 3km as well. He was also in the top 25% in the repeat sprint and the agility test. In the 20m sprint he was a little slower than I expected going a little over 3 secs but most of that was lost in the first 5m and I get the feeling he might not have been as prepared for that test as he might have been. In game situations he plays with really good speed and whilst he might not be an absolute burner he has very good functional speed.

He is primarily an outside in midfielder but he can get back and help out in defense. He covers a lot of ground in game situations and always seems to be around the ball helping out or linking up. He finds space very well and uses his superior tank effectively. His inside game I think is a bit underestimated and I think he will develop into a good all round midfielder at the next level. He has very quick hands which is a very good start but he is not the cleanest player with the ball on the ground. He is not bad though and when the ball comes his way he controls the ball well and if he doesn’t grab it first time he still usually manages to come away with the ball. It is a similar story with his awareness in tight. His awareness of what is around him is not top shelf but he still manages to find his teammates pretty well. His quick hands helps him there a fair bit.

In contested situations he is pretty elusive and he is a huge fan of the spin move. Sometimes it is effective and sometimes not. He does get buffeted around at bit at the moment given he is a bit of a lightweight but as he gets stronger more of his moves are going to come off. He does need to balance up a little better when he is getting quick kicks away.

His kicking generally is a bit of a mixed bag and I would liken it to Tom Rockliff’s kicking. In space he seems to have very good vision and he takes really good options. Most of those options are short to intermediate though as he does not have a very penetrating kick. On the longer kicks the ball tends to not spin correctly and is loses distance as a result. He weights his short to intermediate kicks really well and he hits his targets nicely. Like Rockliff he tends to chip rather than punch these kicks and this could invite a little trouble at the next level. Overall though his kicking is very solid and should be fine at the next level and with a little work it could be a lot better than that especially when you take his good decision making into account.

Templeton, although not a specialist, will go to stoppages and he wins his fair share of clearances. When the opposition gets the ball in those situations he is a willing tackler and he gets a reasonable number of tackles per game. For example. he averaged 4.5 tackles per game at the Champs. Whilst those numbers are good they are a little misleading and I think his defensive work could definitely use some improvement. He is a bit of a one way player at the moment and that will need to change. He does have the tools to be an effective defensive presence at the next level. Another concern I had was I noticed a few times that he did not do the team thing when it was called for. He is not a big blocker or shepherder.

In contrast I did really like how he went up to his teammate who had to go off with concussion in the NT game. The rest of his team mates left the poor bloke to his own devices but Templeton went over to make sure he was okay. Good team mate action I thought.

Templeton is an excellent accumulator of the ball. At the Champs he averaged 23 disposals per game and in the two TAC games he played this year he averaged 24.5 disposals per game. He gets to space and links up really well. He is also a proponent of the Gary Ablett duck around behind the guy with the ball to receive a cheapie move.

Templeton is a very confident player and seems to have an aura about him. He seems to know he is good and his teammates and opposition believe it. I think confidence is often an underestimated trait and Templeton seems to have that and is a leader on the park. I made the comparison earlier to Rockliff and I think that is a good one. He is a superior athlete to Rockliff but as far as how he will play at AFL level I think they will be very similar.


16 Geelong

Geelong needs to continue to rebuild their midfield and particularly their inside group. They have quite a few zippy outside types in the younger group but they do need a few who are going to muck in and win if for the show ponies on the outside. I have gone with Cripps who is very good inside and would be a big bodied mid that Selwood could work off. In the real thing Geelong often seem to be a team for whom players tend to fall into their laps. I could see that happening again here and them ending up with someone like Dunstan or possibly even Sheed.

Patrick Cripps
DOB 18/3/95 Ht 192 91

The first question that teams are going to ask on Cripps is if he is a whiney ingrate who is going to run back to Western Australia at first opportunity like his cousin did. If he is truly committed to going anywhere to play I think there is a chance that Cripps will go pretty high as he has the size and ball winning ability that teams love. Given the family history though he could very well be seen as a flight risk and that being the case teams will pass and he could fall pretty dramatically. Without being privy to the interviews it is hard to know who this one will go.

There is a lot to like with Cripps but there are also some issues which would concern teams. Foremost of those concerns is probably his athleticism. He lacks pace in game situations and he tested that way as well. He was very slow off the mark for a midfield prospect and did not pick up time over the remainder of the 20m, finishing in the bottom 15% of those tested. Combined with his pace issues there are also endurance concerns. He managed to go just over 13 in the beep and just under 12mins in the 3km. Teams will be investigating whether he has the capacity to up his endurance to an acceptable level. Although his spread is nothing to write home about he does tend to get around the park reasonably well in game situations and I had not really noticed him struggling too much. The AFL though is several levels up and he will need a lot of work on his tank before he is ready to play consistent minutes. It is worth noting that his skinfolds were quite poor so chances are he didn't turn up in the best of condition.

Cripps has grown a heap over the last year or two and measured in at a very attractive 192cm at Combine. It’s probable that he is still getting used to his bigger body and as he gets more comfortable things will improve athletically and with his game in general. He showed pretty good agility for a guy of his size at Combine and that works well with for his inside role.

He is really an inside mid only and does not have a lot of value outside of that role. As a clearance player he would be amongst the best available in this draft. He averaged 6 clearances per game at the Champs on his way to being selected in the All Australian side. He is not the best read of the ball off hands but he moves through traffic to the ball nicely and collects well on the move and regularly comes away from the clearance with the pill. He has excellent spatial awareness in tight situations and judges well who to give the ball to. Despite not being particularly quick he seems to be rarely tackled and when he is he has good strength that he can use to break tackles or at least hold his feet. He has very good strength and balance over the ball and is difficult to get off his feet. He does well in being moving when the ball comes his way but he has no trouble diving into a pack to chase the ball if required. When he does his bulk and ability allow him to get the ball and get it out.

His hands are generally pretty quick but sometimes he holds onto the ball a bit too long which has not really cost him at junior level but he will need to focus on getting it away a bit more consistently quickly at AFL level. He will need to process his options a bit quicker. His short handballing is good and whilst his long handballs can be a little ugly they are usually effective.

Cripps' kicking is the probably one of the other big question marks. He definitely needs to work on his kicking style. He has a high release and an inconsistent hold on the ball when he is kicking. This causes variability in his kicking results. Sometimes he will deliver a lovely little punching kick right on the button but a few minutes later he will miss the target. He is better with his short kicks and generally does not go for much with his kicking preferring to play it safe. He seems to have good vision though and as his confidence and technique improves I believe his hurt factor could also go up. That is not the case at the moment though. He is capable of getting good penetration with his kicks but he does not go long terribly often and he does miss a bit more with these kicks.

His defensive work needs to improve with his defensive running at the moment being pretty average and even in tight situations he is not a big tackler. He went head to head with Crouch at the Champs and although probably beaten I thought he did pretty well in what was probably a foreign role. I would like to see him attacking the ball carriers and playing the passing lanes a bit more when the opposition gets the ball. He averaged only 3 tackles per game at the Champs and less than that in the WAFL Colts.

Cripps did well in the WAFL Colts this year but did not play any seniors and only one reserves match. Given his size and inside ability I was a little surprised about this. I did think they would have blooded him especially as he seemed to go pretty well in the Colts. He averaged 24 disposals per game at Colts level to go with the 19 disposals per game at the Champs. He does not have a particularly well developed outside game but he is around the ball a lot and it does come to him often.

Whilst he doesn't have the forward game the player I would compare Cripps to is Josh Kennedy from Sydney. Like Kennedy it might take Cripps a couple of years to get his game up to AFL standard but once he does his big body is going to make him very difficult to handle. In a draft which drops off significantly in at around 30 he is one player who might be available around that time who I think would be well worth taking a punt on

 

[Quigley]

17 Fremantle

Is he another Patrick Dangerfield as some are suggesting? Not from my perspective but Freo are in the enviable position of being able to take a punt on him. He is a great combination of pace and endurance and his game style should really suit Subi and if he gets this far I could definitely see Freo taking him. I think Freo just sit here and take whoever falls to them.

Nathan Freeman
DOB 16/6/95 Ht 184 Wt 84

Every year one of the modestly performed Metro kids rises late right up to the pointy end of the draft. Freeman fits the bill to be that player this year. Usually I am not a fan of these queue jumpers but this year I can sort of understand it with Freeman. I am not going to put him up there myself but I can understand the attraction. Apparently Roos loves him at 9 and I think he is looking at Freeman and seeing a young Kieran Jack.

Like Jack, Freeman does a lot of work inside but he is not really a clearance winner rather he is a clearance receiver. In clearance situations he does not hunt the ball and actually reads the ball quite poorly off hands and his reaction to taps is quite slow. When the ball hits the ground or goes to one of his players it is only then that he reacts to involve himself in the play. Unfortunately for whoever takes Freeman he does not share one of Jack's biggest strengths and that is his defensive game. Freeman does not have a defensive mindset and when the opposition gets the ball he rarely hunts the ball carrier. In the TAC he averaged less than 3 tackles per game and for an inside midfielder that is pretty poor at that level. Although he doesn't currently have a defensive mindset it doesn't mean he won't acquire one when the necessity of such is drummed into him at AFL level by someone like Roos.

The area where Freeman excels is with his burst from the congestion at pace. Jack has this but the player he reminds me of most in this aspect is Gary Ablett. When he receives the ball in tight situations he gets up to speed and leaves would be tacklers grasping at air. He is deceptively quick and does not have the build you would usually associate with a guy with the type of speed he has. His skin folds were below average at Combine and he has a little bit of pudge around the middle suggesting he might not be as fit as he could be. Given how well he tested thinking that he could step another level is a scary prospect.

Freeman won the repeat sprint at Combine in one of the best ever times at 23.62 whilst his 2.82 in the 20m sprint was the second quickest this year. His agility test was a little worse than I was expecting but was still in the top 25%. On the other side of the coin I was not expecting him to go in the high 14s in the beep test or be close to the top 10 in the 3km like he was. His jumping was nothing to write home about. So elite pace with good endurance. That certainly gives teams something to build on.

With endurance as good as he has I would expect him to have a better outside game than he has. His spread from clearance situations is quite poor and he rarely gets out of the corridor. He likes to work down the middle of the ground and gets most of his disposals there. He does not have a great feel for where to run to receive on the outside and relies a lot of short receives. At the Champs he averaged 20 disposals a game whilst he managed 22 disposals a game in the TAC. Most of those disposals lack the hurt factor you would like to see.

Some people have been impressed with his kicking but I think it is a bit of a mixed bag. When he gets into space he executes pretty well at pace although he does so with a short chip whenever he can. If something is not is on short he will pump it long. He has reasonable penetration on his kicks when he goes long and, when shooting for goal, he has the length to slot them from 50. One of the unusual things about his work at clearances is the number of times he kicks the ball rather than handballs it. He gets the ball to boot very quickly but the results are a bit of a lottery with the kicking being pretty indiscriminate as a rule. He had a lot of ineffective kicks at TAC level averaging over 6 per game and you would have to think that will increase at AFL level until he becomes a bit more discriminating in when to kick and when to handball.

Speaking of handballs that is a real weakness of his game. He lacks penetration and just does not seem to execute well by hand. As a consequence he lacks confidence in his handballing and will look to go by foot if he can. He is not as bad as Hartung but this is still a significance weakness that will need to be addressed especially given where he plays on the ground.

Whilst there has been talk of him being a good option up forward. I have not seen that myself. He is not a good lead nor is he effective in contested marking situations. He is not poor read of the ball off hands but I will concede that his pace is very handy when the ball hits the deck. It’s appropriate to mention that he only managed 4 goals at TAC level and I would not expect him to suddenly develop into a gun small forward with excellent goal sense at the next level. His lack of any semblance of a defensive game would also inhibit him getting games up forward early. With all that said it is becoming very common for quick mids to get their start up forward and from that perspective it might not surprise if that happened with Freeman. I just don't see him being a big threat when he plays there.

Overall I think Freeman has some excellent physical tools and is enough of a footballer that teams will not be starting from scratch with him. There are a lot of teams out there who want to add speed to their midfield group and Freeman certainly offers that. The ceiling is very high with this kid but the floor is lower that I would be comfortable with for a likely top 10 pick.

18 St Kilda

At least one of these two picks will be a mid and I would be surprised if he wasn’t from Victoria. The best Victorian midfielder I have on the board is Salem who I actually don’t mind but who I think would be a massive reach if he went at 6 as some have mentioned. I think Salem would suit the Saints very well and would be a nice outside complement to their midfield group.

Christian Salem
DOB 15/7/95 Ht 185 Wt 78

I actually like Salem quite a lot and certainly more than the likes of Taylor and Hartung who are similar players, it just seems that I do not like him as much as most people. Salem I see as being someone who sits comfortably in the bottom half of the 22 for a very good side but I do not see him having as high ceiling of the guys I have ahead of him and there is a decent chance of him busting. If he succeeds he is likely to be a good complementary player rather than an out and out star.

Salem averaged only 15.5 disposals and less than a tackle per game at the Champs overall and less than that against the Div 1 teams. The number of useful things he did with the ball against those better team would be a fair bit lower again. Questions have to be asked about whether he will similarly struggle in the AFL where he will be up against guys who are consistently stronger, quicker and have more footy smarts than the vast majority of players he has faced to date. He has been able to do very well against guys over whom he enjoyed a significant physical advantage but he is not going to have those advantages at AFL level and he might not be able to play the same game as he has to date and still be effective.

I see Salem starting his career as an outside mid/HFFer. The difference between Salem and most other outside prospects is the he does not mind mixing it up and he has a definite physical element to his game. He played predominantly on the outside at the Champs but in the TAC he spent quite a bit of time on ball and didn't do too badly. He averaged in the mid 20s in the TAC and finished the year strongly which has pushed him up in many people's eyes. His finals game against Eastern Ranges where he dominated playing on ball would be fresh in a lot of recruiters’ minds and this might see him go higher than I think he probably should go. Teams do love those guys who pull out big TAC games at the end of the year and are often willing to disregard poorer performances at the Champs.

Salem is a smooth mover on the park and tends to be quite busy even when the ball is not coming to him. He works hard to influence the play both offensively and defensively and this work rate does catch the eye. I have seen a few comments suggesting that he was not particularly quick but I never really noticed that. I thought he had good functional game speed which was demonstrated by a nice run down of Aish in the SA game. At Combine he went under 3.00 seconds in the 20m and was in the top 25% of the 30m repeat sprint. So enough pace there especially when combined with good endurance. I was expecting him to go over 15 in the beep and be right up there at Combine and whilst his results were reasonably (e.g. over 14 in the beep) I thought they were a bit disappointing for a guy who makes a name for himself with his ability to get around the park. His agility score was also very poor for a guy who is known for being evasive and will live and die on that at the next level.

Salem's skills are another thing which get talked up a lot and whilst they are pretty stylistically I am not sure they are as effective as they are commonly assumed to be. He will fairly regularly deliver nice low passes but those passes will also regularly fall short and put their target under pressure. He also kicks into the man on the mark as much as anyone in this draft. If I had more time and resources I would investigate whether his current issues are just a function of him working to flatten out his kicking (as it commonly is) or if there is a problem with his feel. When he goes long it is most often to contests. There were few kicks in the last two games at the Champs where he actually hit his player in a good position where they could take off and go without holding up. If you ignore the results of his kicks as I mentioned he looks very good. He is far from a bad kick but as someone described Travis Johnstone a few years ago Salem is probably the worst "elite kick" in this group.

So all of that sounds pretty bad and it sounds like I am being very harsh in my assessments and there may be something in that given that a lot of people are so positive in their assessments of him. All my negative comments also do not mean that I do not see the positive things as well. He does a lot of things which influence the play. He will block for his own players, pressure and tackle ball carriers, smother and generally do the little things which help teams win. He is a good judge of the ball in the air for a midfielder and he takes quite a lot of intercept marks. In traffic he dances around and is pretty hard to tackle showing good strength and balance. When he gets out in the open he is a smooth mover and good things will often happen when he is involved in the play. He works hard to link up and moves the ball on quickly. In short I see him being a very good cog that gets teams wins and will cover and facilitate others.

As mentioned above he averaged less than a tackle per game at the Champs this year but it is worth noting that he averaged 5 tackles per game in the TAC. I think the TAC form is a better indication of his tackling ability and what you should expect at AFL level. He seems to be someone who enjoys getting in and tackling players with the ball. He is a capable forward and it would not surprise me if he started his career as a defensive forward much like Collingwood has done with Fasolo and others. Another option which I would not rule out is that he becomes a tagger. He played a loose-ish run with role on Aish in the SA game and he did a pretty good job with Aish struggling to have much impact on the game.

Another thing which is often overlooked by us amateurs is the player's make up and attitude. From the outside Salem looks like someone who just loves the game and works really hard to get the best out of himself. He goes about his job without fuss and does not seem like a prima donna as many do at this level. At his absolute best he could be a Sidebottom type but more likely he ends up a player very like Jake Melksham.


19 St Kilda

Hmm, well I don’t really rate Gardiner this high but it would be a perfect fit for him. The Saints need to revamp their backline and they have taken a couple of likely types in Bruce and Delaney and Gardiner would be a good complement to those guys playing as a third tall. He is not a true KP I think but would work well as a support player. If Gardiner was passed on here he could easily fall into the 30s. If the Saints swing for the fences, Marsh could be a chance to be taken here.

Darcy Gardiner
DOB 22/9/95 Ht 193 Wt 86

If there were any doubt about the bias of Shifter and his mates toward the “name” players you need to look no further than Gardiner getting picked in the AA side this year. At the Champs this year he played only 3 games (1 against the short people of NT) and averaged 7 disposals per game. He was pretty reasonable defensively but nothing to write home about and yet somehow he manages to be named the AA fullback. The AA team should be about who was the best performed at the Champs in their respective positions it should not be about Shifter and his AIS mates putting in the players they like and protecting their butts. It was a disgrace to those kids who actually got out there and performed and Sheehan should be ashamed of himself. End of rant.

The lack of ability to influence a game offensively is one of the main weaknesses in Gardiner’s game even at junior level (he only managed 13 disposals per game at TAC level as well) and it is hard to see that improving at the next level. He does not get off his man often enough to provide an option going forward. That is a bit of a shame as he is actually quite good when he is up and running. He has a nice burst and a good ability to hit targets on the run. His kicking in general is good especially for a KPD and he evaluates and executes quickly and well. He has nice touch on his kicks and good vision when taking options. With the ball in hand he has a reasonable body swerve when he brings it out and with a powerful lower half he can be quite difficult to tackle.

Gardiner’s body is in transition at the moment and I think he will be a powerful unit before all is said and done. He already is quite solid through the hips and legs. His upper half is lagging behind a little but is coming along and with a year or two in the gym his strength will one is his best weapons. Height is always going to be the concern with Gardiner and his lack of jumping ability compounds the issue. Gardiner does not really get off the ground well and with the move toward really big forwards he is going to struggle and will need to adjust his game from how he plays it now.

Gardiner is not the greatest read of the ball in the air but he is a player who reacts quickly and moves to the general area where the ball will drop. He shows good judgment when to leave his man and help out. When his man is in the contest he plays behind a lot and is a big spoiler of the ball. His spoiling ability is often seen as a major strength of his but I have some concerns about it at the next level. With his lack of height and jumping ability he often struggles to get over top of the forward in front and often only just gets the fist in. At AFL level with bigger, more athletic and smarter forwards I think he is going to find himself coming up short too often unless he adjusts his game.

Also at junior level he tends to often be a bit of a finesse spoiler if there is such a thing. He just gets his fist in and tries to get the ball to ground rather than punching through the ball. That has worked reasonably well to date but I don’t think he gets enough on the ball at the moment and strong handed forwards should be able to mark the ball with the brush he often gives it. At AFL level with his deficiencies in height and spring I think he needs to punch through the ball and clear the area whenever he has the opportunity.

Gardiner though is a very smart and competitive defender and I back him to adjust his game to remain effective. He has the pace to go with most forwards and I think will end up having the strength to overpower most as well. So I think a bit more engaging the body and going shoulder to shoulder will be the order of the day for him. His defensive instincts are good and he is good at working in a defensive unit.

As well as playing in defense Gardiner is a capable forward who leads strongly and is a decent mark of the ball. I doubt he will ever be a full time forward but if a team needs to swing someone forward he is capable of being effective. He started this year up forward in the TAC and picked up 6 goals in the first few games including one bag of 3. Overhead he is reasonable but he not great with the ball on the ground. He will bustle in and make a contest but he is not the cleanest below the knees. His set shot is solid and when he gets the chance he usually converts.

Gardiner did not test at the Champs but in game situations he seems to have good pace and reasonable agility for a big guy. I think his endurance needs to improve and his jumping ability is quite poor. Other than his pace there is nothing about Gardiner that I would consider above average athletically.

Gardiner does have a bit of a presence about him on the ground and his teammates seem to be more confident with him around. He knows what he is doing and is a competitive beast that requires similar of his teammates. I think he will develop into a Ben Rutten type player and he has the football smarts like Rutten to work out how to deal with a slight deficiency on height and ability to get off the ground.


20 Gold Coast

Gold Coast have a lot of weapons and at this pick should go with someone who would complement them and make those players better rather than trying to swing for a home run. Battersby looks to me like one of those players who would control the play and makes things easier for those around him. He is not a Clayton type but with some luck Clayton might be getting smarter in his old age. I was surprised with the Lonergan pick last year (an excellent pick btw) and Battersby would be a similar smart departure from his usual preferred player type.

James Battersby
DOB 7/11/95 Ht 177 Wt 82

In truth I have no idea where Battersby will go in this draft. I like him and have him pretty high but he doesn't really have a stand out feature which would really entice teams to pick him. He is just an all around good footballer I think who will have a long AFL career. In a year where there is little depth I think he is a safe second round pick and someone who is going to give you some quality games for a lot of years and probably be an underestimated cog in a good team.

Battersby played most of his game time in the defensive half in the games that counted at the Champs and that is probably where I expect him to start in the AFL. As he develops he could move into the midfield or establish himself as a quality general at the back. He played plenty of midfield time for Sturt in the SANFL and he knows how to go about finding the ball in the kitchen so his chances of ending up playing plenty of time as a midfielder should not be discounted. As a midfielder he has a great knack for sneaking forward and when he runs through the midfield he is usually good for a goal a game and sometimes a few more than that.

After leading the Champs in disposal efficiency he has a reputation for being a good kick but I think that is overstated. It’s not that he is a bad kick but he doesn't have a lot of hurt factor. He specialises in little 3/4 strength chip kicks that are not going to be terribly effective at AFL level. I have seen him bring out some flat punching kicks but they are rare. He will need to work on flattening out his kicking to be effective at AFL level. What he does do well which will appeal to teams is that he executes under pressure so whilst he might not have the most hurt factor in the draft he is not going to hurt his own team with turnovers. When he gets forward he is a really nice shot at goal and a little bit surprisingly to me he has no trouble kicking them from 50. He is capable on the left but is pretty right dominant.

Whilst he has a reputation for being a good kick it is actually his handballing that I like. Again he doesn't have a hell of a lot of length on his handballs but he has very quick hands and gets it out of a contest before the opposition has time to react. He hands are clean and I like having small defenders who have clean quick hands at the back. It just allows for tight situations to be tidied up more easily and for pressure to be avoided or at least reduced. I think his handballing got better over the course of the year as he played more SANFL midfield time. If I was a team I would be impressed in his ability to not just to step up but to improve and excel.

After starting the year in the SANFL Reserves for two games he played SANFL seniors in every game he was available for selection. He played mostly through the midfield and averaged a very impressive 19.3 disposals a game and in his last game in the seniors in round 19 (before injury cut short his season) he was excellent with 25 disposals 8 marks 4 tackles 5 clearances and a goal. Kerridge played in a few games with Battersby and Battersby regularly outshone him. Battersby is a capable inside ball winner but I like his ability as an outside running more. He has an excellent feel for where to run to receive and he spreads from the contest really nicely.

In tight I see him being a decent option but not one of the best in this draft. He reads it okay off hands but does not attack the contest like the elite guys. When he does get his hands on it he has decent awareness and as mentioned quick hands to allow him to get it away.

At the back I really like his ability to read the play and choose when to drop off his man. He and Scharenberg controlled the back half for SA at the Champs and he was composed and directed traffic well. He defended well although he was occasionally challenged for pace. Going forward he was always open as an option. He worked hard both ways.

He did not test at Combine so I am just guessing here, but I suggest his athleticism would be pretty middle of the road. Not overly quick nor slow and okay but not great endurance. His agility looks pretty good but I would not put him in the elite category. He is a bit on the short side but not too bad and whilst he needs to put on some bulk he is not too bad given his age.

If you are looking for a comparison at AFL level I would probably say Jed Adcock. Nothing flash but does his job. His height is a little bit of a concern but this is a kid who has stood up at SANFL level and excelled and I back him to be a solid option at least at AFL level. At this stage of this draft that is a win. He can be thrown all over the park and has a great attitude by all accounts.

 

[Quigley]

21 Port Adelaide

Wilson is a big talent and he and Wingard could be the second coming of the Burgoyne brothers at Port. He is a risk certainly but he is a local guy with plenty of potential and I think it is worth taking a punt on him. I originally had Wilson in the first round but last minute shuffling dropped him a bit but I wouldn’t go past him here if I were Port.

