Player Watch #11: Max Gawn (C) – 6 x All-Australian, 2 x Best & Fairest, AFLCA Champion Player and Premiership Captain

[Topkent]

Yea, funny how it works out, i was worried about Gawn being the injury prone one, Vardy looked the more sure bet to me, had a fair bit of muscle on him, even at under 18's.

Clearly Max's upside has been proven to be far greater than Vardy's though, even if Vardy had a decent run with injury, he wouldn't have the dominance that Max has all over the ground IMO. Could have been a very good (top 5-10 ruckman) but def no AA.

Same argument with Trenners Scully and Martin. Trenners you can't really blame them because of injuries but Martin was better than Scully at every single part of footy apart from Running. Joke.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

We took the wrong string bean midfielder, Nathan Fyfe at #11 would look a lot better right now.

Fyfe’s physical development is bizarre, no one could have seen that coming

 

[Topkent]

Fyfe’s physical development is bizarre, no one could have seen that coming

He had the same physique as WHE at 19 then just exploded

 

[stretcharmstrong]

We took the wrong string bean midfielder, Nathan Fyfe at #11 would look a lot better right now.

MELBOURNE would have stuffed him

 

[saj_21]

We didn't get our picks right, but our development was so bad they didn't even stand a chance of becoming a decent player.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

We didn't get our picks right, but our development was so bad they didn't even stand a chance of becoming a decent player.

Martin aside, we clearly picked two of the three best players in the draft. It's all development, Scully and Trengove should both have become guns.

 

[Cannon82]

We took the wrong string bean midfielder, Nathan Fyfe at #11 would look a lot better right now.

Would be a barista at some arty corner coffee shop by now if we'd drafted him.

 

[Cannon82]

Ugh Gysberts, I remember going around laughing at me Carlton mates for taking McLean after Gyszzzz first 3 games.... ughhhh

Yes, I also went hard early on that one and paid the price. Those few weeks though... totally worth it.

 

[Cannon82]

Tough and kicked like a mule, wouldn't have been a 300 gamer but players with less skill sets have been molded into role players. could have been a Josh Hunt or Daniel Rich

Reckon in terms of body size and skill set he was pretty much exactly the same as Rich. Rich has that left peg that earns rave reviews, but he hasn't progressed that far from his early career. Was a stocky, one-paced mid who nailed the odd 60m pass or three in a game, and now he does the same thing but from the half back flank.

The ingredients were there with Tapscott, but the club was in a state and buddying up with Moloney and Sylvia was career suicide.

 

[Topkent]

Reckon in terms of body size and skill set he was pretty much exactly the same as Rich. Rich has that left peg that earns rave reviews, but he hasn't progressed that far from his early career. Was a stocky, one-paced mid who nailed the odd 60m pass or three in a game, and now he does the same thing but from the half back flank.

The ingredients were there with Tapscott, but the club was in a state and buddying up with Moloney and Sylvia was career suicide.

Yup same as rich he probably would have peaked at 19 but there's nothing wrong with a tough bloke Who can kick it 60 especially in modern footy.

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

Would be a barista at some arty corner coffee shop by now if we'd drafted him.

And Dusty would be in NZ with his dad

 

[saj_21]

Martin aside, we clearly picked two of the three best players in the draft. It's all development, Scully and Trengove should both have become guns.

Scully and trenners were not bad picks, I was thinking more along the lines of Toumpas, gysberts, Maric, cook, taspcott. What little chance they had of becoming good players disappeared with our lack of development

 

[Topkent]

Scully and trenners were not bad picks, I was thinking more along the lines of Toumpas, gysberts, Maric, cook, taspcott. What little chance they had of becoming good players disappeared with our lack of development

Scully was, it took him nearly 7 years to develop his footy skills. He was like the big kid who dominates the 18s with his size except he did it with fitness.

From the first season he played with us I thought he was overrated.

 

[TheCount]

Scully was, it took him nearly 7 years to develop his footy skills. He was like the big kid who dominates the 18s with his size except he did it with fitness.

From the first season he played with us I thought he was overrated.

