List Mgmt. 2025 AFL Draft - Draft Analysis

[Ancient Tiger]

It's absolutely fine for us to have different rankings to other industry experts, whether media experts or other recruiters. In fact, I'd be concerned if we didn't have our own rankings. But what happens if we were wrong? I think the post-premiership honeymoon period is over for our club and the era for accountability is fast approaching.

If we rated Grlj over Robey, then I'm completely fine with them picking Grlj in my view. As a non-expert, I liked Grlj at our pick before the draft myself. Wouldn't have picked him over Robey, but that's OK. I'm not the expert here.

However, I now expect Grlj to have a higher impact at AFL level than the likes of Sharp, Taylor, Robey, and anyone else we skipped on. He should be better than anyone below his pick considering this is by all reports a weak draft. Happy to back our club with their rankings, but that also comes with expectations.

I just don't want to hear excuses in 5 years' time on why "the club did the best they could at the time" and "they couldn't have seen this coming" etc. should our 2025 draft rankings not pass the test of time. We rely on our club's expert observations to rank these players according to talent, so I'd want to see accountability if it doesn't end up in our favour.

We'll have a better understanding of our current decisions when 2028 rolls around. That should be enough time to see how our 12 draftees (possibly 13 with SSP pick) over the last two years develop under Yze. I will back their decisions including extending Yze, but not going to lie, it'll be 10x more disappointed if it turns out they were making the wrong decisions all along.

Grlj is less physically developed as a kid than Robey and Sharp, who are bigger and stronger and more adult-like. That's ok though, as they play a different game. We already have big, strong inside/outside players in Lalor and Smiley as well as Taranto, Hopper and Prestia. We needed more leg speed to complement Hotton, which Grlj has in spades. So too have Cumming, Peucker and Roberts-Thomson.
So these guys were the most highly rated with speed, not just most highly rated.

 

[Meteoric Rise]

If you watched Water Rats - which I didn’t - it seemed that bodies were turning up in Sydney Harbour every week. I doubt that was happening.

I am old enough to recall a body turning up alive in Sydney Harbour once:

Red Bikini Girl (1979) – Nostalgia Central

nostalgiacentral.com

 

[Lsta062]

Grlj is less physically developed as a kid than Robey and Sharp, who are bigger and stronger and more adult-like. That's ok though, as they play a different game. We already have big, strong inside/outside players in Lalor and Smiley as well as Taranto, Hopper and Prestia. We needed more leg speed to complement Hotton, which Grlj has in spades. So too have Cumming, Peucker and Roberts-Thomson.
So these guys were the most highly rated with speed, not just most highly rated.

I mean that’s fine, but we’ve seen plenty of smaller players become top in their draft. Shai Bolton is a good example of that. So I wouldn’t accept “our need was speed at the time” as an excuse if Grlj is not better than those picked after him in 5 year’s time.

It’s also rare for a midfield to be so stacked it doesn’t need generational talent, let alone our midfield. But I digress, I’m no expert on who’s generational talent and who is not in the drafts, so I’m happy to back the club in whatever they decide to do. But I aLao want evidence that our trust is well-placed. We’d have picked 12 picks over the last two years with 8 being first-round picks and 4 of those picks being top 10 picks. It should set us up for a generation, so no excuses.

 

[captain cotch 9]

Grlj is less physically developed as a kid than Robey and Sharp, who are bigger and stronger and more adult-like. That's ok though, as they play a different game. We already have big, strong inside/outside players in Lalor and Smiley as well as Taranto, Hopper and Prestia. We needed more leg speed to complement Hotton, which Grlj has in spades. So too have Cumming, Peucker and Roberts-Thomson.
So these guys were the most highly rated with speed, not just most highly rated.

From what i saw of Grilj at VFL he still loves hitting blokes.

 

[Ancient Tiger]

From what i saw of Grilj at VFL he still loves hitting blokes.

Absolutely. He is Cotch like in that respect. I can see why, even with his smaller less developed body, they preferrenced him ahead of Robey and Sharp.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

I've never had more confidence in our recruiting team. They're dialled in.

tiger_tough is Lou Richards.

 

[sregit]

It's absolutely fine for us to have different rankings to other industry experts, whether media experts or other recruiters. In fact, I'd be concerned if we didn't have our own rankings. But what happens if we were wrong? I think the post-premiership honeymoon period is over for our club and the era for accountability is fast approaching.

If we rated Grlj over Robey, then I'm completely fine with them picking Grlj in my view. As a non-expert, I liked Grlj at our pick before the draft myself. Wouldn't have picked him over Robey, but that's OK. I'm not the expert here.

However, I now expect Grlj to have a higher impact at AFL level than the likes of Sharp, Taylor, Robey, and anyone else we skipped on. He should be better than anyone below his pick considering this is by all reports a weak draft. Happy to back our club with their rankings, but that also comes with expectations.

I just don't want to hear excuses in 5 years' time on why "the club did the best they could at the time" and "they couldn't have seen this coming" etc. should our 2025 draft rankings not pass the test of time. We rely on our club's expert observations to rank these players according to talent, so I'd want to see accountability if it doesn't end up in our favour.

We'll have a better understanding of our current decisions when 2028 rolls around. That should be enough time to see how our 12 draftees (possibly 13 with SSP pick) over the last two years develop under Yze. I will back their decisions including extending Yze, but not going to lie, it'll be 10x more disappointed if it turns out they were making the wrong decisions all along.