Dwayne Wilson
DOB 17/1/95 Ht 178 Wt 73

Wilson I think is a guy that will go a bit under the radar of a lot of casual draft observers but he has the potential to be a very good player at the next level. One SA based, former industry person I know really rates Wilson and thinks that once he gets into an AFL environment he will really blossom. Looking at what he has to offer I can see why he would think that. He is a current AIS scholarship holder but has not been as dedicated as he could be and he probably needs to be in a full time environment where he is going to be pushed hard in order to get the most out of his talent.

Wilson certainly has a heap of talent. He will probably start his AFL career as a HFF but maybe not in a traditional sense. I think he is best suited to play just ahead of the contest and to collect and deliver into the forwards. He is not really a goal scoring threat and his work inside 50 is not a strength of his game. As he develops I can see him moving into the midfield as an outside in midfielder although there is also the chance that he could go into the backline and play a Danyle Pearce sort of role.

The two big weapons that Wilson has are his kicking and his pace. Wilson provides excellent service on his preferred right but is also very strong on his non-preferred left to the extent that I would think he is probably the best dual sided kick in this draft. He can deliver lovely low kicks off either foot and the touch on his kicking is as good as anyones. I have not noticed him being a hugely long kick but his penetration seems fine. It is the low worm burners that he delivers into his forwards though which attract the eye and create scoring opportunities for his team. He is a first class, plate setter and teams are going to want him with the ball going into 50.

Wilson like many indigenous players with pace did not test exceptionally well at the Combine but you should take it as a given that he would be one of the quickest in this draft. He has good explosiveness and is a player who uses that pace to run away from chasers and to run down opponents with the ball. His ability to sustain the run is quite good in game situations but he does tend to fade out of games a bit after a sustained effort. As his endurance improves I expect him to be able to consistently use his pace more.

One of the things I really like about Wilson is that he will run to pressure a ball carrier even if he has little chance of actually getting there to make the tackle. He cuts down options and gives the opponent less time to get the ball away and this pressure often has good results for his team. This type of thing is required at AFL level but not many do that as a junior. His tackling is good and as his endurance improves he will become a very influential defensive presence.

Wilson was not able to get a heap of the ball at the Champs nor in the SANFL reserves where he averaged 16.4 and 15.2 disposals per game respectively. He did show a good ability to find the ball at Colts level though where he averaged 27 disposals per game. I expect him to be quite a low possession winner early in his career but as he develops he should be able to find the ball enough.

At the Combine he tested very ordinarily particularly in the endurance test. He was in the bottom 15% in both the beep and the 3km which was very poor for the type of player he projects to be. Surprisingly to me he was also very poor in the agility test and I had expected him to do significantly better than he did. As a group many indigenous players tend to not be as prepared for the Combine testing as others and Wilson seems to have fallen into that category. His agility looks good to me and he seems elusive and difficult to tackle especially when he has a bit of room. He has a nice burst of pace from clearance situations and he can slide through traffic nicely. In the open field he is a balanced runner and quick decision maker.

He is not a big clearance player but he is not terrible either and he will win a clearance or two most games. He is more effective as a receiver but if the ball comes to him he is quick with his hands and at making decisions. With the ball on the ground he is quite good but not elite.

Wilson fits the mould of many small indigenous players and you could easily compare him to any number of them. I am going to depart from the norm though and go with Daisy Thomas as my comparison. Like Thomas I think he will be most effective when he ups his endurance to a high level but his pace and skills will allow him to have an impact in spurts when he is able to involve himself in play. When he gets his endurance up to an acceptable level I think he will be a high possession player with really good hurt factor.


22 Brisbane

If I was Brisbane I would be hoping that one of the inside types falls to me here and there are a few of them that might like Dunstan, Jones or Crouch who could be an attractive option. This is even more the case if they go for a flanker or outside type in round 1. The Lions need some midfield depth and should go with the best available here.

Trent Dumont
DOB 30/6/95 Ht 186 Wt 85

I watched Dumont early in the year in the Foxtel Cup and thought he was reasonably impressive in senior company and I was expecting quite a lot from him at the Champs but he didn't really deliver on that. He only managed 17 disposals per game and did not really impose himself on the game like I thought he would and had the potential to do. Dunstan was the one who stood up and was that imposing inside mid for SA. Dumont played much more outside than he usually does and that is certainly not his strength. I subsequently learned that he had a niggling ankle injury affected him for about 6 weeks through the Champs period and this might well have been the explanation for his form not being great.

Like I said though he was quite impressive in senior company earlier in the year and finished the year strongly in the seniors for Norwood including a barnstorming first half in the SANFL GF. He was probably the BOG in the first quarter and over the match clearly outplayed Aish.

Personally he reminds me quite a bit of Vlastuin who rose up draft boards late last year and ended up going top 10 to Richmond. Whilst I do not think he will be top 10 this year there is a fair chance he could go higher than many expect. Like Vlastuin he is a solid, hard at it inside mid who is not the athletically gifted nor are his skills anywhere near elite but gets around the park pretty well and imposes himself on contests when he gets there. He may start his career off a HBF but I would expect him to move quickly into the midfield where he can use his biggest asset which is his ball winning ability.

In tight Dumont usually does his best work. He is good in tight and has clean quick hands that allow him to collect and get away before others react. As I had in my notes he looks quick between the ears and when he just does the simple things, good things follow. He does occasionally try to be a bit fancy though, showing the ball and such, and when that happens things do not go nearly as well. He is not particularly elusive and people know it and he just puts pressure on himself. When he is under pressure he has good strength in the tackle and generally has good composure and doesn't panic. With the ball in hand he seems to have a bit more time in close than those around him and he uses that pretty well with his handballing.

He is a very physical presence in the contest and will throw his body around. He is good defensively in the contest when the opposition gets the ball and tackles and plays the handball lanes well. He averaged 4 tackles per game at the Champs and showed he can handle senior players with his work in the SANFL.

Dumont has two main weaknesses. The first is that he does not play with the pace teams want these days and secondly his kicking is below par. In regards to pace he is probably not any slower than Crouch (not saying much admittedly given how poorly he went at Combine) and as an inside player concessions are made but still it is an area of weakness that might drop him down a bit on teams' draft boards. He does not need to be a 100m sprinter but if he could develop his explosiveness over 5m it would help his game a lot.

With his kicking, Dumont does not go for much and so it's hard to criticise his decision making but his execution lets him down too much. His passes tend to come up short too regularly and it looks like he lacks feel on his kicks. His field kicking technique does not have any obvious technical flaws that I have noticed it just seems that he under kicks the ball a lot and at AFL level that is a recipe for trouble given turnovers kill teams at that level. He is not a big goal kicker but when he gets the chance he does okay. He has a bit of an unorthodox hold on the ball with his set shot with his right hand on top of the ball but he controls the ball to boot pretty well. He has a comfortable approach in his set shot routine and from what little I have seen he looks to be a reasonable shot for goal.

On the outside Dumont gets around the park okay although he does not seem to have a great feel for getting to dangerous spots. His endurance seems above average for this level (I am thinking early 14s) and whilst I never expect him to be elite in this area I think he has enough functional endurance to allow him to play his preferred role. His spread from the contest is okay and he picks up quite a few possessions this way.

Overall I doubt Dumont is ever going to be champion of the game but he could be a big bodied inside mid that protects and feeds the flashy receiver types. So I see him as a good complementary player who mucks in and does the hard work to set up others.


23 Adelaide

I think Adelaide could use some more depth up forward in their leading options and Hourigan could be an excellent number two banana with Walker getting the bulk of the attention. I expect Hourigan to end up a better forward option than Tom Lynch.
Darcy Hourigan
DOB 18/9/95 Ht 192 Wt 96

Hourigan measured in at 192 at Combine and I think he might be one of those who measured a bit tall given he is commonly listed at 190. Still with a September birthday it is possible the he has grown a bit over the year. I have to admit that he does play tall and actually looks taller than the listed 190cm. Height remains the biggest issue for Hourigan as he plays the game as a leading key position. Tim Membrey had the same issue last year and despite having a good Champs he fell all the way to 46. I rate Hourigan as a better prospect than Membrey but expect him to go lower than this on the day as teams just don't want to pay for short key position players and that is what Hourigan is.

Personally if I was going to compare him to anyone as far as playing style goes it would be to Fevola. Fev was about the same height but had a package of attributes that allowed him to become one of the best key position forwards in the game. Hourigan leads a lot like Fevola. He works his man over with strength moves and dummy leads until he commits and once he goes he goes hard. He seemed to get separation easily at under 18 level and he took a lot of comfortable marks at the Champs. He has really nice marking technique out in front of his eyes and he is a strong body that is hard to get around and move off its line. With a defender coming over the top he has good strong hands but he is not truly top notch above his head and he will spill his fair share.

He is a good judge of the ball in the air and he times his arrival at the ball nicely, taking the ball where it gives him the best chance to mark and makes it most difficult for the defender. When the ball hits the ground he reacts quickly but he is inconsistent with his cleanliness. Sometimes he looks good and collects it really nicely for a big guy and at others he does not get low enough and he fumbles.

Hourigan played as a leading CHF at the Champs and did a lot of work inside 50 but he also got up onto the wing a fair bit and presented as a nice marking option for his mids to use. One area where I consider him to be elite is his delivery into 50. For a junior key position player he is excellent and he picks his targets and delivers to the right spot exceptionally well. He is a left footer who seems to have really nice feel on his kicks. His handballing is also pretty good when he is called on to use it and, for a big guy,he has pretty quick hands.

Around goals he has range out to 50, maybe a touch more. He has good goal sense and when he gets the ball in open play he balances, orients and finishes quickly and well. His set shot technique is a little unusual with a high hold but he is pretty well balanced all things considered. He looks to be a pretty good shot for goal and is capable of putting through from difficult angles but as demonstrated at the Champs he is just as capable of missing shots he really should put through. He got a lot of chances at the Champs and did not always take full toll. Still he ended up leading the Champs with 16 goals across his 5 games and really stood up in the games that counted.

Hourigan is a powerful unit who had a strength advantage over the defenders he faced at the Champs and he used that very well. He is solid all over and even walks like a body builder. He is carrying a bit of condition around the stomach which will be gotten rid of over his first offseason at AFL level. He will not have such an advantage at AFL level but I do think he will still have an advantage over a lot of his match ups especially if he is played as a third tall. Hourigan though does not just rely on his strength to be effective.

He has pretty good speed for a KPF and once he gets a step his opponents do not seem to able to close the space very easily. His endurance is not bad but I don't think it is much more than that and with the defensive effort that will be expected of him at the next level he will need to improve. He is not a stand out athletically but when you combine all his attributes he is difficult to handle. As he gets fitter and stronger he will become more difficult to handle but I do expect him to struggle for a year or two to adapt to the bigger and quicker bodies.

Hourigan has played a fair bit of time as a defender and despite not having seen him operate myself he is by all accounts a pretty decent prospect in that regard as well. He debuted as a defender in the SANFL at 15 as South Adelaide's youngest ever player. Despite debuting as a 15 year old he has not been a feature in the SANFL seniors since and I think he only played one game there this year.

Hourigan is likely to be a second rounder and in a weak draft year I think he is well worth taking a punt on. The odds would probably be against him being another Fev but if he can up his endurance you never know. Darling took the next step by taking his running power up about three levels over one preseason. If Hourigan could do something similar he could be similarly effective.


24 Hawthorn

Hawthorn have been using Hodge and Mitchell a lot in the back half and they do need to prepare for when those two retire in the next year or two. Jones can come in and play in the back half early whilst earning his midfield stripes. The hope would be that he could end up as an inside midfielder which is a big area of need for the Hawks.

Zak Jones
DOB 15/3/95 Ht 183 Wt 76

If Zak does not go by the nickname of BON (brother of Nathan) I would be surprised. Everything you read will mention who his brother is and here I have as well. It is a selling feature for him and I guess when you are coming from as far back as he has this year you will use every advantage you can get. He was in the development squad for the Stingrays at this time last year and would have been long odds to be drafted let alone go pretty high. Personally I am not that enthused with him as a prospect but if ever there was a year to just go with the kid with the great attitude it was this year.

Jones got out and worked his butt off over the preseason last year and it worked, getting him games in the TAC and ultimately selected from Vic Country. Somewhat surprisingly he managed to pick up the Country MVP at the carnival and made the AA side. He gained a lot of confidence from the Champs and was a better player for it at TAC level. His disposal count went up almost 5 disposals a game to 20.4 and he averaged a very impressive 7.5 tackles per game on the way home. He ended up switching into the midfield by the finals series and was a very important part of the Stingrays run to the GF. On the TAC website he is listed to have played 13 games (I count 14 but what do I know) and to have been in the best on 9 occasions which is a pretty good ratio. The kid has improved enormously in the last year and there is probably no reason to think the rapid improvement will not continue for a while yet. It has just dawned on him that he can be as good as his teammates in the All Australian side and that kind of awakening can inspire a player to transform themselves.

I am not sure that he has that high a ceiling though. He has great attack on the ball but apart from that I am seeing a whole lot of average. Over the Champs he averaged 17 disposals which is a bit meh but went at 76% disposal efficiency which is very good at that level. What that stat hides though is the fact that he mostly just bomb the ball long whenever he gets it. He just directs the kick in the general direction of the player and does not seem to have much in the way of feel on his kicks. I have seen him turn and deliver a nice little worm burner but they are very much the exception rather than the rule. When he goes back over his mark his kicking seems better and he hits his targets much more often. When he is kicking on the run he often seems to do so at full pace and he might need to take his foot off the accelerator for a step and concentrate on the kick for a fraction of a second more.

Jones does play with good pace and whilst he is not particularly quick off the mark he does cover the ground well when he is up and going. At the Combine he was slow over the first 5m but came in with a reasonable 20m time and was quite good in the 30m repeat sprint finishing just outside the top 25%. He is not a burner but he does use what pace he has well. For some reason he did not do the beep test but he did finish in the top third in the 3km so his endurance is solid. I have to say I was a bit surprised he did not do better in the agility test. He was just below average in that but in game situations he tends to dance well in tight situations and is pretty evasive.

I am not sure what role he ends up playing at AFL level. Up to this stage he has played mostly as a small defender and that is likely to be where he gets his first opportunity at AFL level. He is tenacious defensively and works hard to negate his man when he is given a job. He is a good read of the play and shows good instincts about when to drop off and does well sweeping up spillages. His hands are reasonably clean below his knees and he collects and goes from those types of contests well. He is an above average judge of the ball in the air and is a good mark for a player of his size.

In the midfield I see there are two other options for him. Firstly he could end up a hardnut inside mid like his brother or secondly there is a fair chance that he could end up as a tagger. He did well as an inside player at the end of the TAC season and he does show some potential there but realistically he does not have much experience when compared to others. His attack on the ball is good, his clearance work solid and his tackling great but I am not sold just yet. He is pretty strong over the ball for his size but lacks bulk at the moment and can get flung around a bit. He keeps his hands free and will usually get a handball away but he does not have that great awareness of where everyone is around him that I like to see. As mentioned above he dances pretty well in tight but he does not hit the accelerator and go as some do but rather just buys himself time. It could easily work out for him as an inside mid but if it does it is going to take a couple of years.

As mentioned there is also a decent chance that he could make it as a tagger. He can go inside with his man and win his own ball but he does have a good defensive instincts and a very competitive mindset and he will not allow himself to be beaten. He will need to get bigger and up his engine but it would not surprise me if he did play as a run with player in the way that Matthew Boyd often did for the Bulldogs.

Boyd is the player that I would model myself on if I was Jones. Boyd started his career in the backhalf before moving to a runwith role and then becoming a genuine ball winner himself. If he could be half the player Boyd was he would be doing very well for himself.

 

[Quigley]

25 Brisbane

Brisbane love tall mid/flankers with elite endurance and that is exactly what they would get with Robertson. He can play through the middle of the ground or on a flank and his attack on the ball would be welcomed in the Lions team. This is in all likelihood quite a bit too high for Robertson but I would be prepared to take a chance on him around this point.

Nick Robertson
DOB 3/6/95 Ht 191 Wt 88

Do you think there will be any interest in an 191cm inside mid with furious attack on the ball who runs a 15 beep and is capable at either end of the park? Yeah when you put it like that it’s hard to see him slipping too far in a draft that drops off a cliff at about 30. Robertson missed the Champs this year and only managed 3 Colts games so he remains a guy that teams are going to have to take on faith a bit. He showed last year as a bottom aged player that he could excel at Champs level so it is probably not such a huge risk. I saw him last year but concede I have not seen him play this year so my write up is a little on faith as well.

The big issue for Robertson and the thing which will cause him to drop is the injuries that seem to forever plague him. He missed significant time as an under 16 with stress fractures in the back and has missed significant time both last year and this with shoulder problems. I understand he has had a couple of surgeries on his shoulders and repeated shoulder issues is something which can affect a player's development. I have heard Robertson compared to Beau Waters and they both have a similar attack on the ball and unfortunately for Robertson a similar history of their body not being able to handle his style of playing style. This is really my only significant issue with Robertson but it is quite a big one.

As mentioned above Robertson can play all over the park. Long term I see him as an inside mid though. As a package his attack on the ball is the only really standout feature but that does tend to set him apart from the crowd. He played in the midfield in the WA trial match earlier in the year and him being ruled out of the Champs was a big blow for the Sand Gropers. He reads the taps pretty well and reacts quickly but he is not one of those players who always seems to be in the right spot. He sees where it is going and will attack it then rather than already being moving to the spot where the ruckman will tap it to. His hands are similarly pretty good but I would not say they are elite for an inside mid. He is very strong over the ball and he uses his body really well to clear space. His balance is good and he is a pretty quick decision maker.

People often think he does not have particularly good agility but I do not think that is really the case. What those people see is his tendency to straight line the ball and try and use his strength to burst through packs and tackles rather than making much of an attempt to evade contact. He is a big powerful body and he gets up to full speed quickly and that makes him very difficult to handle in junior company. His top speed may not be massively high (it is okay) but over 10 metres he is quick. Admittedly he does not have much of a step but I think his change of direction is pretty reasonable and down back he shows a good ability to stay with his man. He does not have the smallest turning circle you will see with the ball in hand but I am not seeing a particular problem.

There are some people who really rate his kicking but more who think it is a bit of a weakness. Me I am probably a little bit in the middle and if you were comparing his kicking with many inside mids you would probably say it was pretty good relatively. He is a right footer who is capable off his left if needed. He is not a particularly long kick which might be why many do not rate his kicking but I think he evaluates situations quickly, takes good options and executes well. He is not a punching kick but nor are his kicks floaters. He will flatten them out with practice in the AFL and I do like that he has good touch on his kicks across a variety of distances. By hand he is solid and I have not really noticed it being a strength or weakness.

Earlier in the year he won the AIS time trial and when you have the likes of Kelly and Hartung for competition that is a very good effort. He ended up coming second to Kelly in the 3km at Combine and given the amount of time he has been out that is a pretty good effort. Earlier this year he also went over 15 in the beep but at Combine he only went mid 14s which is still pretty good but it is an indication that he was a little below his best. In the 20m he went in the 3.0s and showed pretty decent speed over 5m and 10m. He tested above average in the agility test which would have been encouraging for those who questioned this.

I expect Robertson to probably start his career as a flanker most likely in the back half. He is quite a good one on one defender and would match up well on resting mids or medium forwards who rely on their strength and endurance. He might struggle with really clever, quick agile forwards. His midfield work sees him have more composure in contested situations than many other flanker prospects. Coming out of defense he loves a run and he will challenge the forwards the other way.

From the highlights it looks like he played a fair bit of time in the Colts this year up forward. As a forward he uses his body very well and will be a bit of a load for a small defender to handle. He protects the drop zone very well and reads the ball in the air better than most. His set shot is solid and he seems like an accurate kick for goal. He is not goal hungry and will look to give off if there is a teammate in a better position than he is.

One area where he does need to improve is his outside game. He has the endurance to excel in this but at this stage he does not really spread as he should, with him preferring to work the corridor and stay where the action is. He needs to work hard to space and this does not seem very natural for him.

As far as best case scenario goes I could see him ending up as a Mundy type big inside mid with good ball skills but realistically he is probably more likely to be a Ryan Harwood type except bigger and with a better tank. With that said I would not rule out him becoming a tagger as he has the size, attack and endurance to trouble most players and it is entirely possible that he could become a Crowley type tagger. So yeah I am guessing here. He is a very interesting package of talents and someone is going to jump earlish to take him I think.

26 Essendon

Personally I think this is still too high for Lennon but I am getting him off the board so that I don’t have him hanging over the future picks with everyone saying – we would have certainly taken Lennon if he was there. Lennon would be a good pick up for Essendon playing as a HFF who could deliver it in nicely to their tall forwards. Thanks to Twomey he certainly has name recognition and there would be quite a bit of positive buzz if they picked him up.

Ben Lennon
DOB 5/7/95 Ht 189 Wt 80

Lennon has been a Twomey love child this year, putting out several articles telling us how great Lennon is and how he is a virtual certainty for the top 10, play anywhere on the ground, explosive, elite kick yadda yadda yadda. Well personally I do not see it. He looks like the typical second tier Metro kid who finishes the year well and then is talked up out of all proportion. A lot of people on BF have jumped onboard the Lennon love train and it is possible that I am wrong but if he is taken in the top 10 I am going to be shocked. This is not a case where I rate his tools a bit differently to others, I just do not see him having those tools to start with.

Let’s start with probably the big issue. Of the flanker/midfield groups he would sit firmly at or very close to bottom for athleticism and very real questions have to be asked about whether he has the athletic ability to play at AFL level most especially in his preferred HFF role. Let’s start physically. 189cm is pretty good for a midfielder but it is getting to be pretty average for a flanker and combine that with short arms and small hands and we are not off to a fantastic start in supposedly his strength area. Another thing which gets talked up is his explosiveness. Well he was bottom 20% (this includes rucks remember) over the first 5m of the 20m sprint and his back half was nothing out of the ordinary leaving him with a time in the 3.20 range. So pace and explosiveness are actually a weakness and not a strength. I will say that his repeat sprints were better but that only put him up into the average category.

I have seen show a good lateral movement to evade tacklers but I have also seen him get nailed by tacklers that I thought he should have been able to step around and so I was interested to see what he scored in the agility test. He tested in the bottom 5%. The only players who scored worse than him on the agility test were a few rucks and many rucks actually scored significantly better than he did. I will say that I was surprised with the result. I had a big range in my mind where he could go but bottom 5% was well below where I thought he would end up. Beep in the mid 13s was nothing to write home about and a bottom 25% in the 3km was disappointing. A lot of the highlights for Lennon are him taking nice marks so jumping was expected to be decent at the very least. Well he was bottom 10% in the standing vertical and below 50% in each of the running jumps.

If I am honest I will concede that these results surprised me a lot. I did not expect him to be a stand out athlete but I did think he was probably going to be above average. He obviously plays better than he tests but these sort of athletic deficiencies are often found out at AFL level when playing against guys who are just as smart as you are as a footballer and are much superior athletes. So even before we start to look at his game there are big question marks.

Okay onto his game and I hear a lot of talk about how great a kick Lennon is. Pin point passes over 50m to hit guys in stride on the chest. Well I have to say that I have missed those ones. I do think that Lennon is a good kick but I am not seeing him as being elite and it is probably a fair way from that. He does have good penetration and can hoof it 55m. His usual approach is to go with long or 3/4 kicks which are most often to contests. He does not tend to look to use short to intermediate targets as much as he should and will probably be instructed to lower his eyes more at AFL level. I do not rate his decision making or vision as being anything more than average for his position. He tends to take obvious targets which is not bad but I do not see him setting up play like Billings who played a similar role at the Champs. Around goals he could also be better and will miss goals you would like to see him get. He waves the ball a little in his set shot approach but nothing too bad. As with his field kicking he has good range and might actually be better further from goal where the pressure is on him a bit less.

Okay I have been very harsh on him up to this stage. What does he do well? Well his marking gets a lot of praise and I would tend to agree with that. I think his hands are good (but not great) and he uses his body excellently in marking contests. He is strong through the core and maintains focus and balance really well in body on body situations. He judges the ball in the air pretty well and marks most ball that come his way. With the ball on the ground he has really clean hands for a flanker and this gives him a bit more time to work with than others. He can swoop and collect at pace and make opportunities.

Lennon does have some class about him and good things do often happen when he is involved in the play. This is a little hard to explain but I think he has good football IQ about some things (reading the play, body work, positioning around goal) but I probably couldn't say that about everything (decision making, leading and passing lanes). In most games there will be a wow moment or two which really make you notice him - a spin move out of a pack, a swooping pick up and go etc.

Teams have wanted to see him more as a midfielder this year (you can probably hide athletic deficiencies a little more there) and credit too him that he stood up and put up some good numbers there in the TAC. He did not play a heap of games but averaged 25 disposals a game over the year and 28 disposals over the last 4 or 5 games when playing a lot of midfield time. He played as a half forward at the Champs and only managed 12.6 disposals per game which I did not think was a particularly good return. I particularly followed him in the SA game where he matched up on Scharenberg quite a bit and Scharenberg gave him an absolute bath. The difference in ability was very evident in that game and cemented for me that he was not in that class and definitely not a top 10 pick for me.

If I was looking at him I would be trying to develop him into a Sidebottom type midfielder who can go forward. Sidebottom is also not the most athletic player in the world and has a similar good but not great kick. Sidebottom's decision making are probably better than Lennon's but you would hope that would come. Lennon's clean hands also allow some prospect that he will develop a decent inside game as he gets more time on ball. I have been pretty harsh on Lennon but I have to stress that I actually don't mind him as a prospect. I just think talk of him being a top 10er should be way off base.


