Antares
Club Legend
- Jun 19, 2017
- 1,313
- 1,545
- AFL Club
- Western Bulldogs
- Banned
- #101
Alright, I can understand not wanting to pick up a midfielder. That's probably just my bias because I think the top state league talent is underrated by AFL clubs. That being said, say it's round 9, we're 6th/7th on the ladder, doing well, but get hit with an injury crisis; Macrae, Libba, Dunkley and McLean are all injured for X amount of weeks. I don't know about you, but in that situation, I'd much rather have someone like Jye Bolton coming into the midfield than Rhylee West or Callum Porter.No it's not a stretch to suggest that. But it's not what I'd do.
We managed all of last year without Picken (admittedly not very well) but we're going pretty well for medium-smalls / forwards so far in 2019 and we do have some promising types in case of injuries to medium-small players. None as good as him of course, but neither are the players we're likely to pick up in the MSD. So if we get an established player who is in form he will be at or about the level of Lipinski, Williams, Dale, Greene, Cavarra, Lynch, Hayes etc. Some of those we haven't even had a chance to try yet (eg Cavarra, Hayes) while others are banging down the door for a spot (Lipinski being the most obvious). I think it's a less than 50/50 chance that any established midfielder we brought in would be ahead of the best medium-smalls already in the queue for a game.
Instead I'd be looking at a KPP. We know they are hard to identify at age 18 unless they are an outright star in which case you'd need a top 10 pick (eg Ben and Max King, Aaron Naughton). However we also know they can develop more slowly before becoming stars (e.g. Ben Brown). Once they have shown a bit though, they are like gold ... and it's very hard (and usually costly) to get them off some other club's list. So each year I'd be looking at turning over 1-2 of these types that were passed over until we hit pay dirt. It didn't work with rookieing Mullenger-McHugh (as an example) but it was certainly worth a shot. I'd be happy with a 1 in 10 strike rate because once you've found a star you have probably got a member of your spine for the next 10 years. I'd have no problems with them only playing VFL this year. I see it as part of a longer term strategy.
Failing that I'd be happy with a high production, quick and aggressive small forward like Hirst. We've been scouting for one of those for a while, but I imagine Cavarra would still get first crack at it.
Putting aside position, I still strongly believe we should be targeting experience, not youth in the middle of the season. It's more logical to target younger players after all our post-season reviews, after we've figured out who's staying and who's going; all that stuff gives us a better idea on what kind of players we need long-term. There's literally no benefit in doing this mid-season; if we lose a player like Picken or Morris, we're better off picking up players that can have an impact right now, and if they're no good, we can cut them at the end of the season and pick up that younger player we're after. There aren't going to be clubs queuing up for youngsters that were just overlooked in the rookie draft 6 months earlier.
There is absolutely no way in hell a player like Tim English would opt into a mid-season rookie draft when he's on track to get selected in the first round of the national draft later in the year.English was 19 when he was drafted. He would have been eligible for a midseason draft if it had existed back then.
Teams with depth in an area aren't going to go out and recruit an older mature aged player who has eight or nine guys ahead of him from the start. That is what we are doing if we recruit a mature age midfielder when we have Hunter, Bont, Libba, Macrae, Dunkley, Wallis, Smith, McLean, Richards and guys like Gowers and Lloyd pushing up the ground at times too. Not to mention we took Hayes as a mature age player and Lipinski is killing it in the VFL.
I'd entertain a mature key defender IF they where clearly better than those we have already and going off the VFL I saw last year there aren't any there. If there isn't one around go for a younger player in an area of need.
Again, maybe we don't need a midfielder, but there's absolutely no reason to be targeting a 19 year old in the middle of the year when there's a 99.9% chance we can get them at the end of the year.