Recruiting is not an exact science. You cannot expect that a selection will be better than all those selected after the pick. If that was the case, every player would end up graded as according to their selection number. All we can hope for is that the recruiting department has a good percentage of picks correct. Their is no guarantee that a player like Cumming will end up better than all 50+ plus kids drafted following his selection but if he ends up better than 47+ then we likely have a star player.

 

[Groupie_]

I've never had more confidence in our recruiting team. They're dialled in.

your track record is impeccable

 

[Barnzy]

I've never had more confidence in our recruiting team. They're dialled in.

Very happy with how they've adapted to how the game is trending. The game is now ruled by smaller running types with agility and speed like Butters, Daicos, Ashcroft types.

It's not going to change anytime soon as the speed of play gets faster every year. If we kept recruiting bigger bodied mids with early picks I would've been very worried.

 

[_RT_]

It's absolutely fine for us to have different rankings to other industry experts, whether media experts or other recruiters. In fact, I'd be concerned if we didn't have our own rankings. But what happens if we were wrong? I think the post-premiership honeymoon period is over for our club and the era for accountability is fast approaching.

If we rated Grlj over Robey, then I'm completely fine with them picking Grlj in my view. As a non-expert, I liked Grlj at our pick before the draft myself. Wouldn't have picked him over Robey, but that's OK. I'm not the expert here.

However, I now expect Grlj to have a higher impact at AFL level than the likes of Sharp, Taylor, Robey, and anyone else we skipped on. He should be better than anyone below his pick considering this is by all reports a weak draft. Happy to back our club with their rankings, but that also comes with expectations.

I just don't want to hear excuses in 5 years' time on why "the club did the best they could at the time" and "they couldn't have seen this coming" etc. should our 2025 draft rankings not pass the test of time. We rely on our club's expert observations to rank these players according to talent, so I'd want to see accountability if it doesn't end up in our favour.

We'll have a better understanding of our current decisions when 2028 rolls around. That should be enough time to see how our 12 draftees (possibly 13 with SSP pick) over the last two years develop under Yze. I will back their decisions including extending Yze, but not going to lie, it'll be 10x more disappointed if it turns out they were making the wrong decisions all along.

As Hartley has said we're picking players to be part of a premiership team and guys like Grlj and some others that are considered to be reaches were picked because they best fit the type of players we needed to bring in. So when you say you now expect Grlj to have a higher impact at AFL are you talking individually or as a part of overall team success?

 

[THE_GUN]

I think we do already have the bigger bodies already on the list with Lalor , Smillie & Cumming whilst not as tall as the others he would still be 185 and same size as chimp but will become a bull. Grlj is also not short at 182cm which is similar to Will Ashcroft and Daicos

 

[cairo tiger]

Grlj is less physically developed as a kid than Robey and Sharp, who are bigger and stronger and more adult-like. That's ok though, as they play a different game. We already have big, strong inside/outside players in Lalor and Smiley as well as Taranto, Hopper and Prestia. We needed more leg speed to complement Hotton, which Grlj has in spades. So too have Cumming, Peucker and Roberts-Thomson.
So these guys were the most highly rated with speed, not just most highly rated.

cummo is a unit

 

[Morro]

I'm not here for blow jobs

Please allow me to introduce you to my little friend tiger_tough

 

[SMILLIE]

Could you imagine

 

[SMILLIE]

Back concerns are scary. Hoping for the best for Sully.

 

[Carnthefkntigs]

Wonder if we knew about the back problems pre-draft and decided to not take on another Smillie

 

[Grockadoc]

Imagine the melts on here if we drafted Robey. Lasted a week...

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Very happy with how they've adapted to how the game is trending. The game is now ruled by smaller running types with agility and speed like Butters, Daicos, Ashcroft types.

It's not going to change anytime soon as the speed of play gets faster every year. If we kept recruiting bigger bodied mids with early picks I would've been very worried.

Will be interesting with Smillie(notwithstanding his injuries).
Did we pull the wrong rope?

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Imagine the melts on here if we drafted Robey. Lasted a week...

Bigger than the Melts when we passed on him.lol

 

[SMILLIE]

Bigger than the Melts when we passed on him.lol

Lol would be hard to be bigger than the 4 that were on camera

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Lol would be hard to be bigger than the 4 that were on camera

Didn't see it.lol

 

[energyquant]

The language in that story around Robey is interesting.

"But the draft bolter will have his training program wound back until after the club's Christmas break after the club found signs of back stress that he had managed in recent months."

It points to the fact that he never mentioned it during his screening interviews. Not surprising for a bolter, but I bet the club isn't happy with him if this is the case.

This recent story goes into quite a bit of detail about medical scanning for potential draftees.

Injuries, mindset and maturity: How AFL clubs tackle risk assessments on junior players ahead of the draft

The AFL draft is big business, and clubs do everything in their power to make sure they pick the best of the best. Here's some of the tactics they use pre-draft.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Ctl]

Wouldn't be writing off Robey or calling him a dud because of signs of a back stress fracture. Faull came to us last year with one, Hotton came back off an ACL and we haven't even seen Smillie play at AFL level because of fitness issues. He'd been able to manage it and play some pretty good footy, so it can't have been too serious or limiting

 

[Broad Housewife]

Which thread exactly do you have to post in to get a BJ?

 

[voorhees]

Wouldn't be writing off Robey or calling him a dud because of signs of a back stress fracture. Faull came to us last year with one, Hotton came back off an ACL and we haven't even seen Smillie play at AFL level because of fitness issues. He'd been able to manage it and play some pretty good footy, so it can't have been too serious or limiting

pretty sure jesse Hogan suffered from back stress early in his career...
career has worked out pretty well for him