27 Gold Coast

With so much talent onboard they can afford to blow a pick on a high risk high reward type. With Brennan gone they can bring Marsh in as the tall flanker type and if he works that pace and height could give them another weapon in their arsenal. He would not be relied on to get a heap of possessions which would suit him.

Jonathon Marsh
DOB 17/10/95 Ht 193 Wt 89

Whenever anyone runs under 2.8 in the 20m that person gets a lot of attention but when that person also measured at 193cm and weighed 89kgs it is all the more impressive and noteworthy. This is not a little whippet but a powerful athlete who is actually not a terrible footballer. Teams are going to be looking very closely at him and thinking of ways that they could use his pace. I have heard Marsh talked up as a KPF in the Taylor Walker mode but any thought of that should be forgotten. Marsh is not a key position player. The player who he reminds me of a lot is Jack Watts who was also a tall who ran low 2.8s from memory at the Combine. Watts was a bit more slight and more polished but once he hit the AFL he has the same problem as Marsh is going to face - where do you play him?

Marsh is a very good all around athlete and he tested good to very good in the jumps and agility as well as excelling in the speed tests but he does have one very big hole in his armour and that is his endurance. He ran only mid 12s at Combine and that highlights the problem. In game situations he is very much a burst player at the moment and fades out of games too much. Personally I see him most suited as a winger at AFL level but he really does need to get his endurance up to an acceptable level and the question is whether he has in in him.

Up forward I have heard him described as soft by a WA guy I know but personally I do not see that. He seems willing enough to throw his body into contests. I think it is more that he doesn't handle bigger opponents well and tends to get overpowered. On those opponents he should be able to burn them off with his speed on the leads but he does not time his leads well or provide multiple leads that would free him up. He does not seem to have a natural feel for forward play. In marking contests his hands are below average and although he can go up strongly he spills the ball more often than not, especially with a bigger opponent on him. He really has tailored his game for these spillages though and he will recover quickly and gather the spillage and try and power away. Below the knee he is also not the cleanest and will fumble a bit.

Then there is his goal kicking. In the WAFL Colts this year he played 16 games and managed only 20 goals playing mostly as a forward. With those 20 goals came 39 behinds and that is pretty indicative of his kicking. He has a bit of an awkward set shot and he is 50/50 at best in those types of situations. I do not think he has particularly good goal sense either. Another issue for anyone thinking of taking him up forward is that he is fairly poor defensively and does not work both ways. He averaged less than a tackle per game in the WAFL Colts.

All of this leads me to believe he might be better up on the wing. His marking tends to be much better when he is matched up on smaller opposition. In those situations he has more area to work in and is more comfortable. He certainly would have a size advantage over most wingers he would match up on as well as a pace advantage. He loves to use his pace and tends to be a bit frenetic when he gets the ball, playing on quickly without really thinking or considering whether he should. He does not stop to assess what the options are, he just takes off and backs his pace to get him out of any uncomfortable situations. Think of the way Harbrow or Banfield play up the ground. He is quite strong through the hips and with his size, agility and pace he is a bit of a load to handle for most wingman.

His field kicking can be a bit hit and miss. He invariably goes long when he gets it and really needs to learn to lower his eyes and not just blaze away. I think quite a few of his issues could be addressed if he stopped trying to do everything at top pace. If he took an extra heartbeat to assess the situation, to pick out a target and even whether to run or not it would be a big benefit for his game. Taking that little bit of pace off would also allow him to balance a bit more and get his kicks going where they should. He does have good penetration on his kicks and with his pace he is a zone busting option.

The transition to the midfield will obviously be dependent on whether he can get his endurance up to an acceptable level. On this I do this it is positive that when he is in the game he is really involved and seems like a hard worker. If he is used to gut running, as his base endurance levels increase the ability to go through the pain barrier will help him get the most out of whatever level he achieves.

Another thing I like is that he seems to do the team things going forward. He will shepherd and block for his team mates and as a bigger bodied mid this would be very handy for springing the stars in his team. Marsh seems popular with his teammates and he celebrates others success and they celebrate his.

This kid is still very raw atm but he has the potential to be a real weapon if used correctly. In a relatively weak draft that gets him taken pretty highly I think. If your team picks him you are getting a cross between Jack Watts and Todd Banfield but what he ends up as is anyone’s guess.


28 Brisbane

What the hell do Brisbane have to lose? They have lost two draft classes of supposedly solid citizens. FFS just take the guy who is far and away the most talented player on the board and who is likely to be very thankful for the chance.

Dayle Garlett
DOB: 9/1/94 Ht: 180 Wt: 75

If you had any doubt that AFL recruiters look after their jobs fir stand foremost and are capable of group think as much as any of us you only have to look at them overlooking Garlett last year. There is absolutely no doubt that Garlett is an insanely talented player who last year had behavioural issues. The recruiters being risk adverse and wanting to protect their own arses black balled him. WTF are teams paying their player welfare departments and development teams millions of dollars for if they can’t handle one teenager with maturity issues? Gutless pure and simple. I hope Garlett explodes when he gets the chance and the football department heads put the heat well and truly on those guys who overlooked him. You could have gotten him for a rookie list spot last year you simpletons. In the risk/reward paradigm how was that not an investment every club should have been willing to take? Idiocy.

Anyway somewhat unsurprisingly the 18 year old kid from last year has grown over the last year. Gee whizz who would have seen that. He is still not the brightest star in the night sky and has an occasional lapse of judgment (like missing the Port interview at Combine) but he looks on track and has settled down a lot. He has a girlfriend and is doing a personal training course full time. EQ also reports that he has stopped smoking and drinking which has to be a big tick for any team looking at picking him up. There are some rumours again starting to float around with recruiters starting to try and justify again why he is not worth the risk but his Swan Districts coach has called all of those “absolute bull---t” and in general has massive wraps on Garlett. I know that one club thinks he has been less than completely honest with them and there are still issues there. So fricken what there are lots of these kids who are not saints and the industry seems to be coming down hard on this kid for some reason.

Garlett was shocked at being overlooked last year and quit football for about 6 weeks whilst he decided what he was going to do. He ended up returning to Swan Districts overweight and well behind the rest of the playing group. After a couple of early games in the reserves he went on to play 19 games in the WAFL as a HFF and returned an excellent 48 goals for the year. He had a virus over the last month or so of the season apparently but overall he had an excellent year averaging 16 disposals and 6 marks per game. He had some big bags of goals over the year with 1 lot of 6, 3 lots of 5 and 2 lots of 4. He will start his AFL career in that role and work into the midfield as he builds his tank.

It is his endurance which remains the biggest question mark for Garlett. After knowing what to expect at Combine and the shock of last year I did expect better returns on the endurance testing. It is a well known weakness and I had expected him to work on it. As it was he only managed a bit over 13 in the beep. Admittedly his 3k was better coming in just over 11 minutes. Despite my disappointment it is probably worth noting that his endurance testing is consistent with the results of Lennon, Acres, Franetic and Sicily all of whom will go either before or around where Garlett will go. It is possible that the virus that he had over the last month of the season took a bit away from his endurance base and if I was a team I would be looking at that.

In his other testing, he did pretty well in the jumps (a bit down on his results from last year), he was a tick over 3 in the 20m (same as last year) and he was in the top 10% in the agility test (a fair bit better than last year). Interestingly he actually weighed in lighter than last year and with still pretty ordinary skin folds despite a year in the WAFL. His capacity to put on bulk might concern teams a little.

What shouldn’t concern teams is his actual ability to play the game. For his size he is excellent overhead and when the ball hits the ground he is dynamite. He judges the ball off hands very well and his clean hands allow him to swoop and keep going at pace. He has excellent goal sense and he is a good finisher but not in the excellent category. He kicked 48 goals and 25 behinds in the WAFL this year.

Through the middle of the ground though is where I think Garlett’s future lies. He was the number one midfielder for WA at the Champs last year and the guy the others all looked to feed. He is more of an outside in player at the moment but his inside work is pretty good and, with his skill set, there is no reason to think it will not improve significantly with time played onball. He has great hands, ability to read the ball off hands and awareness of what is around him. Without the ball his spread is excellent and he works hard to get into a good position to receive. He would be up there with the best available this year in that regard. Another part of his game which is in the excellent category is his evasiveness when he has got absolutely no room to move. He will have three or four guys around him but they won’t lay a glove on him as he dodges and steps. What I also like is that he chooses wisely when to dance and when not to. If there is an option open he has the awareness to identify it and use it.

Garlett is left foot dominant and he has great touch on his kicks and a balanced and relaxed kicking style. He has reasonable penetration but he does most damage with the ¾ strength kicks that his great vision allows him to see and then hit. He can occasionally try to be a little bit too cute with his kicks and go for too much but with coaching I don’t see there being a problem going forward. He is capable on his right but tends to go long most often rather than picking out targets.

Garlett is a very damaging run and carry player. He gets into space and then uses his running ability, decision making and skills to really hurt teams. He has an elite burst of pace and can clear packs or shut down other runners very quickly. His top end speed may not be truly elite but with some more focus on it at AFL level it’s hard to see him being caught too often. As his endurance improves his ability to use his pace will increase and he should really shine. He is a very balanced mover but could use a little more strength in his core to get the most out of his skills inside.

One area where he must improve to get games at AFL level is with his defensive pressure. At the moment defensive chasing is simply not a feature of his game. He uses what endurance he has to run forward but once the ball is going the other way he loses interest and goes through the motions. I would compare him to Michael Walters before this year and if the light goes on like it did for Walters he has the skill set to be very good at chasing and putting pressure on.

Overall I think he will reward highly any team that takes him. This is a weak draft and to get a guy this talented in the area that teams will be able to pick him up is a massive win. He has Cyril Rioli talent levels and whilst he could be high maintenance at the beginning he could be a difference maker on the field. It would be sheer idiocy for him to miss out again.

 

[Quigley]

29 GWS


They picked up Mumford who will do okay in the short term but his body is already starting to break down and they need to secure a player who is actually going to be at the top of his game when they enter their window in 3 or so years. Lobb has the talent to be that guy and getting him here would be a bargain. GWS seem very reluctant to draft ruckmen but I am thinking that common sense should prevail at some stage.

Rory Lobb
DOB 9/2/93 Ht 206 Wt 96

If you wanted to draft someone who might develop into your number one ruck there are exactly zero under 18 rucks who I think will be up for it. There are a couple who could develop into decent 2nd ruck / KPFs but as far as pure rucks go this is the weakest draft I have ever seen for junior talent. I am someone who usually overrates the rucks and has them going high but not this year. Lobb as a young mature ager looks like the stand-out option and that is largely based on potential given he has played so little.

Lobb has come from a basketball background and had not played AFL for 5 or 6 years. He has never done a pre-season and started the year in the WAFL reserves before eventually forcing his way into the Swan Districts firsts just before midseason. He ended up playing 12 games in the WAFL and averaged 12.4 disposals and 24.2 hit outs per game. He has been coming on in leaps and bounds over the course of the year to such an extent that there has been talk of GWS or Sydney taking him in the first round. The Swan Districts coach, Greg Harding, never one to miss a chance to talk up his players, is a massive rap for the young bloke and seems to rate him very highly.

Lobb is a raw ruck prospect who I think could end up playing a lot like Mike Pyke. He has great size at a tick under 206cm and has a frame that looks like it will hold some muscle as he develops. His bottom half is already reasonable but his upper half needs some work. He had the longest arms measured at Combine and big hands as well. In addition to his size he also has great athleticism for a ruck.

Although he didn’t do the endurance testing at Combine he reportedly ran a 10.15 time trial for Swan Districts which would have put him just outside the top 10 had he ran that at Combine. The only testing he did was the jumps which were poor to average and the 20m which was actually pretty impressive. He was in the top 15% over the first 5m which for someone his size is immense. He ended up with a time in the mid 3.0s which is pretty good for a ruck.

He uses his pace and endurance pretty well in game situations. He gets around the park nicely and when a burst of speed is required he brings it out although I have noticed his pace less often when he was up forward for some reason. In the ruck he recovers very quickly and involves himself in the contest and he is quite good, being very clean below the knees for a guy his size. A standout feature for me though is once the ball leaves the contest he does not just stand around or amble in the general direction of the ball he actually bursts away and will flow forward. As he develops more this feature of his game is going to create opportunities to be involved in the play and to pick up goals. Even at AFL level such a move will be effective and most rucks will have trouble going with him.

In the ruck contest itself he prefers to work in situations where he can run at the ball even if he starts behind. He is reasonably effective playing this way in the WAFL but I don’t see it working nearly so well in the AFL. As far as tap work goes he is as far from a finesse ruck as you are likely to see. He gets his hand on the ball and basically shoves it to where he wants it to go and he will go through any opposition hand that might be on the ball. Given his height and arm length I could see this technique working well for him at AFL level as well. He sacrifices a bit of height but once he gets it it is going his way.

Around the ground he is not a big factor at the moment and needs work on where to run to receive. He is a pretty good long target though for hit and hopes or kicks ins. He marks it a little on top of his head but he has good hands and judges the ball better in the air than you would expect from someone who has so little experience in the game. This is an area where he has apparently improved a lot over the year.

He is also an improving target up forward where his size and marking ability make him a handful for most key position defenders. The problem for them is not just that he is so big, it’s also that, like in the ruck contest, he recovers so quickly and is better below the knees than a man of his size should be. He seems to have reasonable goal sense and from a spillage is capable of balancing and getting ball to foot quickly.

He has a nice balanced approach to his set shot but holds it a little high and given his height that means it has to fall a fair way. Despite that his set shot seems fairly effective and he is a decent finisher when he gets the chance. Around the ground he is a bit of a typical ruck with only modest skills. He goes short most often with little chips and doesn’t bite off more than he can chew. By hand he works pretty well in close but he is very ugly over anything more than about 3 metres.

Lobb seems like a good prospect to me although the talk of him going in the top 25 is overpaying especially considering Grundy went at 18 last year. There is a massive gulf between Grundy and Lobb at this stage of their careers and Lobb is a much greater risk of busting. Still if you needed a ruck this year there is not much choice and it is basically Lobb or no-one.


30 North Melbourne

I think North could use a bit of class with the ball in hand and Merrett should give them that.

Zac Merrett
DOB 3/10/95 Ht 180 Wt 77

Merrett has the potential to be the best kick to come out of this draft and for that reason I am putting him reasonably high (originally I did have him higher FWIW). He gets compared to his brother a lot and whilst I can see some definite similarities I think Zac is the better prospect. I just think he has the potential to operate at a higher level and for longer than his brother. I think Merrett has a very high ceiling and there are not many from the second round on who have that kind of potential to be an elite player. Chances are he will not get there but the potential is there.

There are times in games when Merrett brings out kicks that would do Daniel Rich proud. He does not quite have the penetration of Rich but he does have the same kind of ability to drill low pinpoint passes that can tear a team apart. His penetration is reasonable and he can kick goals from 50 without any drama. His kicking is best when he has time and space and when that is the case he has massive hurt factor on his disposals. When under pressure his kicking does drop away a bit and sometimes he does bite off more than he can chew with his kicks. He is a natural left footer and is pretty good on his non-preferred when he has a bit of time. He does not always get fully balanced when he kicks and though these regularly come off at junior level they are going to get picked off at AFL level. His disposal efficiency is not as high as it should be given his obvious skills but he has an obvious weapon that teams will be keen to utilise once they have him in their system.

Merrett plays as an outside in midfielder and I think suffers a little bit from having Kelly and Freeman in his team. If those guys weren't there then I think Merrett would have had more opportunity to shine and garner attention. As it is he still managed to average 25.5 disposals a game at TAC level which is no mean feat with those two ball poachers floating around. He managed a decent 18.4 disposals a game at the Champs for Country and I think it is fair to say that he is capable of finding the ball albeit his disposals can tend to be fairly anonymous little handball chain types.

Merrett's inside game is often listed as a weakness and personally I think this is overstating it. Whilst he is not an inside specialist by any stretch I think his inside work compares pretty favourably to most of the outside mids going around this year. He is strong in the contest and if the ball comes his way he is does pretty well getting it out to advantage. There is definitely some skills to build on there and he has the potential to develop into an all around midfielder.

Athletically, Merrett tested pretty average across the Board at Combine. His agility and endurance were on the poor side for a midfielder and his endurance in particular will need to improve in order to get games at AFL level. His speed results were above average but not by a heap and given speed is a feature of his game they were a little disappointing. One thing which was evident was that he was a quite slow over the first 5 metres and really picked things up in the back half of the 20m. So it looks like he has well above average top end speed but he could use a little work on his explosiveness out of the blocks. His hand span and arm length were both on the very small size. I am not sure how much that is taken into account but anytime your handspan is below 20cm it probably should be noted.

Personally I see Merrett starting his AFL career in the back half where he can be fed the ball in space and given a bit of time to use his kicking skills. He also likes a bit of run and carry and with his speed and leg he can be a zone buster. His agility is a little bit of a worry in one on one situations as is his height and jumping in marking contests. Still, he probably has the pace and strength to hold his own with a bit of coaching. I would hope that he could be a set up player at the back like Hodge often is for Hawthorn and he has that kind of leg on him.

Defensively he is a bit of a mixed bag. He tends to be quite good in contested situations at shutting down the player with the ball and he averaged 5 tackles a game at the Champs in those shortened quarters. He averaged about the same or a little bit more than that at TAC Cup level as well so the kid knows how to tackle. He is a bit of an arm, rather than shoulder, tackler but he does pin the ball carrier's arm well so it’s hard to say there are too many things wrong there. On the negative though he is not the biggest chaser getting back defensively and this is something which will need to be worked on. This could be a function of his endurance not being particularly high but whether it is for that reason or for simple lack of application he will need to improve.

If you took Merrett's kicking out of the equation he would be a very average prospect but that potential ability alone really does set him apart. If your team is looking to inject some skill into your team then I would be looking at this kid. He needs to up his consistency and improve his tank but if does that I think he could be a very important player in a good team.


31 West Coast

WC supporters are always saying that they need to get more speed into their team and they could certainly do that taking Byrne-Jones. He has great speed and the endurance to make the most of it on the wide open spaces of Subi. If the Eagles want to up with the Jones down the road in Fremantle they could do worse than take a punt on Byrne-Jones.

Darcy Byrne-Jones
DOB 20/9/95 Ht 181 Wt 70

Byrne-Jones came from the clouds this year after getting a gig with Oakleigh out of a regional trial match. From there he has steadily improved as the year progressed until now when he is one of the more interesting prospects in this draft. He played at the Champs for Metro and was solid averaging 14 disposals per game. He seemed to grow and extra leg after that with it dawning on him that he could as good as the guys he was playing with and against. He finished the year really strongly in the midfield for Oakleigh and ended up averaging 21 disposals per game over his 7 TAC games.

What is going to get Byrne-Jones picked and what makes him such an interesting prospect is his athleticism. He was the star of Combine and he tested fantastically well across the board. He finished second in the repeat sprint (24.06), 5th in the agility test (8.15), 6th in the 3km (10.00), 10th in the Beep (15.15) and was just a smidge outside the top 10 in the 20m and the running jumps off both legs. That is a freaking awesome performance across the board and whilst the recruiters often do not pay a huge amount of attention to these results a performance like that from a lesser known player will make them sit up and pay attention. More particularly the coaches who would not have paid a huge amount of attention to the prospects before this would be enquiring about him. Before the Combine I thought he would be lucky to get an opportunity but I underestimated his athleticism and I cannot see him being overlooked now.

Whilst Byrne-Jones is a better athlete than footballer he is, by no means a bad footballer, it’s just that he is a superior athlete. He played a fair bit of time early this year as a small defender and he showed a nice defensive attitude. He is very capable of keeping his man quiet and showed a nice spoiling ability. He can get caught out of position every now and then but his pace allows him to close down dangerous situations. He is not a great read of the play in front of him and does not really drop off his man to help out much. For someone as slight as he is he actually has good strength and handles more solid guys pretty well. If he has to go shoulder to shoulder he will usually win and this is unusual for a guy who is 70kgs wringing wet.

What teams will love whether it is in defense or through the midfield is his ability to clean up messes. He is quick and determined and he can give guys a 10m start and still beat them to the ball. He can sustain the run and his closing speed is probably better than anyone else's in this draft. At junior level you don't see a lot of midfielders impact a game defensively in space. Byrne-Jones is one who will do that. He will run down opponents through the middle of the ground and opponents will kick to a teammate figuring Byrne-Jones is too far away and suddenly he is there making a play on the ball. He doesn't do this too much at the moment but he does it enough that teams are going to figure he could be a weapon in the middle of the ground.

He played a bit of time on ball for Oakleigh but he is quite a long way from doing that at AFL level. He will start either at the back or on the outside where he can use his run. When he goes inside he is not terrible and with work could be serviceable but he is not there atm. His hands are quick when he gets it but he is not very clean and that delay in securing the ball puts him under pressure. He is quite composed in contested situations generally and doesn't really panic but when you are his weight you don't really want to give the opposition too many shots at you. His handballing is not strong and tends to be a bit loopy and lacking in zip. Why a team might like the idea of getting him more involved inside as he develops is because he is explosive and can clear contest and be away before teams can adjust.

Byrne-Jones can stop and change directions really well but he is not the most elusive runner in the open field. He tends to just try and run around a player and does not really sell the jinks or swerves that he tries. He is scragged surprisingly often by guys he is going past. Things will only get harder in this regard when he gets to the AFL and has bigger, quicker and smarter opponents.

By foot, Byrne-Jones is solid but not a heap more than that. It looks like he has working on his kicking quite a bit as the style tends to vary on occasions. Sometimes his style is a work of art and at others, well, it’s not. Byrne does execute well at pace and seems to take decent options. This is important for assessing his run and carry's likely effectiveness at AFL level. He uses chips of varying length most often but has reasonable penetration when he brings that out. When he goes long it seems to invariably be to a contest.

Overall I like the attitude he brings to his game. He seems a competitive beast who doesn't mind mixing things up despite giving away kilos. He is never going to be a big guy but that attitude will stand him in good stead at AFL level. With his size, athleticism and skill set I think he projects to be a Danyle Pearce type player at AFL level with a more physical style.


32 Sydney

With quite a bit of height going out of the Swans this year and over the next couple (Mattner, LRT, Ted Richards, Everitt) the Swans need to start getting a few more live bodies in there. The situation is pretty good really with the likes of Johnson in there and Reid available to move into defense. X and Marsh might also do okay. Still I would be taking a couple of tallish defenders in this draft and Cutler is one I think they would look at if he was available here.

Tom Cutler
DOB 20/2/95 Ht 192 Wt 84

I have to say Cutler was not really on my radar at all until Emma Quayle stated that he should be picked up so I had a bit better look and decided to include him. I certainly was not thinking of putting him anywhere near the first round like Brett Anderson did when he slotted him going to GWS at 14. I realise that Gubby Allen is not a terribly bright man but really, 14??? If he did go that high it would be another pick where the rest of the competition thank god for the incompetence of the GWS drafting team.

So why might he be worth a first rounder? Well I think the people that are rating him highly have been in love with him since last year. Last year he actually did look like a first rounder and he was named as an AIS scholarship holder. This year though he has really done nothing that says pick me. If he was in WA there would be accusations of him being hidden away. He played only 2 Champs games and 1 TAC game this year and he averaged only 13 and 11 disposals respectively. So suffice it to say that he was not a big possession winner this year. He actually got more of it in the TAC last year when he averaged 16.7 disposals per game.

Another question is what position he is going to play. He has played forward and back and through the midfield. He has also played as a flanker and as a pseudo key position at times. Most people see him as a back flanker and I am going to agree with that. He does not have the height to play key position and whilst he might someone float over to play as a third tall generally I do not think he plays to his height. He is a good mark but when he does not get a jump I think he has trouble dealing with guys his height or more. He has a nice frame to put bulk on but he does lack a bit of strength.

Cutler's is commonly thought of as an excellent kick but personally I have not thought his kicking was anything of positive note and that is not just because he only managed to go at 36% in his disposal efficiency in his TAC game. I think that game was an aberration but generally I think his kicking finds targets but he is not a particularly damaging player. He takes safe short options a lot and rarely does he put guys away. By hand he similarly generally hits his targets but lacks the zip to get the ball to his man and allow him time to get away. So in my opinion his skills are solid and he hits his targets most often but he lacks the hurt factor of the guys I would consider elite.

In game situations Cutler has some real pace when he puts his foot down. The thing is though that he does not put down his foot all that much. He is very much a short burst player at the moment and mostly he tends to cruise around at half pace. At combine he ran a 2.93 20m which demonstrated excellent pace for someone his size but the contrast with his 30m repeat sprint was stark. In the 20m he was in the top 10% but in the repeat sprint he was below 50%. His beep test was quite poor for the position he is slated to play and I think the lack of endurance affects his ability to sustain his pace. His running jumps were not good as I was anticipated finishing just above the bottom third but on the other side of the coin I was surprised at how well he did in the agility test. I thought he was below average as far as elusiveness goes and his agility score just below the top 25% surprised me.

Cutler reads the ball well in the air and shows good judgment about whether to mark or spoil. When he goes for the mark his hands are strong and despite not scoring particularly high in the jumps he marks it nice and high. Having a look he does have particularly long arms so I guess that helps him get above those he is competing against. When he goes forward he can take a mark but he is not a big leading target. Above the head his hands tend to be pretty good but below the knees I would suggest they are below average for a flanker type.

His set shot style is a little unconventional with him tending to pull the ball a bit to the left on his approach but he does straighten up in his last stride and seems to kick straight through the ball. Overall I think his set shot should be fine and he could be a dangerous option up front if plays time up there. His pace and defensive ability would certainly be handy and he can kick a goal if needed.

