List Mgmt. 2025 Young Talent Time

[apuchar]

AFL Mock Draft: Picks 1-23 (second edition) - AFL News - Zero Hanger - Page 23 https://share.google/AfY5XrcywsPD47UMZ
Sorry this website may give you a tough time.... can't understand us taking oskar Taylor when Marsh and Barker on board.

Yeah saw that. Not sure if another hbf us a great need and I doubt he would be clearly best available at that pick.

 

[Vimal Anand]

Yeah saw that. Not sure if another hbf us a great need and I doubt he would be clearly best available at that pick.

Someone in YouTube had us taking Louis Emmett at pick 20 and his logic is we lost Reidy

 

[Joose]

Oscar Taylor looks a likely lad..from an exhaustive examination of his 3 min highlights clip.

 

[pK75]

I’ve given up getting excited about who we’re going to draft. Walls never takes someone I know anything about and they turn out better than whoever I wanted us to take.

 

[King Huskii]

I’ve given up getting excited about who we’re going to draft. Walls never takes someone I know anything about and they turn out better than whoever I wanted us to take.

Rinse and repeat for all of us

 

[Vimal Anand]

AFL Phantom Draft 2025: 27 picks, 9 bids make up a chaotic first round - ESPN https://share.google/pvFPrNDNj4j8mpTTW

 

[mayne iac]

Don't mind that pick

 

[theGav56]

Don't mind that pick

Terrible choice.

Currently we have 3 developing KPDs + Chapman, and also Nicholls who it is difficult to see getting an opportunity as a forward. To me he would need to be a significantly better option than all of the above.

I'm hoping Draper has a great off season and begins to demand selection.

In the ESPN mock I would comfortably prefer H-H or Rodriguez.

 

[Docker82]

Terrible choice.

Currently we have 3 developing KPDs + Chapman, and also Nicholls who it is difficult to see getting an opportunity as a forward. To me he would need to be a significantly better option than all of the above.

I'm hoping Draper has a great off season and begins to demand selection.

In the ESPN mock I would comfortably prefer H-H or Rodriguez.

We literally need fast bowlers and opening batters slightly less than KPDs.

 

[Alfonz]

Terrible choice.

Currently we have 3 developing KPDs + Chapman, and also Nicholls who it is difficult to see getting an opportunity as a forward. To me he would need to be a significantly better option than all of the above.

I'm hoping Draper has a great off season and begins to demand selection.

In the ESPN mock I would comfortably prefer H-H or Rodriguez.

The ESPN mock is quite comprehensive so I don't want to bag the author too much, but it isn't just the actual choice that I don't like ... he has us considering Ludowyke (KPF) and Emmett (ruck/KPF), and bidding on McCarthy (ruck/KPF, and mentioning he might be best suited behind the ball in time). I know Walls likes to operate with a "best available" mindset, but I still can't see us considering any of these guys. Maybe Curtin with a later/rookie pick if he is available.

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

We really have come full circle where I'll riot if we pick a tall at our first pick...

 

[Docker82]

We really have come full circle where I'll riot if we pick a tall at our first pick...

Should be best available small/medium player IMO.

At least a talented inside mid or HBF can actually realistically find a spot in our best 30-odd within the next couple of seasons even if it's not ideally what we end up with.

I find it hard to believe second or third best available isn’t not a tall if best available is.

 

[Paracleet]

The ESPN mock is quite comprehensive so I don't want to bag the author too much, but it isn't just the actual choice that I don't like ... he has us considering Ludowyke (KPF) and Emmett (ruck/KPF), and bidding on McCarthy (ruck/KPF, and mentioning he might be best suited behind the ball in time). I know Walls likes to operate with a "best available" mindset, but I still can't see us considering any of these guys. Maybe Curtin with a later/rookie pick if he is available.

If he was clearly best available at the pick then I imagine we would take him. Once you're down at pick in the mid 20s though you'd think the choices would be closely enough ranked for list balance to be a consideration.

 

[Suma Says]

Id be stoked with Oskar Taylor

 

[s_wd6]

Davies, Draper, Murphy, but by all means draft another key defender to develop (or list clog for about four years)

 

[theGav56]

The ESPN mock is quite comprehensive so I don't want to bag the author too much, but it isn't just the actual choice that I don't like ... he has us considering Ludowyke (KPF) and Emmett (ruck/KPF), and bidding on McCarthy (ruck/KPF, and mentioning he might be best suited behind the ball in time). I know Walls likes to operate with a "best available" mindset, but I still can't see us considering any of these guys. Maybe Curtin with a later/rookie pick if he is available.

The concept of best available for a pick in the 20s is quite different to a top 10 or first round. You are typically talking about marginal 'best' distinctions between players, all of whom are likely to be average players if they don't get delisted.

The balance sits with best available in an area of need.

 

[theGav56]

We really have come full circle where I'll riot if we pick a tall at our first pick...