To tell the truth I did have quite a bit of trouble coming up with someone to compare him to. I think he will become more solid than a lot of guys like Embley and Mackie who are two I hear him compared to a bit. In the end I have gone with Steve Morris who is a bit shorter but I think Cutler has a similar type of attitude and like Morris I don't see him ever being a particularly high possession winner. Cutler might be a nice defensive piece filling out the bottom half of your 22 but I struggle to see him having the ceiling to be worth a first round pick. Second of third rounder perhaps but if I am spending a first rounder I want someone who can excel and I am not seeing that with Cutler.

 

[Quigley]

33 Brisbane

Continuing to build the midfield group I have gone with a guy that should not be expecting to play AFL next year and they can stash him away and get a year of angst free development into him. Hewett is as young as they come in this draft and has quite a bit of potential and would be worth a punt here.

George Hewett
DOB 29/12/95 Ht 185 Wt 74

I think teams have pegged Hewett as a guy who might be a good get later in the draft. He was interviewed by 10 teams at the Combine which shows the level of interest in him. I don’t think it is because he is likely to go high more so that they might have been hoping he would be overlooked a bit and would drop to them. With a 29 December birthday he is the youngest player in this draft and is almost a year younger than quite a lot of the other players out there. I think that needs to be considered when assessing his development potential especially as a midfielder.

Hewett played a lot of time onball at the Champs and was decent with 16 disposals per game without really standing out. He was overshadowed by the likes of Dunstan, Aish and probably McKay as well but he was not disgraced. The role he played was not one I expected but I do think it probably helped highlight his potential as an all round mid to recruiters. Playing a more inside role he showed reasonable ability inside. He did tend to be a bit stationary at contests or not attacking the ball. He was scragged regularly when he received the ball inside and whilst he showed a good swimming action to keep his arms free he was regularly under pressure. In those situations he did remain composed and didn’t panic which again is a good indicator. For a guy who was giving away weight to most of his opponents I also thought he showed good ability to keep his feet and pretty decent balance.

Hewett is not the best read of the taps but was reasonable and when he get the ball his handballing in tight was pretty good. Another thing working more inside showed was a decent tackling ability. He was not a big tackler in the SANFL U18s but at the Champs he averaged a very decent 3.4 tackles per game and showed reasonable technique. One thing I was disappointed about with his Champs performance was his lack of spread. For a guy who has played a lot of time on the outside and has pretty good endurance he did not get to space nearly enough. He averaged as many contested possessions (8) as uncontested possessions (8) whilst this ratio is massively in favour of uncontested possessions at the SANFL U18 level. If he could have combined his usual ability to rack up uncontested possessions with the inside game he showed at the Champs I think we would be talking about him going much higher than we are.

At SANFL level he averaged 24 disposals per game splitting time between half forward and the midfield. He was given some time in the reserves and did okay but according to his coach they didn’t want to throw him to the wolves given his fairly light build. On his body shape I think he has a frame which will support a fair bit of bulk as he develops and I am not worried about him weighing only 74kgs atm. As mentioned above he attended the Combine but like many SA kids he did not test. He subsequently attended the State Screening and only tested for the beep test for some reason. He was one of the few who attended the State Screening to go over 14 but unlike the others he did not have the excuse of doing all the other testing in the same day. Still 14 is a very solid result and certainly indicates that there is a bit to work with.

I would have liked to see him test for pace as it is a question mark for me. There are times where his pace seems fine but generally I think he does not play with great speed. When he puts in he can seem to get away quickly but it does not seem a common feature of his game. It is pretty similar with his elusiveness. He will occasionally make a guy miss with a nice step but in general play he tends not to get around players particularly easily and inside he gets scragged a lot. It could be the case that he is a player who is regularly tired in game situations and so is not able to use his talents often enough and as his endurance improves it will become more of a feature of his game. Then again it might not. I really don’t know at the moment.

As mentioned he played a fair bit up forward in the SANFL U18s as a high half forward. He could start up there at AFL level but personally I do not see him in that role long term. I don’t think he is a particularly dangerous forward and lacks a bit of goal sense. He will pick up a goal here or there but generally they are generated by run rather than forward craft. Still with teams liking to blood young mids up forward he will have some appeal given the work he has done there.

How high you take Hewett I think depends on who you are comparing him against. He is closer in age to this year’s bottom aged group and if you compare him against those players he had an excellent year and would be considered a very good prospect. If he was born 3 days later he would not be in this group at all but would have to wait to next year. If you take the mindset that he is a bottom aged player who needs to be put away for a year of development then it could really pay off.



34 Brisbane

Seeing as they lost 3 or so back flankers it is fair to assume that the Lions might well grab one or two who could play that role. Wasley-Black is one guy I like a lot and he does fit the mould for a typical Lions pick (tall with good endurance). He probably goes lower than this on the day but with his talent level he probably shouldn’t. Being an NT guy there is not go home factor which should be a consideration for the Lions after what happened this year.

Errin Wasley-Black
DOB 20/1/95 Ht 189 Wt 80

After about pick 30 this year there is a significant drop off in talent I think. There are guys who will make it through hard work and those who slip through the net but, as far as obvious talent goes there are not many. Wasley-Black did not have a great season all things considered but all things are relative and I think expectations were very high because he has so much talent. He only averaged 15 disposals a game at the Champs and 14 in the NEAFL. Those numbers are not terrible especially in senior company in the NEAFL and if you watch him play you can see there is potential there for much more. Hell Tom Cutler has looked half the player Wasley-Black has this year and Inside Football has him going in the first round.

Wasley-Black moved from his home in Alice Springs at the end of last year to further his football career with the NT Thunder and has been working all year. He lives with some other Thunder players and is not a kid teams are going to need to introduce to independent living. He has gone through those growing pains already and has more of an idea of what to expect. Having had to actually work for a living he is probably going to appreciate the freedom that getting paid well to play football will give him. He has stated numerous times that he doesn’t care where he has to go to play football.

An AIS member, Wasley-Black was touted as a top 20 player by Twomey early in the year and looked on track for that after a great start to the year. He was going great guns in the NEAFL and picked up a Rising Star nomination in round 6 and was named as the best player for NT in at least one other game I can recall. Through the middle of the year though he started to bulk up his somewhat light frame and quickly got up to 85kgs. The rapid weight gain, which was not muscle, adversely affected his game through the Champs and at NEAFL level and also was said to be the cause of the shin splints he suffered at this time. After getting some advice from his AIS mentors that he was looking slow and his running was being affected he then tried to strip the weight off and he was down to 80kgs by Combine.

At Combine he tested pretty well. His endurance was back up to good levels and he ran a mid 14s beep and his speed had also returned with him running in the mid 2.9s for the 20m. His repeat sprint was not as good as I head expected given he is a good combination of speed and endurance but he was still just outside the top third of those tested. His mediocre agility and jumping also surprised me given he seems to play with both good evasiveness and spring. This is a kid who rucked at stages for NT at the Champs and is a regular third up guy in the NEAFL. Whatever though I love the combination of speed and endurance that he has and that opens up a wide range of options for him as far as position and should allow him to play early in his career.

Wasley-Black has played most of his football, until this year, as a half forward or midfielder but was moved to a back flank this year and I think that is where we will see him play at AFL level, at least at the beginning of his career. He has the game to move up onto a wing down the track but early on I am expecting him to play as a HBF. Wasley-Black seems to have good defensive instincts and is a player who knows when to drop off and when to stick on his man and similarly when he should punch and when he should mark. He controls his punches well and keeps them in the area nicely where he can recover quickly and follow up or his teammate can do similarly. His judgment of the ball in the air is a strength of his.

He has nice height for a flanker and is capable of playing on taller or shorter players. I note his Thunder coach really rates his use of the body both in the air and on the ground and I tend to agree. When you combine all that with very good pace and endurance he is not easy to beat one on one.

Offensively I would have liked to see him get more of the ball but that is about the only thing wrong with his offensive game. He is an excellent user of the ball most particularly by foot. His is a left footer who has a classic, casual style that lets him hit is targets across all ranges. He has good feel on his kicks and the ball gets there quickly with a fairly low trajectory. Watching at the Champs I thought he didn’t always take the most attacking options but I guess that might have been a function of his confidence in his teammates. He did have some DE% issues on occasions in the NEAFL but they could easily be attributed to the slippery Darwin conditions. Personally I rate his kicking skills very highly and think he is the kind of user of the ball that teams want to get into their backline.

When he takes off and runs he looks at his best. He has a loping style and combined with his excellent kicking skills he will be able to break zones apart at the next level if he can get the ball in space. This is where he looks like a class apart from other options likely to go around him in the draft. He has excellent balance and does not run himself into trouble.

As far as comparisons go I think he could be a Robert Murphy type player. I expect him to play his best when he is not carrying much weight but like Murphy that should nor really prevent him from impacting on games. I am not sure he will be able to impract up forward like Murphy can but he has the combination of skill, speed, marking ability and run and carry that Murphy has.



35 Sydney

Favretto is the kind of player I see Sydney taking. Not really high profile but with some really good numbers behind him and features which set him apart from the others that might be considered here. He is also the type who probably already accepts that he is going to need to work up through the reserves which is very much the Sydney way.

Nick Favretto
DOB 19/5/95 Ht 188 Wt 88

Favretto was one guy I had been hoping to see at the Champs this year but for some reason he was only given one game and that was against Qld. Personally I thought there were quite a few less talented guys who got games ahead of him and I would be interested to hear the reason if anyone knows. Favretto tore up the SANFL under 18s averaging 34 disposals a game and was a consistent 20 disposal per game performer in the reserves. He ended playing most of the year in the reserves but made his debut for West Adelaide in the SANFL in the final game of the season and returned a very solid 18 disposals.

Favretto is an outside in player who gets a lot of uncontested possessions but he has been spending more time onball and has been slowly improving his inside game. He does not read the taps particularly well at the moment but he is a big body around the ball and when he gets the ball he can explode out of the contest. With the ball in hand he seems to have good awareness of what is around him and although his hands are not particularly quick he does get the ball away well to good options. He is not a big tackler but again he is improving and I think he recognises that this is an area where he has to get better at. He is a little slow to react in close to both the ball being available and the opponent getting the ball.

One of the features of his game is his excellent speed and particularly his elite pace off the mark. What makes this even more of a weapon is that when you look at him he doesn't look like someone who would be quick. He is fairly tall with a solid build and opponents tend to expect him to be plodding along and before they know it he is running away from them. He recorded an excellent 2.92 at the State screening and showed really good pace over the first 5 metres. Combined with good pace he also has good agility for a larger guy and package all that with an excellent step he can be very difficult to handle if you are trying to tackle him.

With the ball in hand he backs his pace and is confident enough to bounce it with someone on his hammer. He runs good lines and has shown an ability to get open with ease, particularly at SANFL under 18 level. On the run he executes okay if he has the ability to reduce his pace a little bit. If he is going at full pace though he is a bit of a scatter shot. Generally if he marks and goes back over his mark he is a very good kick. When he has time he is a good kick including delivering into 50. He can lead a man well and has a good quick low kick when he brings it out. When he is under pressure he doesn't so much miss targets as take easier ones. His hurt factor goes down a lot when he is pressured. Still I think his base kicking skills are pretty good and are a solid foundation upon which build.

Favretto is capable of playing off both a back or forward flank and in the SANFL reserves he was generally good for a goal a game. Up forward he is not really a flyer but he can lead strongly and with his pace he can get separation which allows him to run onto the ball. When he gets a shot he is reasonable at converting his chances. He can put it through from 50 off one or two steps and this kind of penetration makes him dangerous. His set shot technique is a little variable and sometimes he gets a bit side on with his approach. Generally though he is a pretty good set shot.

One the big question marks for him though is whether he has the tank to be truly effective at AFL level. He managed to record a beep test of just over 12 at the State screening which although the testing format does not encourage high beep test results his result would concern teams looking at him. I think he is probably going to need a couple of off-seasons to build up his tank and accordingly I would not be expecting him to see next year.

There is quite a bit of potential in Favretto I think. He will be a high risk high reward type but I am sure some teams are willing to take a punt on a big bodied mid with excellent speed and reasonable skills. At lower levels he plays a bit like Brent Stanton.


36 Geelong

I originally had Lang in the 50s but thinking about it he makes a huge amount of sense here and I think would be a good chance to be taken at 36 by Geelong in the real thing. Lang is a local Geelong boy who suits their needs to restock their midfield group.

Darcy Lang
DOB 21/11/95 Ht 183 Wt 75

Lang gets talked up quite a bit but it is worth remembering that he was one of the midfielders that took Vic County to exactly zero wins against division 1 opposition this year. He is a tier 3 talent who relies on his TAC reputation as a quality midfielder to overcome a failure to play to expectations at the Champs. I would have been happy to leave him out but it is looking like he is going to be picked up so I figured I would give my thoughts on him.

Whilst I do not think he has done anything to set himself apart from comparable talents from other States he is not a bad player by any means and I can understand the Victorian teams maybe taking a punt on him without any go home factor if he actually works out. Lang is an outside in midfielder who averaged 19 disposals per game at the Champs before his injury and 22 disposals per game in his 7 TAC games. He broke his leg and dislocated his ankle in his last game at the Champs and that put him out for the year. I do not think his injury has hurt his chances of being drafted. He has shown good commitment to his recovery program and there have been no complicating factors. So he has a solid body of work from earlier in the year and should be right to do a full albeit modified preseason program. He has shown a good attitude through adversity and did not drop his head at all. Teams will like that.

On the park he is a bit of a mixed bag. He is a nice kick and he had a reasonable DE% in both the TAC and at the Champs. He doesn't play with a lot of penetration but he operates within his range really nicely. He has a relaxed kicking style particularly in space and generally has good feel on his kicks. He is capable of drilling a good low kick to his target if it is called for although he does not use it too often atm. His kicking into 50 is one of the better features of his game and he leads his targets and kicks it to dangerous spots. He is a right footer and, although his technique is not picture perfect by any means, he is pretty good on his left. When he gets forward his set shot routine lacks a bit of fluency but seems to be reasonably effective. By hand he is solid but I do not think his hands are at the higher end of the spectrum as far as quickness goes.

Lang loves to get out and have a run and take a bounce when he can. He covers quite a bit of ground and doesn't mind getting behind the ball and providing run forward. One thing I have found odd is that despite being right handed he is a predominantly left handed bouncer of the ball. This makes things a bit awkward when he has to transfer his grip to kick off his dominant right foot and might cause a few issues at AFL level.

Lang is one of those players that cruises around a bit but has another gear when he puts his foot down. I am not sure he has a truly elite top end but he gets to top speed quickly he regularly catches players out. He has a very quick burst and he does use this consistently in game situations. He is not a big stepper or particularly tricky with the ball but he does have a decent body swerve when he is on the run and when he is up and going this does make him difficult to tackle. On the outside he needs to work to spread more effectively and finding dangerous space. I don’t think he has a natural feel for where and when to run. He is going to need to improve these aspects of his game as I do not see him having the tools to make it as an inside player at AFL level.

Lang played quite a bit of time onball at junior level and was not very effective and frankly if you struggle to win clearances as an onballer at junior level you have virtually no hope of winning them consistently at AFL level unless you have never played there and are learning a new position and that is not the case here. Lang simply does not read taps well and does not react quickly even when the ball is coming his way. He is a guy who wins his clearances atm by the law of averages i.e. if you stand around the ruck contests often enough the ball is going to come to you a couple of times a game. When he does get the ball he is usually flat footed and will try and get away a little handball. His hands although not particularly quick are pretty clean and he collects fairly well.

Lang will attack the ball carrier and tackle but lacks effective technique and often wastes effort after the ball has gone with stupid little flings or similar. The cheap shots which are a regular feature of his game have annoyed me when I have seen him play and if they continue he is going to be the pantomime villain for the supporters of 17 teams. Lang I think fancies himself as a hard man but most often he is just an idiot. I watched him match up on Sheed a couple of times at the Champs and try and be the enforcer and all he succeeded in doing was taking himself out of the contest and give away frees. There are hard guys at under 18 level but Lang is not one of them and he needs to forget about that if he wants to succeed at AFL level.

Athletically he seems okay but with his injuries he did not test at Combine. I don't think his agility is anything special but his pace is good and he does cover quite a lot of ground indicating that his endurance is solid. He improved his tank a lot from last year and whilst he might not ever be an elite runner I think he should have enough endurance to play through the midfield. Jumps wise I would be surprised if he measured very well in that area and he rarely gets off the ground when he plays.

Micky Turner (who has never had a player he wouldn’t pump up) as per usual talks up Lang to a ridiculous level but somewhat interestingly he rated him as the second best player at the Falcons this year. So I am assuming he has Taylor first which would mean he would rate him ahead of Gardner. More than anything that should be a warning of where to rate Gardner. Turner sees Lang as a quicker version of Jimmy Bartel. Good luck with that. Van Berlo is one who I thought of as a best case scenario. I would not rule out him turning into a tagger at AFL level.

 

[Quigley]

37 Fremantle

Freo need a forward target and there is a bit of a shortage in that area this year. Nankervis is a Fwd/Ruck and would present as good a forward option as they are likely to get at this stage. He is more mature than most other options and would give them a target that they could play around. He would not be their answer at FF but he could be a solid piece of their forward line post Pavlich.

Toby Nankervis
DOB 12/8/94 Ht 199 Wt 103

This was a really poor year for rucks at the Champs and for me Nankervis stands head and shoulders above the rest. It worth noting that he is a 19 year old and at the champs I managed to overhear a really interesting conversation about this from two recruiters who were sitting behind me at the NT game. One was of the opinion that he was 19 and should be dominating those less mature rucks and that he should be marked down for it. The other was going with the line that young bigs develop at different rates and Nankervis had just taken an extra year and you had to look at what he was doing now and lacking some of the exposure to elite programs there was still a heap of upside. With Nankervis I tend to side with the second recruiter. Assess what is in front of you and quite simply he was the best ruck prospect playing at the Champs this year and he had an AA place to prove it.

I know when I was young and playing football I played a couple of games against the younger kids and when I did that I always had supreme confidence that I could dominate against them and I always did. That is what it was like for Nankervis this year. He was supremely confident that he could dominate whoever played on him and he did. He gave away height to quite a few opposition rucks and speed to opposition KPDs but he was rarely beaten and over the course of matches I don't think he was beaten at all. He knew he was as good as anyone out there and went out and showed it.

One thing I have asked myself a lot is what whether Nankervis will primarily be a ruck or a forward at AFL level and I honestly have no idea. He is a bit undersized for a ruck but not overly so and his leap at the centre bounces and strength at the stoppages around the ground that should allow him to compensate. Mumford is only listed at 198cm and plays a very similar style of game to Nankervis. Nankervis's tap work is very good and he regularly gives his mids first use of the ball. When the ball hits the ground he recovers quickly and becomes another midfielder. With the ball on the ground he has very clean hands for a ruck and will win more than his fair share of clearances at AFL level. He is capable of getting the ball out quickly by hand but will take his time and back his strength if there is not an available option. One thing which is also impressive for a big guy is his ability to get boot to ball quickly. With all that said I think we are coming into an era of elite rucks and Nankervis is going to be toward the bottom of the pack in the ruck itself if you have him as your number 1 ruck. If he had played over the last 7 or 8 years he would have been mid pack or better but the group coming through is much better than those ending their careers about now.

One area where he will be better than most though is around the ground. He had Cox-like numbers around the ground at the Champs (21 disposals and 8 marks per game) and whilst I don't think he will be able to maintain those numbers at AFL level I do think he will be a very handy possession ruckman. He links up very well and presents as a marking target. When he gets the ball he is not your typical ruck and he has the skills of your average mid. He is composed with the ball and confident whether he is going by hand or foot. He has a relaxed kicking style which is improving all the time and allows him to find targets most often. Like an old fashioned ruck he also gets back into the defensive hole and acts as a loose defender who is a very good mark of the ball coming in.

Up forward Nankervis is a big physical presence who is a very capable goal kicker. Again like Mumford he is not the quickest forward going around but he uses his superior strength to push off and create initial separation and once he has got that step or two he is hard to get around. He marks the ball nicely out in front of his eyes and has a good set of hands. He is going to have to adjust to bigger and quicker KPDs at AFL level but at 199cm and over 100kgs he is always going to have the advantage and he has shown that he knows how to make good use of that advantage. When he leads he commits to it and goes hard. He runs good lines on leads but he does tend to lead to the non-preferred side for a left footer a bit too often. When he is in a wrestling match he uses his strength well to get the defender out of the way without giving away the free. His set shot is relaxed and with range out to 50 and it is worth noting that he was in the top 10 last year in the goal kicking test.

At the Combine he was a bit of a mixed bag in his physical testing but pretty commensurate or better than the other rucks tested. His running jump was good but his standing vertical was terrible. His speed was poor but not terrible (about the same as Apeness) but his agility was the second best of the ruck group. His beep test was in the 13s which made him one of the better rucks and his repeat sprint again although relatively poor was decent for a ruck. One of the things which I see as a bit of a positive is that his skin folds were about 4th worst of anyone. That tells me there is potential to improve speed etc as he converts fat to muscle. This is not a kid that was at peak fitness for these tests. He has a reasonable base from which to work from relative to his peers and will certainly improve significantly just going through a standard AFL preseason. Nankervis himself has identified his repeat sprint work as something which he needs to improve and his forward work would certainly benefit if he could.

To me he is not quite a number 1 ruck nor a true FF prospect but as a forward/2 ruck he could be one of the best. If you team has an elite ruckman and could use a very useful forward who would give most 2nd rucks a bath he is your man.


38 Hawthorn

Small running mid that could step in and take the spot vacated by Savage in the top 25. Hartung is likely to go earlier than this on the day but personally I do not think he is nearly as good as some think and I certainly would be disappointed if my team used a first rounder on him.

Billy Hartung
DOB 24/1/95 Ht 176 Wt 67

Hartung is one guy I have conflicting emotions about. Some things I like a lot and others leave me very wary of him. I think there is little doubt he is going to play AFL football and probably a lot of it but at the standard of that football is where the questions are.

Since he smashed the beep record with his 16.6 the cat is well and truly out of the bag as to his running. He is an elite junior runner and whilst he may need to adjust a bit to the superior runners he will face at AFL level his running ability is such that he will always amongst the top runners in the competition. Still it takes more than being an elite athlete in order to make it at AFL level and that running power needs to be used effectively.

Hartung showed a good ability to find the ball at TAC level averaging in the high 20s for most of the year including in the finals. He was less successful when the class went up at Champs level though and that might concern the clubs a bit. He only averaged 16 disposals a game playing on a wing for Country. He faded in and out of games quite badly and whilst he was around the ball a bit he was invisible for large periods. I found it interesting that people had him tagging Aish (I didn't notice that myself but I accept it as being true) and that could be one reason for his disposals numbers being a bit down. Personally though I thought he was very average at the Champs and not deserving of the All Australian honour that came his way.

I watched him last year at the Champs and I think he has improved his kicking a fair bit but there still remains plenty of room for improvement. He occasionally delivers a nice, low, punching kick but too often his kicks are to no real advantage. He is probably a better long kick than short to intermediate where he still misses targets too much. I have some game notes where I say he seems to have decent penetration and others where I comment that he lacks penetration, so let’s go with that he has been inconsistent in his ability to generate penetration with his kicks. It looks to me like he has worked pretty hard on his kicking and given the improvement so far there is no reason to think that he will not continue to get better.

By hand though he is still a disaster. I didn’t see any of his end of year work in the TAC but if the Champs are a true indication he would be the worst handballer in the draft. He has a weak scooping action which generates no force and penetration. It is basically a handoff to someone within 5 metres and is in no way an attacking weapon. To make things worse he regularly ditches the ball by hand to guys under pressure and regularly misses targets. When he is up and running he often gives off by hand and gets it back and usually because the recipient of his handball has to stop to receive the ball because Hartung has delivered it behind the receiver. Now there could be an excuse for Hartung's handballing given he had finger surgery earlier in the year and wore a glove during the champs on that hand. I have to say though that his handballing was a problem last year as well and so I do not think all the blame could be put on his finger.

Hartung is one of the least versatile players in this draft. I really only see him as a winger in the AFL with some chance that his running ability could see him be an effective tagger. Sure people will say he was effective in the TAC as a defender but I personally would not trust his disposal skills under the pressure he is likely to face from AFL standard forwards. If he is playing as a winger he needs to work on his running lines and where to run against AFL standard defensive schemes. I don't think he is a naturally good read of the play and where he should run to receive. Once he does get it however he runs well. He is spectacular in space and can burst away from packs running and bouncing and he will be able to break zones with his run at AFL level.

Hartung plays with excellent pace and I was pretty surprised with how poorly he tested for pace at the Combine. He was very pedestrian over the first 5m and over 20m he was much slower than I was expecting. Over the back 10m of the 20m test he was decent but nothing more than that. I guess his endurance just allows him to always be moving and when he gets up to speed he can sustain it longer than those around him. His agility was also very poor for the type of player that Hartung is and when I think about it I should not be that surprised. He is not a player that dances around and makes tackles. He is a straight line player who relies on beating a guy to a spot rather than eluding him when they arrive there.

I have not mentioned his height which is another factor which must be considered when assessing him as a prospect. He is short and he plays probably shorter than he actually is. He has a slight build and I doubt he is always going to be light compared to others around him. So he is an elite runner who is short and slight and with doubtful skills. Sure sounds like a tagger in the making to me. In that role I think he might play like Liam Shiels from Hawthorn. In a tagging role a few clearances will come his way and his hands are not as clean as you would like with the ball not the ground. He does a decent job tackling but could struggle with the bigger and stronger AFL mids many of whom are going to be 15cm and 20kgs bigger than he is.


39 Carlton

As I mentioned in round 1, Carlton are in win now mode and Brown is a guy who can come in and play right away. He is better than any other KPF the Blues have and they should take him for that reason alone. If you can get a guy who is going to upgrade your starting 22 you take him at 39. He would give them a tall target who can actually mark it and kick a few goals.

Ben Brown
DOB 20/11/92 Ht 199 Wt 99

Brown seems to have been around for ages but his is still only 21 at the time of writing. I was on the Brown bandwagon for a couple of years as an 18 and 19 year old but injuries caused him to be overlooked or disregarded by the professionals. Playing in Tasmania would not have helped with the apple isle being out of sight and out of mind for a lot of teams. A move to the VFL has certainly reminded them of his talent and a good season with Werribee looks like getting him drafted.

Brown is a key forward/2nd ruck who has both the hair and running style of Sideshow Bob. When you see him live it is easy to mark him down as a novelty given his awkward, seemingly lumbering gait. That would be a mistake though as that running style is deceptively effective and he is actually the most agile key position players available this year by some considerable margin. He finished in the top 10 in the agility test at Combine with an 8.29. He gets around the park really well and covers the ground nicely when he is rucking. Playing up forward he works mostly from the goal square but he creates separation well enough to be effective.

He played mostly up forward in the VFL this year but did have significant stints in the ruck and some time down back. He finished with 29 goals for the year from 18 games and he had a few games where he finished with 15 to 20 hit outs as the back up. He is a good shot for goal with good length on his shots. He has a very long, deliberate approach to his set shot but he has good consistency with his routine. He is a little stiff in the approach but has a good low ball drop which he controls very well to his boot. So not the most classic style but effective all the same. In addition to being a good shot for goal he is also a good field kick and occasionally pulls out a lovely low punch kick to hit his target on the chest.

Despite getting a ringing endorsement from Scott West for his ruck skills amongst other things I would classify him as competitive but not a lot more than that. He does not get many true taps to advantage but he does a pretty good job of neutralising the ruck contest and giving his midfielders an equal chance of winning the contest. He will be do decently against other forward/rucks at AFL but is going to struggle against the true number 1 rucks. Honestly though that is the case with most forward/rucks. He did improve his rucking toward the end of the year so there is potential for this to get better with some focus on it.

Below his knees his hands would be in the best couple of the bigs in this draft. He is not a true one touch player with the ball on the ground but for a man of his size his hands are impressive. Above his head his hands are also good but not in the elite category. He tends to mark the ball a little too much directly above his head. If he marked a little more in front of his eyes I do think he would take more marks and would be harder to spoil. He is a very capable mark at VFL level but with bigger and quicker defenders at AFL level he is going to get spoiled more. This is something I would work on from day one if I drafted him.

One of the things I like about Brown is the commitment he shows when he is on the field. When he leads he leads hard, when he chases defensively he chases hard. He has got the message that AFL forwards need to chase and he works hard at it. He doesn't catch too many but he does put the pressure on.

He has put on a lot of weight since I saw him as an 18 year old but there is still a bit of room for some more bulk. He is not the most physical forward you will ever see but he does crash the odd pack. He gets pushed around a bit by some of the AFL defenders playing in the VFL and needs some more bulk and strength. He is big enough to play from day one but there is definitely scope for a lot of gym work to improve his output.

I still rate Brown and have no problem putting him in my mock for the third time. This time I am sure the professionals are actually watching and someone will pick him up. If your team takes him don't expect too much. He will be a good complementary forward much like Vickery is for Richmond and if you get 30-40 goals per year out of him he would be delivering on his potential.

40 Melbourne

Kennedy Harris is likely to start as a HFF and he is the kind of high character guy that Roos likes to have in his side. He is small but fits the mould of the small mid / HFF which has become popular in the AFL of late. He is a similar type to Davey who just retired and this would be a like for like replacement.

Jay Kennedy-Harris
DOB 21/3/95 Ht 174 Wt 68

Whilst there has been a trend back towards shorter blokes getting picked up again, it is fair to say they are generally up against it and often come at a discount. Up until the last few years guys under 175cm were routinely overlooked no matter how good they were but of late, the likes of Prestia, Kennedy and Hrovat have found their ways onto rosters and I expect Kennedy-Harris to do the same.

From the outside JKH seems like one of the more well-adjusted young blokes in this draft. He boarded at Trinity for four years before graduating to study Sports Science at uni this year and is living on campus. He has also done a bit of acting on the side appearing in an ad and was the first ever indigenous captain of a TAC side. He seems a bit more mature than many others in this draft and was a good leader when he got the chance. Teams are often worried about indigenous kids coming into their squads (see Rendell’s comments a couple of years ago) and I think many teams would mark him higher because of the positive role model he could be for indigenous guys teammates.

Kennedy-Harris played for Metro this year as a high flanker operating ahead of the contest but outside 50. Metro wanted to utilise his delivery skills into 50 and that is certainly one of the strengths of his game. He has an easy almost loose kicking style and he makes difficult kicks on the run look routine. He can punch the ball in but favours a well weighted pass most often. He is not a particularly long kick but he has sufficient penetration to get by. The player I am going to compare him to, although he is far from a perfect fit, is Lewis Jetta and one of the areas when Kennedy-Harris most resembles Jetta is with his kicking style. Jetta has greater penetration but both deliver it similarly. Kennedy-Harris does have a good ability to improvise with his kicks. He has good vision and has a bag of tricks that lets him get the ball to the open man when many others wouldn’t be able to.

Kennedy-Harris is quick over the first 15m or so but unlike Jetta he is not able to sustain his pace. You will notice him burst away from contests or after receiving the ball, but over a longer run his opponent will often take quite a lot of ground off him. Somewhat counter to my position though is that when he is the one chasing he often seems to be able to take ground off opponents who I would think should be going away from him. His ability to sustain his speed might be a function of his endurance levels which will need to improve at AFL level but are not terrible by any stretch. Kennedy-Harris has a nice step and when faced with players in front of him he is very hard to tackle.

At the Combine he tested mid 13s for the beep which was average but he was in the top 30% for the 3km. He went a smidge under 3 in the 20m and was in the top 15% of the agility test. His repeat sprint test was probably his poorest result given the way he plays with him being just above the bottom 30% of those tested. His jumping was good but when you are as short as he is that is pretty much a non-issue although I guess Jamie Elliott has made a name for himself in that area.

Kennedy-Harris is predominantly an outside player. He gets to space well and has a good feel for where to run to receive in zone set ups. He drops into the hole 30m to 40m from the contest and you will regularly see him standing on his own. He times his arrival at the open space nicely. He has good hurt factor on his possessions but does not get it as much as you would like to see. At the Champs he averaged only 17 disposals per game and this figure was inflated by a 25 disposal game against Qld. In the TAC he averaged 23.3 disposals per game which is closer to what you would hope to see. I am not sure he will ever be a big possession guy at AFL level though. You never know though as he does have a bit of the Brent Harvey’s about him and if he upped his running ability he might just become a big possession winner.

On the inside I have seen him win clearances but they are few and far between and I doubt he has skill set to ever have much of an impact there at AFL level. His hands are a bit inconsistent and he is a regular fumbler with the ball on the ground. He does read the ball off hands well and will get to spots to receive the ball on the full. When he does get a clearance he is dangerous and can be gone with his pace or use it to advantage.

Overall I am a bit undecided on Kennedy-Harris. He could work out but I do think there is a high bust risk as well which must be considered. He is a good young bloke with some skills that might let him succeed at AFL level but he is far from the complete package. Admittedly that is a very common theme this year and he is probably a better punt than most.

 

[Quigley]

41 Geelong

I just realised I have another Falcon staying in Geelong. I didn’t think about that when I originally put him here but it works out nicely and continues the restocking of mids and in particular inside mids. His aggression at the contest would be a nice complement to Selwood.
James Tsitas
DOB 3/3/95 Ht 183 Wt 76

I am not the biggest fan of Tsitas but credit where it is due this is a kid who does not have the natural talent of many other prospects but Tsitas works harder and gets the absolute most out of himself. He was the co-captain of Vic Country this year and he is a bit of a lead by example type. His certainly doesn't mind having a chat but I am not sure how much of that is directed at his teammates. He is a yapper and the kind of player who opposition supporters are going to hate.

Tsitas is a hard at it inside mid and lacks the versatility to play anywhere else so teams are going to have an uncomplicated assessment to make. He either is going to make it as a midfielder or not at all. This will be held against him and there are plenty of guys with his talent and game style who are very good lower level players but do not quite have enough to make it at AFL level. There is not a world of difference between Tsitas and Moloney but equally there is very little difference between he and Magner and Valenti who have been on the fringes and put up big numbers at VFL level without being able to crack it at AFL level.

At the Champs Tsitas played 4 games but only really stood up against Tasmania in round 2. In the Div 1 games be was very quiet averaging only 15 disposals a game when the standard of competition got better. Sure he dominated at TAC level but it was not a strong year for Victorian football and it has to be a concern that he did not perform when things went up a level. He is going to need to go up several levels to play AFL football and my doubts were raised by the effort. Tsitas was overshadowed by Crouch, Taylor and Hartung and was also probably behind Merrett and Jones as well. This was a Country team that came last and did not win a game against the Div 1 opponents.

What Tsitas offers is aggression at the contest. He attacks both the ball and the man and is a very hard at it type. I was surprised he only weighed in at 76kgs as he does get in there and throw it around. He is well balanced in the contest and strong over the ball. He is an excellent tackler and probably the best of the under 18 group this year. He goes hard and has good technique. His tackles are not all in tight either and in the open field he will put his head down and give everything he has on the chase.

He is a good clearance winner but he is not the best read of the taps in the draft and does not react as quickly as a few others. He does okay when the ball comes into his area and he has nice clean hands. He doesn't get flustered when he gets it and shows good awareness in who to give it to and where to run to.Tsitas runs good lines in tight situations and shows a good ability to gather the ball and come out the other side with it. His agility is good and he makes players miss quite regularly. His handballing though is nothing to write home about. He has a bit of a throwing handball style which lacks some zip and penetration.

By foot I note that Mick Turner (never one to shy away from talking up his kids) rates him as elite. Mick must never have actually seen Tsitas play or else was mixing him up with someone else. In the real world Tsitas is a solid kick but no more than that. He lacks some penetration and is quite a conservative option taker tending to work a lot with short to intermediate kicks. There is a definite lack of hurt factor with his kicking. One thing which worries me a little with is kicking is that he is the slowness of his decision making on occasions. There are time, especially when going forward, where he will be quite indecisive and I think at AFL level he is going to get mowed down. If he works on his kicking and develops more confidence perhaps this will go away but at the moment I think it is an issue.

Another thing he will need to work on is his spread from the contest. He shows good ability to use his run to sneak into 50 and mark but otherwise his spread is not as good as it should be. He finished 10th at Combine in the beep test with a 15.15 and was 5th in the 3km with a 9.54 so it is safe to assume that he has the endurance to play as a midfielder at the next level. His pace though would have to be the big concern with him athletically. He does not play that slow in close but he had the slowest 20m time I can ever recall from a small/medium at Combine. Over the first 5m he was appalling slow and he went backwards from there and he was no better in the repeat sprint. I am sure there would have been kids who could have run backwards faster than he went forwards over the 20m. His endurance will allow him to compensate a bit for the lack of pace but with many teams looking to add pace to their midfield group his extreme slowness gives them a problem that would have to be factored in.

As mentioned above Tsitas sneaks forward pretty well and is a capable mark despite not really getting off the ground. He is a decent finisher but has a bit of a high hold on the ball and things can occasionally go wrong and he will miss kicks he should get. If he gets forward to ruck contests he can be dangerous and seems to have reasonable goal sense.

Will he make it? Dunno to tell the truth. He is a mixed back with very good endurance but very poor speed. His skills are only average but his attitude is excellent. I would be inclined to think that he will end up being an AFL player because of that attitude. He will do whatever it takes and that kind of attitude gets you chances and is good to have in a team environment especially for teams on the way up.


42 Western Bulldogs

Okay time to let Taylor out of the naughty corner. Yes he is going to be gone well before here but I don’t like him at all and think his weaknesses are being blindly overlooked by many. Still the Bulldogs have built a very strong inside unit and if Taylor could be taught to play to his strengths and minimise his weaknesses he would complement the current group very nicely.

Lewis Taylor
DOB 17/2/95 Ht 175 Wt 73

Anyone who has been reading along has probably assumed that I forgot about Taylor. No I have not forgotten about him it’s just that I do not rate him at all and, if they are reading this, Lewis and his family probably do not want to read any further on this one. Every year there are one or two high ranking guys who I am more than happy for other teams to take in the first round. This year Taylor is that man and my dislike is more than anyone I can remember. Personally I would be disappointed if the Lions took him anywhere in this draft.

Let's to the good first. He has excellent speed and has the endurance to use that speed often. He is capable of hitting packs and exploding out the other side. His speed is a weapon that he likes to use...entirely too much really but more on that later. To go with excellent speed he also has very good agility and he can be very difficult to tackle when he has some room to work in. He can occasionally not be as elusive as he thinks he is but on the whole even I have to conclude that his evasiveness is very good.

The other thing I give him credit for is his ability to find the ball. He is probably the biggest ball magnet in this draft. He spreads really well and gets to space and demands to be used. He is a predominately an outside player and receiver at contests but when push comes to shove he can go in and get it himself. His inside work is not at the same standard as the better inside players available but he is capable of winning his own ball.

Okay my problems with him. First up his running drives me insane. As a Brisbane supporter I think he is a clone of Justin Sherman the way he runs himself trouble time after time after time. He takes off at full pace and has very poor awareness of what is around him and when he should get rid of it. He constantly holds the ball too long and ends up panicking. He has a frenetic style (like a chicken with his head cut off as I described his style in my notes) where he tries to do too much and gets himself into trouble. As mentioned above he spreads very well and runs to space but often he does not run to the best spots and he demands and receives the ball in places where trouble is going to come his way.

At the Champs he was corralled, tackled and scragged constantly when he ran himself into trouble. With the increased size, strength, pace and smarts at AFL level he is going to get smashed unless he learns where to run and I am not sure he has the instincts and that has to be a big concerns. He is a very elusive character and avoids tackles well when he is cornered but at AFL level they will not miss these tackles and there are going to be quite a few people as quick as he is. Another thing which is going to frustrate the supporters of the team who picks him is the suicide handballs he delivers when it looks like he is cornered. He gets himself into trouble and then gets rid of the ball to players who are flat footed and have an opposition player sitting in their back pocket. Again the panic seems pretty ingrained and it will be a difficult for his coaches to break.

He has a reputation for being an excellent kick and again I just do not see it. He has pretty good style off either foot but he misses too many targets and often not by small margins. That is particularly the case off his non-preferred left. His kicking looks good and he will deliver some good kicks during games but he will give 3 or 4 clangers per game and quite a few others that result in turnovers. He particularly struggles under pressure whether physical or situational. He is decent around goal but is poor in his delivery into 50.

Defensively he has the speed and endurance to impact games but at the moment he does not have the application. This is not such an unusual thing at under 18 level but for a small kid who is looking to break into the AFL I would expect better. When he does make a tackle his technique leaves a lot to be desired and he lacks strength to effect big hits. He also has the shortest arms of anyone measured at camp which does not help him wrap up opposition players.

When I have seen him look good it is often when he takes the first option or uses the ball when in space. It is going to need to be drummed into him that he needs to use the first and best option and he is not going to be able to run the length of the field and kick the goal. There is hope but there is going to be a lot of pain along the way to overcome engrained habits. I think the defensive work should be the easiest to acquire given it is largely about desire and I see him starting his career up forward. He is okay around goals and he should be able to provide good pressure.

Taylor was Shifter's TAC player of the year and he did well in that competition. The standard in the TAC was fairly poor this year and playing against inferior athletes his deficiencies were not evident but they were well and truly shown up at the Champs and I think they will be stark at AFL level. He will be quicker than most but he will not have the same level of advantage as he enjoyed at TAC level and the size, endurance and discipline of AFL players are going to see him struggle I think.


43 West Coast

I like Heavyside quite a bit and I had originally wanted to slot him in around 30s but I couldn’t quite swing it. So he falls to West Coast who I think could use a speedy forward flanker who might be able to rack up possessions in the open spaces of Subi and as he develops he will give them some useful time onball.

Sam Heavyside
DOB 9/7/94 Ht 179 Wt 71

I have been having arguments against myself on where to put Heavyside. On the one hand I have consistently talked down the TAC this year and when you play as an overager the results should be taken with a grain of salt. But like someone said you can only compete against guys you play against and credit to Heavyside he has been impressive. Then again he is a sub-180cm, 71 kg inside midfielder, but on the other hand he is an absolute magnet who runs a 2.94 20m and is a 15 beeper. In the end I wanted to put him fairly high but slotted him somewhere in the middle.

As a bottomager Heavyside was the Bendigo B&F before suffering a foot injury in his draft year that forced him to miss the Champs and the remainder of the year after that. Somewhat surprisingly he was overlooked in all the drafts last year and so he came back to the Pioneers this year. He continued his bad luck early having an interrupted preseason but after missing the first three rounds really burst back onto the TAC scene. Playing as an inside out midfielder he averaged 28.7 disposals per game and had 3 games of 40 or more disposals. He also had a very impressive game against Geelong where he had 4 goals to go along with his 30 disposals. He played a couple of games in the VFL and did well there against the big blokes averaging 17.5 disposals per game.

In the contest Heavyside is very composed and just looks to be in control of what is happening around him. He doesn’t tend to get flustered and when he gets the ball he is not overly rushed. He reasonable but not elite read of the taps and is not always in the best position. When the ball comes to him he is has fairly clean hands and is quick to get the ball out. He is also quick off the mark and is good at coming out of a clearance at pace. He is aggressive but due to his lack of size he can be buffeted around a bit and this is likely to be more the case at AFL level.

Despite his lack of size he is an excellent tackler and really gets in and mixes it up. He averaged 5.2 tackles per game at TAC level and 5 tackles per game at VFL level. Both are excellent returns and whilst he gets most of his tackles in tight he is also a good tackler in space and will run and pressure with the best of the juniors available this year. It is this aspect of his game which I think will lead to him starting his career up forward as a defensive forward and part time mid.

As a forward he can get up and back and will get open to take marks inside 50. He takes his fair share of marks and is often thought of as a good contested mark for his size but I think that is overstating it. He is a capable mark but is not really a flyer and his lack of bulk can see him moved aside a bit. What he does do is position himself at spillages well and with his clean hands and good explosiveness he can create opportunities for himself. He balances quickly when he collects up forward and has reasonable goal sense. He managed 10 goals from 10 games and that kind of ratio is what I would expect if he were to play as a forward at AFL level. He would however create chances for others with his pressure.

He is deceptively quick and when he puts his foot down he can really cover the ground quickly whilst not looking do be doing much. Some guys look quick are aren’t but Heavyside is a bit of the opposite. I think the deceptiveness can work in his favour on occasions as often opponents think they have him covered and realise to late that actually don’t. He has good agility as well and is evasive in the open field. He is quite a fan of the give and go and he can explode to get the ball back and when he does that he can really break zones open.

At the State testing he ran a 2.94 in the 20m and an 8.41 in the agility test which whilst both are good I think maybe undersell his game pace and agility. After a hard day of testing he also was one of the few to run over 14 in the beep which supports the earlier testing of him going over 15 in the beep. I was a bit surprised that he weighed in at only 71kgs as he does look more solid than that. I expect that he will be able to put on muscle and get up to a playing weight of around 80kgs without it affecting his explosiveness or endurance too much.

Skills wise there is a bit to improve upon. He is an inside mid and his 60% DE% is not a real surprise. By hand he seems fine with reasonable decision making and execution. By foot I also don’t mind his style and do not think there is a hell of a lot wrong with it. His decision making by foot might be the issue. I do not think he always takes the best options and he kicks it to a contest too much. As I said though his actually kicking style looks pretty good to me and so if some work can be done on lowering the eyes and assessing targets better he should be fine. He is a right footer who is capable on his left if he needs to use it. He has a bit of a skipping start to his set shot but balances up quickly and he looks like a pretty good finisher around goal.

I see a bit of Matthew Stokes in Heavyside and like Stokes I am expecting him to play a lot of time up forward to start his career. Size is the thing which might keep him out of the midfield full time but I would not rule this out as he develops more. I am confident someone will give him a chance this year.


44 Sydney

As mentioned earlier there are going to be holes in the defensive depth chart at Sydney over the next couple of years and they should be looking to plug them when they can. Tickner is a no nonsense professional who would fit in well with the Sydney ethos. He is a lot better than many of the other KPD options being thrown up.

Cain Tickner
DOB 17/4/95 Ht 194 Wt 91

See my rant later on Conway’s profile in regards to the Lions Academy. Most of that is applicable for Tickner as well. One difference is that I actually advocate playing Tickner in his non-preferred position. Tickner got the NEAFL Rising Star nomination in round 17 playing in defense. In the interview on the NEAFL website I got the distinct impression that he prefers to play up forward. I mentioned last year and I continue to think that Tickner will be a defender at AFL level. I was at the game against WA last year which Qld won on the back of 5 goals from Tickner but I just think his skill set is more suited to down back. With the Lions now in charge of a forward turned AA defender I am very surprised he was not taken by the Lions as an academy player.

Tickner has been the Lions highest profile academy since he made the Australian under 15 schools side. I have been following him as much as I could since then and with him being an AIS player as both a bottom ager and top ager I just could not see how we would overlook him.

I have seen him a few times this year and in truth he has never seemed quite right. At the Champs he had heavy strapping on his knees and according to the Qld coach he has suffered from knee tendonitis and ankle problems for at least the first half of the year. He is a very professional kid who seems to do all the things necessary to make it and I am sure he did all the recovery stuff recommended but like I said he just did not quite look fully fit even when he was playing well.

Tickner started the Champs up forward before moving down back for the last couple of games. He averaged 16 disposals a game which is pretty good for a key position player in a shortened quarters game. I only got to one Qld game this year and that was the game against NSW where he played down back and I thought he was excellent. In a year where the KPD talent is few and far between I am very surprised more teams didn't invite him to the Combine to get a look at him.

Tickner is not a guy who has any particular stand out trait but he is just a good all around player who has worked hard to ensure there are not stand out weaknesses either. He is a good, smart footballer who does his job well. He has a strong body and uses that well in contested situations. He is a thumping tackler and probably the best in this draft and certainly the best amongst the key position talent. One of my favourite things from last year's Champs was a passage of play against Metro I think it was. Tickner was a bottom ager and thumped one of the mediums from Metro and the ball spilled free. The Metro kid jumped up and pushed Tickner and carried on a bit before following the play 50 metres or so away. Tickner didn't react and followed him to the contest and when the same guy got the ball he buried him and then got up and carried on no fuss. The Metro guy took his time getting up from that one. It was a serious laugh out loud moment for me.

One of my big question marks with Tickner has been his explosiveness. I was told that the testing he did earlier in the year bore this observation out with him being particularly slow over the first 5 metres and that is pretty much where he gave away the time. After that though his pace was actually pretty decent so the problem just seemed to be getting going. The knee problems he has been having might well be a reason for this. Needless to say I was keen to have a close look at his State Screening results and they were a lot better in the speed area. He finished with a 3.07 from memory and was very decent over the first 5 metres. He outperformed many of the other KPD options who are getting talked up and really addressed the one concern that I had about him.

In the NSW game I had a close look at him live and I thought his pace actually seemed pretty good and much improved from last year. He had no trouble handling the NSW forward and was able to go step for step with the forwards he was matched up on. In the game against SA he played up forward and had Scharenberg on him for most of the time. That game was Scharenberg’s quietest of the Champs and Tickner did a very good job of keeping him honest and shutting him down when he got the ball.

Up forward he leads hard but seems to have trouble getting separation. Down back he reads the game well and the forwards he matched up on were the ones seeming to have trouble getting separation. Above his head his hands are reasonable but are not in the elite category. He reads the ball reasonably well but I would not put him in the elite category for a forward. As a back though he would be in the top 5 or so of the key position prospects. He certainly does not need a forward to be leading him to the ball when he is playing in defense. I think he shows excellent judgment about when to leave his man and chase the ball. If he goes he will impact the contest and usually in a very positive way. He is a very good judge of when to mark and when spoil and his defensive instincts seem really good to me.

Skills wise I would say he is efficient by both hand and foot. He does not have huge hurt factor but he hits his targets and makes good decisions. He tends to play a bit within himself and doesn't bite off too much. He does not have huge penetration nor is does lack it. He is composed with the ball in hand and after he gives off he will run hard and present as an option to be used again. At the Champs he linked pretty well for a big guy.

If I was to compare him to anyone it would be Darren Glass. Tickner is a professional kid who will do what it takes to succeed. He won't be flashy but he will be effective and I will be surprised if he doesn't make it as an AFL player.

One of the issues that will probably be held against him is his lack of disposals in senior company. When I looked at the Lions Reserves stats he always seemed to finish with less than 10 disposals. A fair bit of this was him not really impose himself on the game and but a fair portion could also be attributed to the senior players simply refusing to use him for some reason. Being a junior key position the listed players tended to ignore him as an option on the park even when he was open. I watched a couple of the Lions reserves games on tape and although he didn't get much of it he seemed composed when he had it.