I would consider Marsh if there is some prospect he could play wing/forward.

 

[Mags98]

There are exceptions to every so-called rule. Thats why money ball recruitment was and is a thing. If you aren't recruited at junior level to a list, chances are there are some question marks that have led to recruiters taking a wait and see approach. Smaller guys generally fall into this area.

Having said that I noticed you left the 175cm Rioli (and far from athletically gifted) I mentioned off the list of players you referred to.

Hell we gave a bunch of games to our 168cm small forward Dudley this year, and I wouldn't exactly call him a speed demon.

Liam Baker is 173cm. Caleb Daniel is 171cm. At 175cm (only 2cms taller) you've got a huge list of players, including Jack Bowey, Gulden, Chandler, Prestia and Stengle.

Paul Puopolo and Ballantyne were 173cm, Eddie Betts and Brent Harvey were 172cm, Brownlow medalist Tony Liberatore was 163cm, and Shane Crawford only 174cm.

Massimo D'ambrosio, another prodigious left footer not blessed with elite pace, stands at only 167cm, yet has played 50 games for a rampaging Hawthorn in the last two years, and has made Essendons list management a laughing stock.

It certainly is a tough gig for smaller players, throughout our games history. But the beauty of our game is if players have the right qualities, they can make an impact, regardless of their size. To say if a player is small he has to have electric speed to succeed is a reductionist binary, and overly simplistic. Agility, stamina, strength, spatial awareness, footy IQ, skills, vision, composure, workrate, defensive pressure, determination, desire, anticipation and leadership are all other areas players can excel at in order to prosper in our game.

I have no horse in the Conforti race, but I have watched recruiters take athletes over footballers time and time again over the last 35 years, and as a result miss the likes of Greg Williams, Sam Mitchell and even more recently our own Murphy Reid. If a guy is 23, is a deadeye and has kicked 37.17 goals in a side only beaten once the whole season, regularly dobs goals from 60m out and makes the comps team of the year, I see no reason not to have a look at him at a rookie or SSP level.

Particularly when the incumbent competition currently on our list is 5cms shorter, at only 168cm tall.

massimo is definitely not 167cms come on now

 

[SpeckieMcVeigh]

Id be stoked with Oskar Taylor

I was running Freo's draft hand in our mock draft over on the Essendon board. With the three guys I really wanted to take at that pick off the board (Dovaston, Philippou, Barker), I ended up picking Taylor over Mitch Marsh. I figured the freak athlete fits your list better over a tall forward.

 

[go_the_dockers]

Would anyone like to do a mock draft on the freo board?

Random draw to get teams.

 

[Vimal Anand]

Would anyone like to do a mock draft on the freo board?

Random draw to get teams.

Can we also do a poll on top of this thread who freo should take at pick 20 as well?

 

[Tundrawolf]

Davies, Draper, Murphy, but by all means draft another key defender to develop (or list clog for about four years)

Davies and Murphy fill me with no confidence whatsoever. Not saying we should draft one with our first pick but they'd both want to show more than they have. Davies is a solid lock down defender with limited kicking skills and Murphy is a couple of rungs below him.

 

[mayne iac]

Terrible choice.

Currently we have 3 developing KPDs + Chapman, and also Nicholls who it is difficult to see getting an opportunity as a forward. To me he would need to be a significantly better option than all of the above.

I'm hoping Draper has a great off season and begins to demand selection.

In the ESPN mock I would comfortably prefer H-H or Rodriguez.

Our developing talls are average, draper is average
Nicholls will be the best out of all of the young talls

 

[Dockeroo]

I think there is a reasonable chance a few will be disappointed on here come draft night.
If it’s true what everyone says that this is a thin draft with a lack of AFL talent relative to other drafts - then we can assume that plenty of busts will be getting picked from around pick 15 onward.
If the draft is a bad one, then I expect that at least 6/10 picks from 21 to 30 will be busts that don’t make it to much more than 25 career games.
2020 AFL draft is a good one to look back at as a comparable “weak” draft:

21 Jake Bowey
22 Bailey Laurie
23 Reef McInnes
24 Blake Coleman
25 Brayden Cook
26 Matthew Allison
27 Nathan O’Driscoll
28 Sam Berry
29 Seamus Mitchell
30 Caleb Poulter

Slim pickings there.

If the draft is something like the above, you just have to pick whoever's left on the board that can actually make it as a serviceable AFL player. That’s the first criteria.

If the choice is a Ruck that gets traded for a second rounder in 3 years time or a small forward that gets delisted in 3 years time, you kinda have to pick the former, even if it’s not a list need.

 

[Dockeroo]

Davies and Murphy fill me with no confidence whatsoever. Not syaing we should draft one with our first pick but they'd both want to show more than they have. Davies is a solid lock down defender with limited kicking skills and Murphy is a couple of rungs below him.

Got to imagine at least one of them will be delisted end of 2026