 

[Quigley]

45 Port Adelaide

Reynolds steps right into the spot vacated by Nick Salter. Port are a bit light on for medium forwards and Reynolds would be a decent bet at this stage and if he develops as I think he will he could be a great set up player from behind the ball. Being a local would also not hurt his chances.

Luke Reynolds
DOB 9/1/95 Ht 188 W 84

I had thought Reynolds would be getting more attention than he has but he seems to be being overlooked by many. I am not sure exactly why as to me he seems to have quite a few weapons that would make him a useful player at the next level. Reynolds was a key component of SA forward line that won the Champs and in a year where the forwards are not exactly abundant I thought he would be garnering his share of attention.

Reynolds plays his flanker role as if he was a key position and gets on long leads. He seems to get separation pretty easily and his opponent often is not able to stay with him over distance. He is not the best judge of the ball in the air and he will often give his opponent a shot at spoiling if they are good enough. He goes under the ball a little and can tend to mark it directly above his head rather out in front of his eyes. His hands are strong though and he does a good job at hanging onto his marks. If he gets caught in a body on body situation he shows good strength and protects the drop zone pretty well. He takes most of his marks on the run though and most regularly will mark the ball a kick and a half from goal and that is often where he does his best work.

He is an excellent kick of the ball into 50 and more so when he actually takes his time. He has a very strong tendency at the moment to mark and immediately play on and swing around onto his left to kick it. Sometimes this is not the best idea in the world and at AFL level he will get nailed a lot given he does it so often. He is a dominant left footer with a nice easy style. He has good touch on his kicks and can punch it in as well if needed. He has good clean hands for a forward and collects on the run well.

His set shot is a bit of a mixed bag. I have seen him miss some fairly easy shots and he sometimes does not seem to have much confidence in it and will look to pass off. Most of those occasions though seem to be at shorter ranges and the further he gets from goal the better his shot seems to be. He is quite comfortable from 50 and I have actually seen him kick the ball 10m or more from the man on the mark just to get himself in his preferred range.

With all that said I don’t think his future lies forward of centre. If I am selecting him I am taking him as a backman. He reminds me a lot of Josh Drummond and that is the kind of role that I think would suit him most. He is a smart footballer and an excellent kick and if you are trying to kick over or through a zone he is a guy who can do it. Also with him having a little bit of trouble finding the ball he is likely to benefit from being fed it more in defense.

He played in a defensive role for the AIS against the European Legion earlier in the year and dominated, being named BOG for the Aussies. His composure was good at the back and his ability to set up play was excellent. Admittedly the competition was not particularly good and it remains to be seen how he would go defensively against better opposition but getting him the all facing the right way, with his quick play on style appeals to me.

Reynolds plays with genuine pace on the lead and I was very surprised to see his Combine results which actually showed a very bad 20m result. On closer examination it was clear that the slow time resulted from an appallingly slow first 5m. Once he got up and going his pace seemed decent and in fact his 30m repeat sprint time was relatively speaking quite a bit better than his 20m time. In game situations when he is running at full pace he has a nice long stride that eats up the ground. When he slows down though his gait becomes a fair bit more awkward.

His results across the board were all below average except for 3km which was the real outlier with him recording a really good time which put him in the top 20%. Unusually his beep time was quite a bit poorer than his 3km time. If I had to offer a theory I think once he gets up and going and finds his rhythm he is covers ground well but in stop start situations he struggles. I will have to defer to the fitness gurus as to what that actually means for his AFL career and whether anything can be done to address it.

It is possible that he could end up playing some time on the wing especially if he ended up playing on Subi for instance but personally I think it more likely he will be a career flanker. I haven’t seen any evidence of an inside game and he does not seem to have a knack for getting to space and finding the ball easily. He only averaged 12.4 disposals a game at the Champs this year and 14.5 in the SANFL ressies (17 in the SANFL U18s).

Reynolds has nice size and once he is up and going, nice pace, and combine that with his excellent kicking and I personally think someone will give him a chance.


46 Adelaide

Adelaide periodically struggle with their clearance play and could stand to add another clearance specialist to their squad. I think Conway would be a good solid body to work with Dangerfield and Sloane inside and could make this unit very formidable.

Issac Conway
DOB 29/5/95 Ht 183 Wt 85

Okay it’s time for a good old fashion rant. I am absolutely disgusted with the Lions and the way they have handled Conway this year and the Academy in general. The Academy should be the Lions’ biggest competitive advantages instead it is an afterthought. We should be pouring money into getting the really good coaches involved, training up the local coaches and getting the kids as often as we can to work on their games. At the moment we are underinvesting in local talent and the academy with the effect being that we are flushing the money we do spend down the toilet. If you are going to do something do it right you clowns. This year there was not one top aged Academy kid who showed improvement in the skills that would get them drafted. NOT F@$%&G ONE. That is a not a co-incidence and is an indictment on those heading up the Academy. The way Conway was handled is a prime example of how appalling the development of these kids is being handled.

As strange as it may sound to supporters of other teams the Lions have a weak recruiting presence in Queensland. Our recruitment and list management team are based out of Victoria and the Queensland guys are either a very quiet voice at the table or alternatively are tougher judges than the guys in other States. Year after year Collingwood pluck the best talent from under our noses and year in year out we do nothing about it. For years to the best way to avoid being drafted has been to play for the Lions reserves team. The Lions are a prime example of the saying that familiarity breeds contempt. We play kids out of position and have the listed players ignore them on the field and wonder why they don’t perform.

This year the brilliant minds that make up our Academy (and by default coach the Qld team) decided it would be a great idea to play Conway as a back pocket sometime HBFer. WTF??? You realise he is one of the better inside mids in the upcoming draft with relatively poor outside run and kicking skills? Apparently not. So the kid toes the line plays in the backline for Qld and regularly in that role for the Lions reserves. He plays about as well as expected but as a consequence he shows nothing of the inside game that will get him drafted. If the Lions are trying to hide him away then I would still have a problem but I would understand but the Academy morons must have forgotten to tell the recruiting geniuses because they decide to overlook him based on exposed form. Toward the end of the season he works out that the Lions are not looking out for his best interests and goes back to Aspley. He plays the last four games of the season and all the finals all the way through to the GF. From memory he was in the best every game playing in the middle of the ground and some time down back to rest. In the GF he DOMINATED the first half against the Lions reserves and was comfortably BOG. He faded in the second half but still manage to finish with 30 disposals against a team stacked with listed talent. Imagine what he could have done if the Lions development gurus had had an ounce of common sense and actually developed his game this year in the position he actually is likely to play in. MORONS!!!! The Lions recruitment team taking their usual approach of ignoring anything Queensland related subsequently overlook him when they are likely to get him very cheaply. IDIOTS!!! Expect a team like Collingwood to grab him the Lions supporters to ask for years why we were asleep at the wheel.

For all the Academy kids out there what is the moral of the story?

1. Do not rely on the Lions having your best interests at heart.
2. Do not rely on the program provided to you by the Lions coaches to actually improve your game.
3. Do not agree to play out of your natural position for “development” or any other reason.
4. Play for your local club in the NEAFL and stay the hell away from the Lions Reserves team especially if the Lions are going to play you out of position (I note next year the Qld team will be playing in the TAC which should help address this point).

Anyway onto Conway. Conway is an inside midfielder who I think would have not been too far behind Crouch had he been handled appropriately this year. At the Champs last year I had him rated behind only Crouch of the inside mid group. Conway is a very solid unit for a junior footballer and would be as strong over the ball as anyone in this draft. He holds his feet in the contest and is very difficult to tackle with excellent strength through the hips that makes him difficult to get to the ground even in senior company. Against the Lions in the GF he flicked and stepped through a few tackles that should have seen him brought to ground.

In clearance situations what he needs to work on is attacking the contests. His best work is done when he gets in and chases the ball but too often he concentrates on finding his man and sitting with them looking on whilst things develop. He should have been instructed to just get in there and chase the ball and let the opposition worry about finding him. By taking a passive approach he was negating his biggest advantage. When he does get the ball his hands are pretty clean and his handballing in close is solid without being elite.

Playing at the back I thought Conway did surprisingly well defensively. He reads the ball in the air very well and takes quite a lot of intercept marks but reading it better than the forward he is on or dropping off to get to the dangerous hole. He is very strong through the body and handled small forwards easily in this regard. He is also composed at the back and does not get flustered which is an advantage given the forward pressure exerted nowerdays. He does not have the pace though or the skills to play as a small forward at AFL level.

Conway tested a bit quicker than Crouch and Cripps range over 20m at the State Screening but he is still pretty slow relatively speaking but that is pretty standard for an inside mid. He also was quicker than Bontempelli for whatever that is worth.

Endurance is a justifiable concern for Conway with him only a 12 beep at the State Screening (probably equates to a late 12 early 13 in the Combine format). Last year I thought he looked pretty good from an endurance point of view but this year he seems not as good for some reason. Any sensible development program for him this year should have had him fining down and running plenty of miles to build his tank. Unfortunately if results are any indication it seems the opposite is true. When he is in the midfield his spread is quite poor and he fades out of games too much. I liked that he ran himself into the ground in the first half of the GF and if he maintains that kind of approach his endurance base and gut running ability will increase.

Last year his skills were poor but this year I think there has been a noticeable improvement particularly with his kicking. There is still quite a bit to go but he pinpoints a lot more passes now than at this time last year and he has flattened out his kicks. He is still prone to the occasionally loopy pass but he has cut down on these a lot and is heading in the right direction. His kicking at this stage is better than Crouch’s.

Overall I think Conway can feel justifiably aggrieved with the way he has been handled this year. I hope a team picks him up as I think he has a lot of potential as an inside mid.


47 North Melbourne

North delisted a few flanker types and Miller would be a good get for them here. This would be a best available selection for them and if he worked out it would he could be a guy who would add some run from behind that North could probably use.

Isaiah Miller
DOB 7/1/95 Ht 188 Wt 81

Miller is one I am not quite sold on but at the end of the day he is going to go in the second or third round so it makes sense to include him and realistically there are not a lot of guys who deserve to tip him out of my mock. Miller flashed a few really nice things at the Champs but I did not think he did enough to justify the hype some have attached to him. He averaged only 15 disposals a game for the lowly Vic Country side and had large periods of invisibility. He is an AIS scholarship holder and I came into the Champs expecting quite a bit more from him.

At TAC level he played a variety of positions over the year but mostly he played as a loose man in defense and he played that role well. Despite playing only ten games he ranked second in rebound 50s which is a really good effort. In the TAC he averaged 23 disposals per game with some of his time at the end of the year spent in the middle and up forward. I did like that he got a couple of games in the VFL at the end of the season and he did reasonably well there averaging 12.5 disposals per game as a 23rd man.

Despite being tried in other positions I have little doubt Miller will be recruited as a medium defender and that is the role he will play most of his career. He has pretty nice height at 188cm and uses that pretty well. The big feature of his game at TAC level was his marking and run from the back. At TAC level he was able to float around without a man and mop up long kicks as they came in. He did this well and showed pretty good ability to be in the right place at the right time. He sets up in position well to play this role and he is a good reader of play developing in front of him. With the ball in the air he usually does pretty well but I have a few concerns and do not rate him as highly in this regard as many do.

When he is required to match up on an opponent he is not nearly as effective. He is often too attacking and can get caught out and even when he is in position he will get beaten reasonably often. He is not particularly strong through the body despite having a size advantage on many guys he matched up on and when he is giving away size it is even more noticeable. Whilst his uncontested marking is quite good I would not rate him a good contested mark and he will often be lead to the ball by his opponent.

Once he gets the ball he is at his best. He will get on his bike and he has neat skills off either foot. He will use short to intermediate targets most often and he has about average penetration when he does occasionally go long. He is composed at the back and takes good options to allow the ball to transition from defense quickly. I like that he will pass off and then immediately charge forward into space for 15m - 20m to receive back or alternatively to impact the play. He regularly gets the ball back in those situations and going at full pace he can get into the heart of zones before they react. He is quite good by foot at pace. His kicks are generally well weighted and tend to be normal punts rather than low punching kicks. They get to their targets in good time though so it is not an issue. By hand he is solid.

I think Miller has grown up being one of the faster players at each level he has played and hasn't quite worked out that that is no longer the case. He is not as quick as he thinks he is and he tested that way with a time at Combine being in the bottom third of those tested. The only other testing he did at Combine was the jumping and agility and in both those disciplines he tested around mid pack. I expect he avoided the endurance testing because he thought he would not perform well but from watching him play I see nothing to suggest he will not be able to get his tank up to an acceptable level.

So athletically he is certainly nothing special but despite that he works really well in space. He is an excellent judge of what he needs to do to make opponents miss. He has a good prop and go, a redirection and a step in his arsenal that he brings out as needed. He knows which space to go to to allow himself to pop free.

I have read one site list his football smarts as a weakness of his but personally I see this as one of his real strengths especially offensively. I think he reads the play well and shows good judgment when coming from defense. He is very much a general at the back and seems like a pretty good one. I would compare him to Marty Mattner and he might be capable of playing a similar role as Mattner has done for the Swans.


48 GWS

GWS have talent at every position and so finding areas of need is not very easy. They have some talented small forwards already there but for some reason are reluctant to use so I am not sure adding another would be at the top of their agenda but it is an area which I think their starting team could use some help and so I am giving them Impey. He is Victorian which seems like a must for GWS.

Jarman Impey
DOB 9/7/95 Ht 178 76

Impey was an AIS scholarship holder last year who I think it is fair to say people might have hoped for more from this year. He is a flashy player who does some really nice things each game but the consistency has just not been there and he fades out of games too much. He is rated highly by some who see the flash and project what that could become at AFL level in a full time environment. That is entirely fair although personally I have knocked him down a bit because of his deficiencies. At the end of the day I expect him to end up in the middle somewhere probably get taken in the late second or third round.

Impey played at the Champs and averaged 16 disposals per game but that was inflated by a 24 disposal game against NT. Against the Div 1 teams he did not have nearly the influence that he had against the lesser teams and disappeared for long periods. He was played mostly up forward and picked up a few goals but again the 3 goals against NT made the return seem better than it actually way. In the TAC he played a variety of positions including down back and averaged a more respectable 18 disposals per game. Still not great but better.

I am not sure why he is talked up as an excellent kick. I just do not see that and the figures seem to support me. At TAC level he had a DE% of 56.2% and at the Champs only a slightly better 63.8%. For someone who is essentially an outside player that is very poor. He has a loose kicking style which looks pretty and occasionally delivers really good results but too often it doesn't. People most often remember the needle he threaded or the frozen rope he sent down and forget the times he misweighted it, bombed away or just plain shanked it. He often gets too much air in his kicks and gives the opposition time to react and cover the target. He kicks across his body a fair bit on his kicks which is deceptive and he is actually quite good at hitting targets when he does that and the deception involved often allows the man a bit of extra space. Going into 50 he tends to drop it on the forward’s head rather than lead them.

His set shot is again quite good technique wise and he seems balanced on his approach. He pulls the ball up a little before release but it generally seems fluent enough. On the run he balances up quickly and seems to have good goal sense but whether by set shot or on the run he does miss kicks he should make.

Impey is only short but he is strong bodied and he uses that strength in game situations. He is good body on body for his size and he times his bumps nicely to free himself up for a mark or to get away from his opponent. Defensively he is also an excellent tackler for an outside player and that is reflected in the 3.4 and 3.8 tackles per game he returned at the Champs and in the TAC respectively.

As highlighted above he is not a big possession winner and needs to learn to stay in the game more. He seems to have a good feel for finding seams in zones up forward and is capable of finding space but he just does not do it often enough. He has worked hard to improve his endurance this year and the numbers suggest that he has done so but that has not translated into an improvement in his ball finding ability. As he gets used to his improved tank maybe the consistent effort will come.

He tested very respectably at the Combine finishing in the high 13s in the beep which was above average. He was in the top 15% in all the speed and jumping tests and was just outside the top third in the agility test. He uses his speed very well in game situations and will break away from contests. He is particularly quick off the mark and his stepping and turning ability make him very hard to tackle. Impey has a full back of tricks with the ball in hand and will baulk and dummy his way past defenders.

Impey is a good mark for his size and his strength and jumping ability does surprise some defenders. With the ball on the deck his hands are decent and he is certainly a lively player who can make things happen when he is around it. One of his big weaknesses is that he does not win enough of his own ball and at the moment I do not see him as being much of a threat onball. As he gets more experience this may change much in the way it did for Eddie Betts but that is a fair way off.

There is a fair bit of Eddie Betts in the way Impey plays but perhaps an even closer comparison might be Dayne Zorko. He does not have Zorko’s inside game but up forward they do play a pretty similar game.

 

[Quigley]

49 West Coast

With Glass nearing the end I could see them getting some insurance for any injury that MacKenzie and Brown might suffer. There has been some talk of JK going as high as 20 but I do not really understand why. He is a good athlete but is a bit undersized and has not really shown all that much. Around this stage of the draft though he would be a solid pick.

Jake Kolodjashnij
DOB 9/8/95 Ht 193 Wt 87

Jake is the twin of Kade and the question that the team who takes Kade will need to consider is whether to take Jake as well. It would certainly help settle Kade in you would think and if a team actually needed FB prospect then you could do worse than take JK who is a reasonable prospect himself. One thing that would have a bearing on the decision for me, if I was making it, was the amount that KK improved when he was called up to the AIS. His confidence skyrocketed and so did his play. Given the familial similarities it would be not be stretching things too far to suggest that a similar spike could happen to Jake if he was selected and the light went on for him. The tools look to be in place for him.

Jake is about three cms taller and 10kgs heavier than his brother and will be a key position at AFL level. He has a much more solid frame and looks like he will have a fair bit of bulk about him by the time he has finished his development. He is a very similar athlete to his brother though and the only real differences could be attributed to the additional weight that JK is carrying. He is about 0.1 seconds slower than his brother over the first 5m and apart from that his speed is virtually identical. Overall Jake's pace is fine but a bit of work could be done to improve his explosiveness. He is an excellent leap finishing 4th in the right foot jump and 6th in the left foot jump and in the top 15 of the standing jump. His agility is also excellent for a key position prospect finishing just outside the top 20% and similarly for the 3km. He ran over 14.2 in the beep as well which is good for a KPD prospect.

These tests pretty much reflect his game play. Maybe a tad slow off the mark but overall his speed seems good enough to stay with most key forwards. His turning circle is good and he stays with his man pretty comfortably on changes of direction. With the ball in the air he is not beaten very often and covers bigger opponents pretty well. He also plays games out well and it is rare for his opponent to run him into the ground.

Kolodjashnij has played some time up forward but I don't see that as an option at AFL level. When I saw him playing that role for Tasmania he was well and truly overshadowed by his brother, Nankervis and even Fox. He offered very little and didn't really seem able to impose himself on the game.

Down back he can be a bit invisible as well but importantly he has the ability to make his opponent similarly fade out of the game. He is a defensive minded KPD who does not get involved in a lot of his team’s forward movement. I would suggest that he will need to focus on this more at the next level. He is a strong mark and spoil of the ball and has good instincts about when to do what. Kolodjashnij has a good ability to keep a tight rein on his man whilst not losing sight of what is happening up the field. If something happens which requires him to react he can. JK is a bit slim hipped but seems to have good strength through the core and controls his man pretty well in body on body situations.

The difference in skill level between he and his brother is quite large. Jake is not the decisive decision maker that his brother is and can dither a bit when he gets the ball. Against and AFL forward press this could be a terminal problem and it is an area that he needs to improve. By foot he lacks some zip and whilst his kicks are not particularly loopy they do take quite a while to get to their intended targets. His ability to weight his kicks to hit targets where they want them is also quite poor and he regularly bounces his kicks to targets. Overall he seems to lack confidence in his kicking and this is reflected in a K:H ratio of almost 1:2. The funny thing is that his handball technique is not much better than his kicks. He has a bit of a throwing handball style rather than punching through it and his handballs like his kicks end up lacking zip.

Still with his skills I am looking at his brother and thinking what could be with some work and confidence. I have little doubt that they will improve significantly once he gets to the next level and with the athleticism he possesses and the general defensive skill set I think he is worth a punt with a lower pick.

50 Richmond

If I was the Tigers I would take the opportunity to add a class ball user to their defensive unit. Newman is getting to the end and Fuller could step in and play his role very nicely or free Houli to move further up the field. He is a mature ager used to winning and with Richmond getting to the win now stage he would add nice depth to their squad if nothing else.

Matthew Fuller
DOB 1/6/90 Ht 180 Wt 84

I had been very keen on Josh Glenn in this draft and he would certainly have found a spot in my first 30 or so but when he declined an invite to test and was thus ineligible for the draft I decided to go with Fuller who is also a mature aged defender from the SANFL albeit 4 years older than Glenn. Interestingly Fuller also did not test at either the Combine or State screening but unlike Glenn it was a result of him not being invited rather than not turning up. The reason for not being there is all important and there was some suggestion that the invite was not because teams didn’t rate him but that they were hoping that he would drop through the net and they could pick him up as a rookie. I think he goes in the national draft although probably in the second half somewhere.

Fuller is best known for his kicking and rightly so. He has a huge left boot that goes further and quicker than defenders expect. You will regularly see defenders playing for a normal kick and then being forced to try and scramble back and recover. Not only is he very long but on those kicks he has a great ability to pick out targets. He is not a guy that just bombs it long and hopes for the best. He will identify a target and then put the ball where his teammate has the best chance to get it. Like most backs he doesn’t mind a ping at the goals when he gets the chance and he has fantastic range as demonstrated by his goal from 60m out in the SANFL GF. Fuller is a natural left footer and is quite dominant on that foot but when forced onto his right he also has great penetration and I cannot think of any player with such good penetration off his non-preferred.

What makes Fuller so good by foot is not just his long kicking but also that he assesses situations and will take the good short or intermediate target if that is the best option. He hits the shorter targets just as well as the longer targets. He will on occasions lack a bit of urgency when he stops to assess and this could cause some difficulties with press defenses at AFL level. Fuller loves to go for short dashes from defense, usually not more than 20m or so and then kick the ball. He charges hard in these runs and when you combine that running with the length of his kicks defenses often struggle to adapt and the ball will quickly find its way behind zones. When he absolutely has to he will handball and he is solid by hand but nothing really more than that.

Fuller is strong through the hips and has a decent step and change of direction. He likes to attack with and without the ball and will accelerate quickly. I don’t think he has great top end speed but he makes good use of the pace that he does have. He gets up to full speed quickly and is often on opponents before they are properly set and with his core strength he will brush through the tackle. He makes good decisions about when to run with the ball and when to give off. When he is caught in a difficult situation he has the evasiveness necessary to buy himself time.

As I have mentioned he is a small defender and is not going to be considered as anything else. Defensively he is a capable one on one defender who when he chooses to help out he usually does a good job of it. He is not someone who zones off a lot but when he does he is a good judge of the ball in the air and is a capable mark. He is not a flyer at the back and if he needs to get off the ground in a contested marking situation he will virtually always go the spoil. It certainly seems like he enjoys a good spoil. He dislocated his shoulder before last year’s grand final and had to have shoulder surgery. It has been noted that he was stronger in the air in years past but that he did seem to start to get more confidence back in his marking as the year progressed.

As mentioned above he is a strong guy and he uses his body well in contested situations. I think he might have trouble with some of the quicker and more tricky AFL small forwards but generally I think he will hold his own. He is certainly better defensively than Terlich who got his chance last year. A comparison I have heard a lot to describe how he goes about things is Guerra and that is pretty apt. He is a quite aggressive guy who doesn’t mind things getting a bit physical.

One thing which I would have liked to see is for him get more of the ball. He does not get off his man often enough to present as an option and as you might imagine teams will put some effort into stopping him from getting the ball. He needs to up his running ability and to get to space and be someone that his teammates can use. Even at AFL level his team is going to want the ball in his hands and he has to work harder to make that happen.

Fuller is said to have a good work ethic and he identified that his kicking was potentially his selling feature and he has really worked on honing his skill to get it where it is now. He was being looked at by teams in 2011 before suffering a major leg injury I think, the recovery for which carried over to 2012. This year is the first year since then where he has been fully fit and he has made the most of it. I think the willingness to work and make the most of his opportunities would make him a good role model in any team but most especially for a younger group. He is an SANFL premiership player and is capable of starting from day one and he could be a real weapon if used correctly. Although they are fairly different physically I would set up Fuller to play the way Gold Coast has done for Trent McKenzie and that kind of drive is what he could give from defense against modern zone set ups. He elongates zones and creates space just by being out there.

51 Carlton

With Betts going Carlton could add someone who could play as that small forward. Jacka will not be the goal scorer that Betts and he actually plays a lot more like Jeff Garlett and he and Garlett would be an interesting tandem. Both can get up and down the field and Jacka has shown he can get plenty of the ball. Worth a punt.

Liam Jacka
DOB 5/6/95 Ht 180 Wt 73

I think that Jacka had a good enough season to confidently predict that someone will pick him but whether that is in the national draft or in the rookie draft I cannot honestly say. It is always difficult to predict whether guys that were not picked for the Champs will be taken especially if they are from outside Victoria. Often good TAC performers will get a look in but it does not happen nearly as much for South Australians like Jacka. Still Jacka had a good season and importantly an excellent finish to the year that ultimately lead him to being named the MVP of the SANFL U18s. He averaged 24.6 disposals a game for the year and over the last 6 weeks had games of 25, 38, 33, 27, 21 and 27 disposals (28.5 per game according to my work with a pen and paper). It is fair to say that he got better as the year went on and if the SA team were picked after the season he would have certainly been in the starting lineup.

Jacka is an outside mid who I am expecting to probably start his AFL career on a flank mostly likely up forward. He was not a big goal scorer even at colts level finishing the year with only 12 goals but neither are a lot of the small mids who have lately started their careers up forward. He is however a good mark of the ball and he plays bigger than he measures. When I saw him I was expecting him to measure about 185 rather than the 180 that they had next to his name at State Screening. Jacka also attacks the spillages really nicely and collects and goes well being gone from the contest before many react to try and shut him down.

What I think will help Jacka get taken is not just that he can find the ball but also that he is a very good athlete and when you are on the fringe of selection being able to say you would have finished in the top 20% in four disciplines at the Combine is very handy. He is a bit of a short strider and seems to be going at 100 miles an hour and that is actually quite accurate. He tested in the low 2.9s at the State Screening and his repeat sprint was similarly good, showing that he can sustain his speed. Both his speed tests would have put him in the top 10% if he had tested at Combine. His jumps were similarly good across the board and his standing vertical and right foot jump would have seen him in the top 15% of both tests. Somewhat interestingly he was very even for height off either foot and actually got higher off his non-dominant foot. His agility was a bit below the other results mentioned but it would still have had him in the top 20% of those tested and was a good result for him given where he projects to play his football. His beep test was well down on the Combine results but that was common across the board for the State Screening guys given they had to do all their testing in one day and most of them were knackered by the time the beep rolled around. Whilst his endurance is something which will need to improve I do not think it is a particular problem and it does not seem to prevent him from getting around the park.

Jacka is a hard runner who likes to back his pace. He has a bit of a frenetic style of play and he sometimes plays on when he should have gone back and taken his time but he is certainly one for taking the game on and moving it quickly. He does sum situations up pretty quickly and seems like a pretty smart footballer with the use of the ball. He has a strong run and carry game and is also decent working the other way. I don't think his defensive work is a particular strength of his game but he does know that defensive running exists unlike a similar South Australian from last year. I think he picks up the defensive side of the game pretty quickly once he ups his endurance to an appropriate level.

Jacka is a very left dominant kicker and does not have the smoothest style in the world. It is not bad though and generally he is quite effective and will hit his targets. I have not really seem him drill low passes rather he prefers to mostly weight his passes to hit the targets to advantage and generally he has pretty good feel on his kicks. His penetration is reasonable and he has the range on his set shots to slot them from 50 without too much trouble. A lot of his shots for goal will come from marks after he worked himself into space and he is a pretty good finisher although again his technique is not as smooth as it could be.

Jacka does not have much of an inside game from what I have seen but I think is capable of developing one. He is not afraid to attack a contest and with his acceleration he could be a factor. His handballing is pretty good but maybe not as quick as you would like it for inside work. At the moment he is a player who looks to kick it first. His hands seem reasonably clean but again nothing that really sets him apart from others.

Jacka's selling feature is going to be his athleticism and the fact that he is a pretty decent footballer to go along with that athletic ability. He will attack the game and is good at finding the ball and where he should run to receive. Jacka is not indigenous but a player he reminds me of is Matthew Stokes and I think he could develop along those lines starting up forward and spending more time in the midfield as he develops.


52 Port Adelaide

Port need to add some depth to their KPD group and Pearce is a guy that is raw but has great size and endurance and would be a very interesting prospect that they could stash in the SANFL and develop against decent opposition. If I was a team I would be keen to take a punt on Pearce as a rookie but I think someone is going to go earlier than that and if you want him you are going to need to use a ND pick.

Alex Pearce
DOB 9/6/95 Ht 198 Wt 86

If you have read my stuff before you will have noticed that when in doubt I tend to go with a Div 2 guy and that is what I am doing here. Pearce is a very raw prospect and if I am honest is probably a better rookie prospect rather than national draft chance but there is a lot of potential there and I am all for given the Div 2 guys a plug when I have the opportunity.

Pearce has been tried all over the park this year but has mainly fitted in up forward. Personally though I do not see him as having the skill set to make it as a forward and is much more likely to be groomed for a role as a key position defender. With the preponderance of massive key forwards coming into the league I am sure having a KPD that can look these guys in the eye would have a fair bit of appeal. Pearce is much taller than virtually any other KPDers at 198cm but I think has the agility to allow him to go with the bigger forwards. Agility is where big defenders usually fall down but I think Pearce is better than most in this regard.

What he does need to improve is his strength though. He has done very little or no gym work to date and his strength levels are well below what is going to be required to cut it at AFL level. To me Pearce looks like young colt who is still growing into his body and hasn’t quite worked out how to make things co-ordinate quite right just yet. I would expect he has grown quite a lot in the last year or two and he plays like he is used to being shorter and doing the things shorter blokes do. He tries things and taller blokes generally don’t do. There is a great mix of height, agility and derring-do (yes I did grow up in the 1800s) but it hasn’t all quite clicked into the full package. He is probably a year behind a lot of this year’s prospect’s development-wise and that is fine provided teams accept that and take the time to develop him properly.

He played as an overager at the under 16 Champs last year and was named as Tasmania’s best. If I was a team I would treat him like he was of age with that group and have him spend next year putting on weight and actually learning a position with no expectation of playing senior football. He did well early in the year in the Tassie league and seemed to take a lot of confidence out of his performance at the Champs and in the TAC games he played. On return from the Champs he played 6 games of TSL seniors and was named in the best 4 times according to our BF Tassie correspondents. Coming out of the Champs and finishing the year strongly in senior company is always well regarded by the recruitment community although admittedly the TSL is often downgraded a bit.

Apart from his height the big selling feature for Pearce is his running ability. The kid can run all day and showed that at the Combine with a fantastic 15.38 in the beep test (4th overall) and a 10.06 in the 3km (10th overall). For a guy of his size those are really great results and allow teams to see him as someone they can stick on the hard running CHFs of the league. His agility result was mid pack overall and nothing special. In the sprints he suffered from a lack of explosiveness and his times over the first 5 metres would have raised a few concerns. When he gets to an AFL team there will be plenty of sprint work to get him up and going more quickly. Given his relative rawness I would back some specific training to help a lot there. In addition to his height he has very long arms and his jumping was okay overall. This is a defender who is going to be able to get a fist in when those really tall forwards or resting rucks fly for a mark.

In game situations I thought Pearce’s pace looked reasonable and once he was up and going he was a nice smooth runner and covered ground really well. Below the knees he is reasonable but not that fantastic. Like I mentioned above sometimes I think he underestimates how far he has to get down now and if that is the case he will adjust. By foot he is unadventurous but then that is often seem as a prerequisite for key defenders. He plays within his skill level and hits targets well. I don’t mind his field kicking and he seems comfortable in his use of the ball. He had a DE% of 70% at the Champs and a very good 80% in his two TAC games. He doesn’t get a heap of it but he is okay with it when he does.

I doubt he is ever going to be a big possession winner. He will get off his man and involve himself on occasions but I would not say he is particularly offensively minded when playing at the back. In the game I saw him at the Champs he was playing mostly as a CHB and whilst he did okay offensively when I saw him he was not involved very often. He does have the endurance to hurt his opponent the other way and with his height he probably presents as a good marking target at the back when the situation is a bit dire. From what little I have seen of him he appears to read the ball in the air pretty well but I would not say he is the best mark going around which is another reason I prefer him at the back.

I think he could turn into a Lachlan Keeffe type player and whilst he is not as tall as Keeffe he is that kind of very tall option at the back who has the athleticism to play the position well. He is still very raw but there is quite a bit of intriguing talent there to entice teams.

 

[Quigley]

53 Sydney

This is not really an area of need for Sydney but they always seem willing to add guys with runs on the board and Honeychurch has that as the Metro MVP from the Champs. There are a few positions opening up in the Sydney small/medium group over the next year or two and having a few guys competing for the spot is the Sydney way.

Mitchell Honeychurch
DOB 2/3/95 Ht 176 Wt 68

It was a year for the upsets in the Victorian MVP awards at the Champs and I am sure not many people would have predicted Honeychurch to bring home the Metro honour. Still if you average 25 disposals and 5 tackles a game its hard to say that you did not deserve the accolade. Whilst he might not have had the hurt factor as some others he was around the ball a lot, winning clearances and working hard. Honeychurch had an interrupted preseason with a broken wrist and then just after the start of the season he broke his arm so to come through that and win the MVP was a big achievement and showed how hard he was willing to work to prepare himself.

Whilst we are speaking of injuries it is also worth mentioning that he missed time last year as well and did a hamstring late in the season this year. He has a very light frame and the tendency to miss games because of injury would concern clubs a bit. By all accounts he is a very hard worker with a great attitude and so any injury he suffers is not going to be because of a failure to prepare properly.

Despite being primarily a midfielder as a junior I have little doubt that Honeychurch will start his AFL career as a small forward. He fits the mould perfectly for what clubs are doing with the small forward slot. That is they are getting undersized mids and playing them up forward. Off the top of my head think of Zorko, Green, Christiansen, Stokes, Elliot, Dalhaus and quite a lot of others. Honeychurch already have some propensity up forward which makes the move all the more certain in my mind.

Honeychurch plays with good speed and will attack the ball and the man with it if needed. Up forward he crumbs the ball well and has a pretty good goal sense. With the ball on the ground he gets very low and as a consequence he has a low centre of gravity and is solid over the ball even with such a light frame. When the ball comes to him he gets the ball to foot quickly and finishes pretty well. He is not a natural smart small forward but I think he should be effective enough. Overhead, Honeychurch is surprisingly strong for such a small guy and he will surprise a few even at AFL level I think. He reads it pretty well in the air and seems to have strong hands.

I see Honeychurch as being very coachable and I believe he will pick up the defensive structures quickly. He already does well defensively around packs and with this mindset, his pace and willingness to work I think he will be an effective defensive presence up forward.

Honeychurch will work up and down the park and one of the things he does very well is flow forward when his team has the ball and run the lines and present as an option. He is not a big spread from clearance situations more that he will run hard to take a direct route to goal. When he gets the ball the results can be a bit variable and probably need to be worked on. He seems to pick good options but he too often overweights or underweights his kicks and misses his targets. He does not have a very big leg and most of his kicks will be in the 20m - 40m range.

He has played as an inside out mid at the Champs but I think he is too light in the short term to play that role at AFL level. When he plays inside he gets his fair share of clearances but often it tends to be from good luck than good management. If you watch him at clearances he does not move to the ball but rather lets it come to him and if he is matched up on someone he regularly just cedes front position. When the ball comes to him he does a good job getting it out whether by hand or foot but he is not all that attacking with his use. If he decides to run he gets up to speed quickly and is elusive enough to come out the other side of packs. He is a bit frenetic around the ball and is not one of those guys who look like they have time. Everything seems to be going at a hundred miles an hour with him.

Although we have seen a swing back toward taking shorter guys early (e.g. Prestia) I do not see Honeychurch being one of those guys. I am seeing him more as a small forward who spends occasional time on ball and teams do not generally pay a great deal for those types of players at draft time. I liked Honeychurch at the Champs and think he has a chance to make it but he will be pushing it uphill.


54 Geelong

With Mackie and Enright approaching the end of their careers, Geelong could use a few options to choose from at the back and whilst I like Thurlow and Smedts as prospects a few more would not go astray. Drummond has a high ceiling and if he works out he could be a big help in extending Geelong’s run at the top. The risk of failure is pretty high with him as well but that is the case with most of the guys likely to be selected around here.

Nathan Drummond
DOB 19/1/95 Ht 184 Wt 82

Drummond was not one who I had intended to include in my mock this year but when I was asking around for someone to include he came recommended and given I was scratching around I thought why not. Drummond has some interesting qualities and although he didn't impress me at the Champs he looked decidedly better in TAC company and when he was confident he looked like a player with definite X factor.

Drummond did not play much this year due to school commitments and injury which he suffered at the Champs. At the Champs he averaged only 10 disposals per game in his 3 games. He managed 4 games for the Bushrangers and averaged a more solid 19.2 disposals per game. As mentioned above he looked a much better player in the TAC and I think it had everything to do with confidence. He knew he was good enough to control games at TAC level but when the competition got better he did not have the same confidence in his game and he did not look nearly as good.

The games I saw of him this year he was playing as a back flanker and that is where I see him playing at AFL level. In the TAC he looked like the man to control at the back and he backed himself to go in and get the ball and when he had the ball to make plays with it. Now they didn't always come off but he did enough to get him noticed. He is not the best read of the ball in the air but he is reasonable and when he gets it right his hands are pretty solid. In the TAC he dropped off his man quite a bit and went to influence other contests and mark the ball. When he did that the results were often good and he didn't mind having a fly on occasions and when he is up in the air he balances and keeps his eye on the ball well. More than his aerial work I probably like his work below the knees. He cleans up spillages at the back very well and has nice clean hands below the knees and can pick up the ball from his toes at speed.

Another thing he does well is use his body to influence play. He is a player who seems to thrive on the physical side of the game and this is worth noting as often some really talented kids struggle with the additional physicality they face at AFL level. I expect Drummond to eat that up. In junior company he will throw his weight around well to make room, protect position or to spring a teammate with a block. He has a solid build and I think he will end up with a powerful build by the time he is finished developing. Drummond is a good mark with good spring and when you combine his strength and ability in the air you expect him to be a 190cm player rather than his listed 184cm.

He was invited to Combine and was really impressive especially in the jumps and the endurance testing. He finished in the top 10 in the standing vertical, the right running jump, the beep test and the 3km. That was a pretty impressive result. I was a bit surprised that he tested as well as he did in the endurance events but credit to him for coming in very well prepared off injury. If I am honest I had thought he would test well for pace but only average for endurance. As it turned out it was the other way around. Drummond was very slow over the first 5 metres of the 20m but really picked things up over the back end and for the 30m repeat sprint he finished in the top 20%. When I thought about this result I could see a bit of a lack of explosiveness in the way he plays. He plays with good pace but seems to get cornered a bit early and often has to dance around a bit before he can get going. If an opponent is close when he first gets the ball he can get him but once he is up to full speed he is very difficult to catch. He is fairly elusive in tight situations and likes a run and carry from the back.

One of Drummond's real weaknesses is his kicking which is really inconsistent. He had a DE% in the low 60s at both Champs and TAC level and whilst DE% can often be misleading in this situation it is entirely accurate. He wastes a lot of ball by hand and more particularly by foot. He often seems not to pick out targets merely to kick it in the general direction of his teammate. Whilst he can pick out targets when he concentrates too often he doesn't. When he gets it together though some really good things can happen and he can turn defense into attack very quickly. When he gets forward his set shot technique seems well balanced and composed. I don't see much wrong with that side of his kicking and he is an accurate shot for goal from what little I have seen of this side of his game.

Despite physical appearances Drummond identifies with his aboriginal heritage and there is a bit of the stereotypical indigenous game in the way he plays. When his confidence is up there is a lot of flair and willingness to take the game on. There is a bit to work on particularly with his disposal but there is enough there that I could see a team taking a punt on him.


55 Essendon

With the retirement of Hille, Essendon are in need of another ruck and Apeness makes sense for them here. He is a decent forward/ruck prospect and is someone who could play at the same time with either Bellchambers or Ryder.

Michael Apeness
DOB 28/1/95 Ht 201 Wt 98

According to Twomey, Apeness is now in contention for a round 1 spot. My initial response, right after a scoff at Cal talking out of his butt again about a Metro kid, was that I hope to god Brisbane have more sense than to get sucked in on this one. Apeness is not a terrible prospect but realistically he should be closer to the rookie draft than the first round.

In a very weak key forward and ruck class, Apeness stands out not at all. Nankervis was much superior at the Champs playing the same role and well deserved tipping Apeness out of the All Australian side. Nankervis is a much better forward prospect and at least as good in the ruck. A bit of good old Victorian bias should be the only reason anyone would be considering taking Apeness ahead of Nankervis.

Apeness left AFL for rugby for a couple of years and has brought some real physicality back with him. He seems to relish throwing his weight around especially against smaller opposition. In the ruck contest he will charge in and try and outbody his opponent and up forward he likes a bit of a wrestling match. This hard physical edge is one of his big selling features.

When Boyd went down Apeness became the feature back for Eastern Ranges and whilst he has the same height as Boyd he is not nowhere near the forward prospect that Boyd is. At the Champs he split time between the ruck and up forward although he probably spent more time in the ruck. Up forward he will lead hard at the ball and is capable of sustaining a lead but struggles to get separation. He is likely to always have a height advantage of key defenders but they are always going to be in his back pocket and many of them are going to read the ball coming in better than he does.

Apeness has good strong hands but he is very late on his reads of the ball in the air. He will lead out and will often find himself out of position and will have to lunge to correct. Sometimes he gets there and sometimes he doesn’t. When he does mark and his set shot technique is good with a steady approach and a low drop. Technique wise he reminds me a fair bit of Daniher and his accuracy is pretty good. When the ball hits the ground he will go after it but below the knees his cleanliness is no better than average for a guy his size. I have not noticed him get much in the way of goals from spillages and opponents tend to react quicker than he does.

Apparently he had played very little in the ruck before the Champs and he certainly played like that was the case. He had one big game against an undersized NSW contingent but against the Div 1 teams he averaged only 11 hit outs per game despite playing quite a bit of time in the ruck. When he gets his hand on the ball his taps are solid but I would not have thought any better than that. He is not a big jumper in the centre and around the ground he either tries to wrestle or goes off two feet like a basketballer. He will probably be competitive against the part time KPF/2nd rucks at AFL level but against the specialists he is going to get smashed.

Athletically he is only average for a ruckman (i.e. below average against everyone else). He had the third worst standing vertical result and his running jumps were nothing more than mediocre. Pace wise he is slow particularly over the 30m repeat sprint where again he featured in the bottom 10. Somewhat positively his endurance results were around the 50th percentile which gives teams something to work with. He has lost 10kgs this year and that has helped him athletically but he is never going to be a stand out on that front.

My issue is that if you pick him you are getting a below average ruck and a below average forward and adding those up does not amount to one good player. I would compare him to someone like Hampson who despite what Richmond fans think has never really had enough to hold his own at either position. Sure there is height there but that is not enough to beat AFL KPDers.


56 Hawthorn

Hawthorn’s window is open and if they are going to win another premiership in the next 5 or 6 years it is going to be this year or next. They brought in Lake last year as a short term fix and he worked out brilliantly but at 32 I am not sure you can rely on him to be playing when you need him. Schoenmakers is improving but is not there yet. Bringing in the best KPD outside the AFL as insurance would seem to be a sensible move to me.

Korey Beard
DOB 13/6/90 Ht 194 Wt 91

There has been a bit of love for McStay and Fort and a couple of others but really if I wanted a KPD who could actually come in and play it would be hard to go past Beard. He is a mature ager from Port Adelaide who has done the last 4 preseasons with Port and missed being taken each time. He has continued to develop over that period and as a 23 year old he is probably the best key position defender outside of the AFL. I note he has recently signed with Sturt for next year but I assume he is still available for selection in the draft and will play if picked.

Beard can play both full back and centre half back if required and I think he probably projects as a full back at AFL level. His biggest weakness as a FB is probably that he will give away a yard of pace to the truly quick KPFs but realistically he does have the pace to go with most forwards he is likely to match up on. His ability to read the play and react quickly I think would compensate for any deficiency in pace anyway. He is not a close checking defender but he is accountable. What he does is that he runs with his man but backs his ability to read the play quickly and react to beat the forward to position. He is a pretty good mark of the ball and takes a stack of intercept marks by being able to read the ball better than the forward. He doesn't mind playing from behind and is often able to duck in front nicely to take the ball whilst the forward is taking his time to react to the kick. When he is not in a position to mark he is a solid spoiler of the ball.

Beard undertook State Testing and was generally adequate across the board and nothing more than that. The major exception was in the agility test where he tested very poorly. Teams would be worried about smarter forwards being able to exploit this with double backs and changes of direction. It is a concern but I think he is a smart enough defender to compensate and good coaching should be able to hide that issue a bit. At 91kgs he would also not be the biggest defender going around but he is a strong bodied player who is not easily overpowered. He will be giving away weight to some of the power forwards in the AFL but he does seem to be able to hold his own against those types of forwards in the SANFL. He is not a big tackler but when he gets hold of someone he does a decent job of wrangling them to the ground.

Unlike many KPD prospects, Beard offers quite a lot offensively. He provides excellent rebound for his team and gets involved in a lot of forward movements. A lot of his involvements come from his marks and when you get 9.3 marks per game that is a damn good start. Overall he averaged 18.6 disposals per game which is excellent for a key defender.

His skills are solid but I do have some concerns about whether they will hold up at AFL level where the forward pressure can be several factors above what he is used to. His technique is not exactly picture perfect but at SANFL level he tends to play within his capabilities and hits his targets well. He seems like a good decision maker and whilst there is not a lot of hurt factor on a lot of his disposals he does a good job of moving the pill forward.

Beard was very occasionally moved forward in the SANFL more as a shock move than anything else. He will lead out strongly and does seem to be able to get separation on occasions. There is some scope that he could do the same sometimes at AFL level but I would not be relying on him to be a consistent goal kicker. When he does get a shot up forward his set shot technique is ugly. He holds the ball high and tends to throw it up in the air a bit when he releases the ball. He did get a couple of important goals this year but personally I would not want to rely on that kicking style holding together when I needed it.

Beard was named Port's team man of the year and seems like the kind of guy who would be good in a locker room helping the kids out in the reserves and very capable of stepping up and playing at AFL level if required. To me he looks like an AFL standard defender who might concede a few goals against a good forward but would not be disgraced and would make that forward work hard both ways. There are certainly quite a lot of worse KPDers in the AFL at the moment and I would be for giving Beard a chance. He is probably not a big upside selection but he would add nice depth to a team in need of it. He is probably more of a rookie draft chance but I would not blink twice if someone picked him in the national draft.

 

[Quigley]

57 Melbourne

Melbourne is trying to rebuild their side and adding the current Fothergill Medallist could fast track that a bit. He is also a mature ager who is going to be hungry for a chance and is likely to set a good example for the young group. I think Lambert is good enough to start right away for Roos and has enough talent to retain his spot going forward.

Kaine Lambert
DOB 26/11/91 Ht 177 Wt 77

Considering the last 5 Fothergill Medal winners have be drafted I think it is safe enough to just go and include the winner each year in my mock. Lambert had a great year in the VFL and came home like a storm and ended up only one vote behind in the Liston Medal. Lambert averaged 25.2 disposals, 5.2 clearances, 3.2 tackles and kicked 21 goals on the year. He was very good this year and I am sure someone will give him a chance.

The biggest issue for Lambert is his size. He is only 177cm and 77kgs which are both undersized measurements by AFL standards. The success of Dwyer last year for Collingwood would help his case. I would rate Dwyer as a similar type of player to Lambert and being 5 years younger than Dwyer wouldn't hurt Lambert's chances. Lambert played as an inside out midfielder who regularly went forward in the AFL. If anything I expect those roles to be reversed in the AFL. I see him as a small forward who will occasionally go into the midfield and play an outside in role. Lambert does have an extra string to his bow in that he could play forward and then move into the midfield and perform a tagging role if someone was getting away.

Lambert started his VFL career playing as a tagger and he did some excellent jobs on AFL players whilst managing to get plenty of the ball himself. 2011 was his last year as a full time tagger and as a 19 year old he averaged 21 disposals a game whilst stopping some of the VFL's best. He is a bit undersized for that role full-time at AFL level but as a pinch hitter who can go into the middle and stop someone whilst finding plenty of it himself he has definite value.

There is a definite trend in the AFL at the moment for short midfielders to be played as small forwards and Lambert has the skill set to take advantage of this. He has good pace and uses his inside skills to be a very effective crumber. He times his arrival at a spillage really well and he has the clean hands necessary to pick up and go. He balances quickly and has pretty good goal sense. He navigates traffic well and although he will get buffeted around a bit he does control his disposal pretty well. He is always on the move up forward and finds space well inside 50. I would not say he is a particularly dangerous leading forward but as mentioned he can find space and when he does he will mark it.

Unlike most of the 18 year olds he has a good idea of the defensive work that he will need to do. He has a well developed defensive side of his game from the time he spent as a tagger and is a hard worker both offensively and defensively. He is not a real run down type but he does put pressure on and this can lead to turnovers.

Athletically he is nothing special. He did the State Screening and was pretty average or below average across the board. The one thing which I would describe as quite good was the back 15m of the 20m. He was quite slow over the first 5 metres but really brought it home strong. I think he plays with good pace and he uses what he has to good effect. His endurance is reasonable but I think it will need to improve to get the best out of himself at AFL level. Being a full time AFL player though often does wonders and when you get mature players who have got there the hard way they are not going to leave any stone unturned and I would expect quite a bit of improvement in his running over a full AFL preseason.

Skills wise he is reasonable but nothing particularly special. He does have really good length on his kicks when he uses it and he can drop them through from 55-60 on the run. If he goes long and the defender is playing for a standard kick he can kick it over their head. That kind of penetration is something which will interest teams. Still he only had a DE% of 60% in the VFL and whilst that is about what you would expect from an inside player it is nothing special. He was one of the highest contested possession winners in the VFL so its fair to say he was under pressure a lot when he looked to get the ball away. I would expect that percentage to go up with the likely change in role but I do not see him as a player with particularly high hurt factor on his kicks.

When he plays inside he had nice quick hands and gets to the ball well enough but he does get buffeted around a lot and this affects the ability to make full use of the ball when he gets it. At AFL level the discrepancy in size and strength is likely to be even greater hence my thought that he is not going to be a permanent onballer. Still at ruck contests in the forward half he will be another very handy guy at the contest.

Lambert is a plug in and play type with some zip, solid skills and an ability to play up front or on the ball. He might not ever be a truly elite player but he can perform an important role in even on a very good team. Dwyer is a guy I mentioned earlier and that comparison is certainly very apt. Another one which I had thought of was Dayne Zorko. I think someone will give Lambert a go this year and I can see him playing quite a few games early.

58 Fremantle

Thorp could come in and provide another option up front from Freo from day 1 and for a grand final team this would be a nice boost from someone taken at this stage in the draft. Thorp could play beside Pav in a similar type of wide ranging high half forward role which is pretty effective at Subi.

Mitch Thorp
DOB 25/12/88 Ht 196 Wt 91

The penny has finally dropped for Thorp but the question now is is it too late? Thorp was an entitled toss bag who didn't work hard enough at Hawthorn the first time around. It looks like he has finally grown up and with a partner and little bub on the scene (and another on the way I understand) he has dedicated himself to trying to get a second chance at AFL level. He has been around the scene for a while trying to get back into the AFL but this year he really looks like he deserves it.

Thorp took over as captain/coach of the perpetual laughing stock South Launceston for their last season in the TSL and lead them to the premiership. He picked up the TSL B&F averaging 24 disposals, 11 marks and 4 goals per game. He garnered enormous respect from his teammates, and throughout the competition, with the job he did. He lead by word and deed and showed a level of maturity most would have thought beyond him a couple of years ago. He was instrumental in the Grand Final win which was as common theme throughout the year. During the year he also represented Tasmania in the interstate game against the NEAFL East and dominated at that level as well with 19 disposals, 12 marks and 6 goals. It's hard to imagine him doing more to reform his image both on and off the park.

Thorp is keen to move to any team who picks him up and he has received interest from Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Freo and the Bulldogs according to media reports. Of those Adelaide seems to have the most interest and he would do well there playing second fiddle to Walker. Gold Coast is the other team which I think he would do well to recruit him from a structural perspective. He could play as a running target and his new found maturity and determination not to waste his second chance would fit in with the Suns unit.

I think it is important to establish that despite averaging 4 goals a game in the TSL, Thorp is not a KPF. He has the height to play that role but that is not the role which best suits him and whilst he might play as a KPF for short rest periods he is not going to succeed if he is recruited to play that role full time. Thorp is not quick or particularly agile and as a key position he struggles to create separation and deal with bigger bodies in the marking contest. Contested marking on players his own size was always a weakness of his and that has not really changed. He does pretty well on the non-KPDers but struggles with quicker, bigger bodies.

He is much better as a tall running third tall / flanker. Staker is 196cm as well and played a similar role up forward for the Lions this year. Thorp has pretty good endurance and the height and the amount of ground he covers make him a difficult match up. When he gets out in the open he has a nice easy running style that lets him cover ground and when he has a bit of space he is a very good mark. He has a nice jump and takes the ball nicely out in front of his eyes. He reads the ball well in the air and times his arrival at the ball really nicely.

Thorp has a fluid kicking style which is particularly prevalent when he is on the run. He picks targets out well but does tend to go short a lot. He has good feel on his kicks and for the game in general going forward and his short kicks tend allow rather than inhibit the flow forward. With his work rate he got a stack of shots on goal in the TSL and showed good finishing ability whether on the run or from a set shot. He has range to 50 and there are no real problems with his set shot technique. For a big guy he is excellent below the knees and has clean hands which can create shots on goal.

Thorp played some time onball in the TSL but did not show anything to suggest that he would have the ability to play time at the centre bounce at AFL level. Still this experience will probably stand him in good stead at stoppages in the forward half where his big body will allow him to create mismatches and possibly pop someone else free. Thorp was invited to the State Screening and the results were all well below average which would not have helped his chances of being picked up.

We saw this year that Thorp has a good football brain underneath all the preconceptions that people had in regards to him and when he was challenged he stepped up in a big way. There are a lot of teams out there I think who could use a player like Thorp and I personally hope he gets a shot. I think he is more of a mature aged rookie chance than a national draft prospect but I would not rule out someone going early in this draft especially Adelaide who start late and have a role that he could fill straight away.


59 Hawthorn

As mentioned earlier the Hawks have to start planning for the retirement of their onball group and Jansen is the kind of big bodied mid who they don’t have in their group currently. He would provide a point of difference and someone they could develop in the VFL for a year or two.

Jarrad Jansen
DOB 2/5/95 Ht 192 Wt 91

Jarrad or Jarrod? I have seen it both ways but I am going with Jarrad given that is what the AFL have put out. Most years Jansen would probably be a rookie prospect but this year he is seen a good chance to go in the third round. Personally I hardly noticed Jansen at the Champs with him tending to blend into the background. He only managed to get 14 disposals per game at the Champs and I think it is fair to say that he did not have a big impact when the class of the competition went up.

In the WAFL Colts he did better averaging 23 disposals per game and getting out into space more to get himself noticed. What is likely to get Jansen drafted is not any particular feature of his game rather it is his size and a glimpse of what he could become. The AFL loves big bodied mids at the moment and Jansen certainly is that at 192cm and already 91kgs. He is going to be a big powerful player by the time he is finished and that will make him a handful in onball situations. The fact that he has only moved onball this year would add to his appeal with teams seeing what he could become more than what he is at the moment. Last year he played as a key position defender before working out that he was going to need to try something different in order to get drafted. That something different was reinventing himself as an inside midfielder and he has some propensity for that role.

He uses his size and strength to clear space for himself and his teammates and at the next level he will be used to spring his dangerous teammates. He likes to throw his weight around and he doesn't mind getting in and mixing it up. He is a very good tackler and he will crunch a ball carrier when he gets the chance. In his highlights there is also a pretty impressive drag down of an NT opponent and that demonstrates both the strength of his hands and his upper body in general. The kid is a physical presence in the middle of the ground and does make use of that.

Jansen is about average for reading the taps, moving to the ball and the cleanliness of his hands. There is a lot of averageness in his game but when you consider where he has come from over the past year to be average amongst the inside group is a pretty good achievement. If I was looking at taking him I would assume that they would continue to improve as he plays the role more. He is an excellent team player and will do all the little things that will help teams win games of football and this should not be underestimated.

He has improved his outside game and although it wasn't much in evidence at the Champs he has shown at Colts level that he knows how to spread and get to space. He is a very good mark for an inside mid with the work he would have done on this as a KP setting him apart from his midfielders. He reads the ball well in the air and judges nicely where to go and what he needs to do to mark it. If he is running toward the mark he seals his opponent off from the ball really nicely and keeps them on his back. If he is behind he uses his body nicely and generally he protects the space well.

When he rested at Colts level he usually went forward this year and in 14 Colts games he finished with 11 goals and 11 behinds. Not of a lot of those goals came from pure forward work but he has the body size to worry smaller defenders who are sent back on him. He is not really a leading threat at the moment but he does use his body well to protect the drop zone and his size and strength make him a handful. As far as diversity of role goes he probably has some potential to play as a third tall at AFL level at either end although if I was picking him it would be primarily as an inside mid. With that said if someone was needed to fill a role at back or up front he would be serviceable.

Skills have been a bit of an achilles heel of Jansen but he has been improving and again are probably about average now. Penetration is not great and he does not tend to go long that much. When he has time he uses the ball pretty well and will usually hit his targets. There is not a lot of hurt factor in his kicking but that is a pretty common trait with inside mids. He does need to keep working on his kicking but there has been a noticeable improvement and there is no reason to think that will not improve. Jansen has made a concerted effort to improve the deficiencies in his game and to date he has done a pretty good job. He is highly thought of for his attitude and approach in general and apparently interviewed very well at Combine.

As with the rest of his game his testing at the Combine was pretty run of the mill. His pace was probably better than expected at around 3.1 in the 20m and his repeat sprint in the top third of those tested. Agility and beep test quite unsurprisingly a bit disappointing but his 3km time was very respectable being pretty much bang on average. His jumps were really good and he measured with very long arms which would go to him playing even bigger than he measures. He has serviceable endurance at this stage for junior competition but he is going to need to work quite hard to get this up to AFL level. When he improves his tank this might also allow him to play with greater pace. At the moment he lacks explosiveness in his play and can look a bit slow out there.

With him being a big bodied mid, lacking a bit in pace and skill but an ability to go forward the comparison that is being made quite regularly to is to Jobe Watson early in his career. It is hard to argue with the comparison on this basis but the guy I thought of when I saw him was Ryan Lester who has made a similar move into the midfield with the Lions and has similar strengths and weaknesses and attitude. Lester is progressing reasonably well although not setting the world on fire and that is what I am expecting from Jansen if he succeeds in getting AFL games.


60 Western Bulldogs

With Gia retiring and there not being a lot of medium forward options in place, the Bulldogs could use Sokol for squad depth if nothing else. There is not a huge margin between Sokol and Lennon and at 60, Sokol is probably reasonable value in comparison.

Ben Sokol
DOB 28/10/95 Ht 187 Wt 86

This kid is genuinely hard to assess even for people who have seen a lot more of him than I have. He looks like he is carrying a bit of condition around the midriff but he is an elite runner. It is these kinds of contradictions which abound with him and which could easily see him end up as a nice AFL footballer or alternatively a 100 goal kicker in a suburban league somewhere. In the end it probably comes down to attitude and a willingness to do the work necessary to succeed. There is some interesting skills on show with Sokol.

Most obvious is Sokol's marking ability. For a small/medium player Sokol is an excellent mark and is very hard to handle for guys his height. He is a very good judge of the ball in the air and has a set of clamps for hands. Once he gets his hands on the ball it is not going anywhere. His use of the body in marking contests is also elite for this level and he is strong and uses his body exceptionally well to clear the man when flying and also when on the ground. He will move a man aside when running side by side and when he flys he will continue to fly at the ball whilst his man goes off at a tangent. He is very smart with his use of the body and does things legally and well. He is gets reasonably height when he flys and has a good stretch that often catches smaller defenders out. In short he is one of the best marks in this draft for his size.

He played as a half forward mostly this year with some time in the midfield. I would expect that to be how he starts his AFL career but I think if he is going to make it it he is going to end up a midfielder. He managed to kick 28 goals in his 12 WAFL Colts games on his way to averaging 22 disposals per game. He played 4 reserves toward the end of the year and held his own well with 16 disposals per game. He played fairly deep at the Champs and managed only 13 disposals per game. I thought he was not used particularly well at the Champs and we did not really get to see his endurance to full effect.

Sokol was one of the best endurance athletes in the WA side this year and was one of the few to go over 14 in the beep test at the State Screening. Take it as a given that he would have gone over 15 if he had been at the Combine. He does not get the most out of his endurance base at the moment but that is really a function of where he plays rather than much else. That is one of the reasons why I think a move into the midfield is inevitable. Through the midfield his endurance can be given full rein and his lack of speed can be hidden a bit. He is a leading player up forward and he lacks a yard of pace which sees him have a bit of difficulty getting separation from his defender.

One of the other main deficiencies in his game is his kicking. He has a bit of a variable hold on the ball and this causes the results of his kicking to be quite variable as well. It looks like he has been working on his kicking and he did have a couple of good games in the reserves in this regard but overall he still misses too many targets. Even when he gets things together he does not look to have great feel on his kicks which results in him overhitting or under hitting his passes. He is a right footer who will use his left when he has to although his style on his left is not the most convincing I have seen. His set shot is a little better than his field kick but he still releases the ball a bit too high in his action and this can cause some issues.

Around goals, particularly in the Colts, he is a confident finisher. When he is up and going he controls the front half and a lot of good things go through him. He gets around the park well and is a presence. I think one of the keys to getting the most out of him is to give him the confidence that he is as good as anyone out there and that he just needs to go out there and control the play. He is not someone who is at his best when playing a complementary role. He has to be a key part of the team.

Sokol has a bit of an unusual body shape. He is quite solid through the torso and looks to be carrying a bit of extra weight perhaps indicating that he is not the most dedicated athlete available this year. This can be both a warning flag for teams and an indication that there is greater potential waiting to be uncovered once they get him into a full time environment. That is one of the reasons why I said that his success could rest in his own hands. If he dedicates himself then he has the potential to succeed.

 

[Quigley]

61 Gold Coast

Okay time to go with a run of Qlders. Not so much need just an excuse to put the Qlders forward.

Jarred Ellis
DOB 18/4/95 Ht 189 Wt 77

If I am honest I did not have Ellis on my radar at all but when it was mentioned to me that he was rumoured to be a strong chance to get picked up in the draft I felt duty bound to include him in my mock. The expectation seems to be that if he is not taken in the national draft he will get picked up as a rookie and there is every chance he could be the first Qlder off the board. Anyone who has read my mocks before knows that I need very little excuse to include a Qlder even in this case when the Qlder actually lives in NSW and has his whole life. I am not sure how he gets to play for Qld and be part of the Suns academy when he actually lives at Lennox Heads over the NSW border but far be if from me to let such technicalities get in the way.

Ellis missed about 6 months with a full shoulder reco and only got back during the Champs. He played 3 games at the Champs off a HBF and was really quiet averaging only 8 disposals per game. He continued to play NEAFL for Broadbeach in the second half of the year and ended up playing 6 games (or 7 depending on which source you believe) with an average of 11.6 disposals per game. These figures were boosted by a great round 22 game against the Suns where he finished with 21 disposals. It was this game that I think has gotten him the late attention which might see him get drafted. The attention did get him a late invite to Combine where he returned decent but not great results.

Ellis plays with good pace and agility and I had expected his test results to be a bit better than they were. They were not bad but I had expected him to go faster than 3.06 in the 20m and 8.66 in the agility test. The 26.03 in the repeat sprint was poor. All the Queenslanders seemed ill prepared for the testing this year and that was the case with Ellis as well. He is better than he tested and was not prepared by his academy to show his abilities to best advantage. He did run over 14 in the beep and a solid 3km time that shows there is enough to work with endurance.

There is some talk of him playing midfield at the next level but personally I see him as being best suited for a role off half back. At HB he will be able to best utilise his marking and defensive abilities which I see as probably his two big selling features. He reads the ball very well in the air and if anything actually plays bigger than his 189cm frame. He has a key position type style of defensive play even when matched up on small or medium targets. He can get in front and mark the ball but most often tends to play from behind if he is matched up on a dangerous forward. He backs his pace and height and that confidence is usually well founded. He has good closing speed and a knack for getting his fist in to spoil and times his attack on the ball really nicely. When he attempts to mark the ball he shows strong hands and he is an excellent stretch mark of the ball.

I have heard he is very good at mopping up at the back but I am a bit unsure about whether I agree with that. If they meant he is good at collecting from a spillage in his area then I am inclined to agree. If they meant he shows good judgment about dropping off his man to help out and clean up resultant spills then I am not sure I agree. He tends to be quite focused on his man defensively and is not the most team oriented defender available this year.

The defensive focus of his game might be one of the reasons his disposal count is so low. He does not get to space and present as an option going forward nearly enough. He tends to stay behind the ball and with the current trend against going backwards he tends not to get much ball. He needs to work harder offensively when his team has the ball and realistically his endurance is solid enough to allow that.

With the ball in hand he is composed and doesn't panic when under pressure. He is conservative with his option taking and plays within himself often looking to take the short to intermediate open targets. I haven't really noticed him go long much at all. When he gets the ball he brings an air of calm competence which does settle things down a bit for his teammates under pressure. He is not a back that I would be worried about giving the ball to albeit he is not going to be a zone buster with his run and carry like some others in this draft.

I have seen him play onball a little bit and he does not really attack the ball from taps. He tends to sit back and let the ball come to him and being a receiver more than a ball winner. I would suggest that generally teams would prefer if he had shown more ability to win of his own ball. Although he is not much for attacking the ball he does attack any opponent who gets the ball. He is a good tackler and nails anyone who comes within his extended reach. For such a lean guy he is surprisingly strong in the tackle.

As mentioned he is very lean and with his frame I doubt he is ever going to be a particularly big unit. He does have good height though for a flanker and many flankers in the AFL have the similar tall wiry frame. His attitude and athleticism all seem good enough to warrant a spot and if someone gave him a chance he might go alright.


62 Western Bulldogs

The Bulldogs do not really need a ruck, I am just putting him here because I have done the write up for him.

Archie Smith
DOB 19/7/95 Ht 200 Wt 96

I will be up front about this and say I am not the biggest fan of Archie Smith but it looks pretty certain that he will get picked up either in the National Draft or failing that in the Rookie Draft most likely by Brisbane. He is getting a little bit of hype around the place given he has been playing the game such a short time and people are latching onto the possibility of him being the next Nick Natanui. Yes he is 200cm, yes he has black skin, yes he has a great jump but that does not make him the second coming of Natanui.

Smith is a good story and I figure I may as well repeat it. He is the son of former Brisbane Bullets great Andre Moore and has played basketball like his dad his entire life. In the middle of last year the Lions approached him about giving AFL a try. He had never even watched a full game let alone played. He kicked a football for the first time in August and decided to train over the preseason in order to help improve his strength and fitness for basketball. He played his first game of AFL football in January this year and has liked the physicality of the game and seems like he is willing to give it a crack. In the background though are 8 college scholarship offers from the US.

So he has extremely limited experience and is still a massively raw prospect. I accept that it is very likely that I am being overly harsh for expecting more from him but I just have not seen enough hints for me to get enthusiastic about. I don’t really need much for a guy with this little experience but really I have not seen anything glimpses of anything that would indicate he could be even an average AFL ruck.

Smith got an invite to Combine which is an indication there is a fair bit of interest in him out there and he did pretty well in the tests he completed. One of the big areas for improvement for him is his endurance and I note that he did not do any of the endurance testing. The repeat sprint has a bit of an endurance component and he did do that finishing in the bottom 15% which was midtable for the ruck group and in the same range as Nankervis and ahead of the likes of Apeness, Conlon and Cameron. His jumps were the feature which got most attention with him winning the running jump and finishing in the top 10% of the standing leap. He was not quite at the same level as Natanui but it was still very impressive for a 200cm guy. He went 3.10 in the 20m sprint which was midtable amongst all prospects and again decent for a ruck.

Despite having a good leap I don’t think he really brings that to his game. He is a big powerful guy with good height and an excellent leap and realistically he should be dominating the hit outs. He did average 18 hit outs per game at the Champs which was solid but most of those would be marginal wins and not many were too advantage. He does not time his jump particularly well in the centre of the ground nor at bounces around the ground and smaller and less athletic rucks have every chance to neutralise the contest. He will occasionally put a tap down him midfielders throat but that is the exception rather than the rule. At the Champs I watched the Qld v NSW game which Qld came back strongly to win. The game turned when Qld brought on Will Kristelly, a bottom aged ruck, in the last quarter and he dominated the ruck where Smith had not been able to. The quality of the ruck work was like night and day compared with what Smith had been offering up until that time.

Now to be fair I think I should also comment on his work in the NEAFL at the end of the year. He played for the Lions in quite a few games and teamed up the Billy Longer. Smith did not get much game time but he was not far behind Longer in his ruck effectiveness. Again not a heap of taps to advantage but he was winning quite a few in the short time he was out there. Smith is most effective when he can get to the front at bounces or for throw ins. In those situations he finds the body of the other ruck well and seals his opponent away from the ball and protects the space where the ball is going to fall into. It is very much like blocking out in basketball and he has brought that skill across with him to the AFL.

In the ruck contests he recovers quickly and will involve himself in the play. He seems to be a willing tackler and showed reasonably technique. Below the knees his hands are clean and certainly better than most ruck prospects out there. His skills though once he gets the ball are not the best although they have shown improvement over the year.

Somewhat unsurprisingly his skills need a lot of work still. He tends to get his head over the ball a bit too much when he kicks and he is a bit of a hit and hope merchant. He will occasionally chip it short but more often he will just get it long and hope for the best. His handball technique is probably more awkward than his kicking and it still looks a long way from natural for him.

After the ball leaves the contest he is really a nonfactor at the moment and his focus seems to be just getting to the next ruck contest. He averaged only 5.8 disposals per game at the Champs and 4.9 disposals per game in the NEAFL. For a guy with such natural advantages he is not a good mark of the ball and does not judge the ball in the air well. He mistimes his jumps and the fall of the ball and much smaller opponents will often outmark or spoil him. He really does need a lot of work on making the most of height and jumping ability.

He is so raw I am not even going to attempt to take a stab at making a comparison. As I mentioned above I am not seeing a lot at the moment but realistically it is so early in his development he could be anything. If he does get a chance though do not expect to see him in the AFL for at least 3 years. That is the kind of commitment a team that takes him will need to make.


63 Brisbane

Jonathan Freeman
DOB 27/4/94 Ht 198 Wt 95

Okay I have to be honest here and say that I have seen a grand total of one game Freeman has played and even then he was not on my radar so I paid him little attention. Most of what I say here comes from other sources or the snippets of vision given to us. Freeman was certainly not the guy I was expecting the Lions to take from the academy this year ahead of more credentialed players like Conway or Tickner but the Lions were obviously taken by his height, his ability to go forward as well as do some time in the ruck. He is currently all potential and is very much a development prospect.

When trying to work out who to watch for Qld I looked at who was doing well in the NEAFL as an indication and Freeman was not one who stood out with his performances in senior company. I started getting the NEAFL stats in early April and he only played two games leading into the Champs, one being for Aspley and one for the Lions reserves. In each game he played mainly up forward with some light relief in the ruck. In each game he managed only 7 disposals, 8 hit outs and a goal (same stats for both games). Given he was already a 19 year old I did not peg him as one to watch.

At the Champs though he started off really well against the Div 1 sides and these two games probably got him picked. Against Metro he managed 3 goals and against SA he finished with 17 disposals, 8 marks and a goal. In both cases he was clearly the best forward option for Qld and the Div 1 key defenders looked outmatched. Having made a name for himself he was then closed down for the season with OP. Conspiracy theorists might say he was given a promise from the Lions who might not have wanted his value to go up with greater exposure. He was invited to combine but didn’t test and in the academy bidding process, Adelaide bid their first pick (3rd round) for him. The Lions matched and will take him at 63.

As mentioned he was not on my radar at the start of the year mainly because he showed nothing last year as an 18 year old. Sure he had size but he just did not impact games. Reading an article it seems that he had eye problems that meant he was tracking behind the ball in flight and was running under it a lot. He was given some exercises by a specialist and it seems to have made a significant difference. His marking this year seems to have improved a great deal as a result. From what little I have seen of him this year he looks confident to run at the ball and loves to take a mark. He has pretty good spring and now seems to judge his arrival at the ball pretty well.

Being a Brisbane supporter a player I would compare him to is Jordan Lisle and like Lisle one of his big weaknesses is that he is pretty soft in his approach to play. He does not really use his size to crash packs and if a defender can get a body on him he is much less effective. If he is given a free run at the ball he looks good but put a body on him and he is lost. This is something which he is going to need to work on a lot. When he does get his hands on the ball it sticks more often than not.

He moves nicely around the ground for a big guy and when he is up the field and green lighted he does seem to have a decent feel for where to run to receive. I do not think his endurance levels are particularly high but that may have been influenced by the OP he had this year. Although he didn’t test at Combine he has tested before and I am reliably informed that his 20m time was very slow. I am a bit surprised about this as he looks sharpish on the park and does seem able to get separation. It is possible that that time was a rogue and is not actually reflective of his speed. He certainly has great height for a forward and seems agile enough. He has a good frame for putting on muscle and already has a bit of bulk about him. I would suggest he needs to tone up a bit from when I saw him in the middle of the year.

As far as skills go he has pretty good feel on his field kicking but does tend to wind into things a bit which takes a bit of time and he could be pressured and smothered in AFL company. Going for goal he is a pretty accurate kick and he has good penetration being pretty comfortable from 50. He pulls the ball up a bit high in his approach to his set shot but the release is not too bad and his technique seems consistent from one shot to the next.

Overall it’s a bit hard to make any firm judgments given how little I have seen of him. With his height he certainly makes an interesting package and if he comes good it is in a position of need for us.

 

[Scodog10]

Great stuff mate!

I've stuck to the Collingwood side of things for now because it's a lot to take in at once, but I have to say I'd be happy with that for us. For mine a case could be made for Acres as opposed to McCarthy and Aish over Sheed, but considering the list changes we've made and what we're doing going forward I can't fault your work from a Collingwood perspective

 

[Lockyer24]

Would it be fair to say you place more emphasis on the players ability right now above their potential ceiling?
Good read. Thanks

 

[Quigley]

Would it be fair to say you place more emphasis on the players ability right now above their potential ceiling?
Good read. Thanks

Yeah probably fair enough although it probably depends on their position a bit. Outside mids and flankers I would weight current skills etc highly and not a huge allowance for potential improvement. With KPs, rucks and inside mids though I go allow for more natural development and improvemen. I still want to see evidence of the key features of the position but I allow for a bit of improvment in things like endurance and kicking. Really raw kids get picked on potential.

 

[LemmingMaster]

Would it be fair to say you place more emphasis on the players ability right now above their potential ceiling?
Good read. Thanks

Non Victorian > Division 2 > Talent

 

[_kp_]

Non Victorian > Division 2 > Talent

MML

 

[Swansujelly]

Lobb at 29 seems right on, probably why we'll take him at 15. I don't want him at 15, but I rekon it'll happen.

 

[Quigley]

Non Victorian > Division 2 > Talent

I bloody hate expats. Always tend to be louder and more whiney than the residents themselves.

I still managed to give the Vics 3 of the top 4 picks.

 

[Suma Magic]

Cheers for the read. I'll be interested to see where Taylor goes (or if he doesn't go at all...).