Yeah, it’s a bit of an indictment on him that until like last season, his best game of his career was still that game against the Dogs where he went nuts in the last

 

[ABray10]

Scully was, it took him nearly 7 years to develop his footy skills. He was like the big kid who dominates the 18s with his size except he did it with fitness.

From the first season he played with us I thought he was overrated.

I seem to remember him having a degenerative knee or something like that from his second season. Probably slowed his development a lot, since he came into the AFL with his only real weapon being his running capability.

 

[Topkent]

I seem to remember him having a degenerative knee or something like that from his second season. Probably slowed his development a lot, since he came into the AFL with his only real weapon being his running capability.

His kicking was terrible, he couldn't win clearances and doesn't mark the footy. He was an awesome runner and had decent vision by hand for a first year player but hid upside was always minimal. Hand on heart I thought James Harmes had more upside after his first few games than Scully.

 

[stretcharmstrong]

******* bigfooty geniuses everywhere! All you blokes need is a good agent to get you an in into an AFL club and you’ll revolutionise recruiting forever!

Scully was the concensus number 1 pick.

 

[Topkent]

******* bigfooty geniuses everywhere! All you blokes need is a good agent to get you an in into an AFL club and you’ll revolutionise recruiting forever!

Scully was the concensus number 1 pick.

Righto and you base your opinion solely on what others think unable to form your own right?

Scully was the consensus number 1 because football departments are way too scared to take risks with those picks. The number 1 pick has won a club BNF in about 15 of 200 seasons. There's never a standout player just like there isn't a consensus best player in the comp every year.

 

[schmuttt]

Gotta love these harry hindsight posts

Who gives a s**t? If you want to debate pointless stuff from 8 years ago take it to PMs

 

[stEdy]

I feel like if developed properly Trent Zomer would have become a star

 

[stretcharmstrong]

Righto and you base your opinion solely on what others think unable to form your own right?

Scully was the consensus number 1 because football departments are way too scared to take risks with those picks. The number 1 pick has won a club BNF in about 15 of 200 seasons. There's never a standout player just like there isn't a consensus best player in the comp every year.

It’s just that I’m inclined in most cases to (a) acknowledge that others know much more than me about most things and (b) understand that others have more evidence/information available to them than me to form judgements.

For example, professional recruiters who literally spend their 40+ hours per week trying to determine who to take with various picks.

 

[Topkent]

It’s just that I’m inclined in most cases to (a) acknowledge that others know much more than me about most things and (b) understand that others have more evidence/information available to them than me to form judgements.

For example, professional recruiters who literally spend their 40+ hours per week trying to determine who to take with various picks.

Pretty certain all recruiters are full time not part time, when was the last time the number 1 pick was the best player? There's almost nothing between the top 20 half the time but for the no 1 pick they take the safe option.

 

[LeverPuller]

Pretty certain all recruiters are full time not part time, when was the last time the number 1 pick was the best player? There's almost nothing between the top 20 half the time but for the no 1 pick they take the safe option.

Outright best is Nick Riewoldt but you aren’t going to be able to anticipate every aspect of player development before they are in the front door.

That said, although he isn’t #1 in his draft (behind Macrae) Whitfield is definitely the second best player. Only Viney is comparable.

I think there are certain benchmarks you want out of players at certain picks in terms of games and standard. The problem is the KPF thing, where clubs will reach massively for sub standard key forwards - see McCartin and Boyd, and to a lesser extent Patton.

 

[schmuttt]

That said, although he isn’t #1 in his draft (behind Macrae) Whitfield is definitely the second best player. Only Viney is comparable.

Grundy and Daniher are same draft as Whitfield, he’d be lucky to crack the best 4 players from that draft.

 

[Topkent]

Outright best is Nick Riewoldt but you aren’t going to be able to anticipate every aspect of player development before they are in the front door.



That said, although he isn’t #1 in his draft (behind Macrae) Whitfield is definitely the second best player. Only Viney is comparable.

I think there are certain benchmarks you want out of players at certain picks in terms of games and standard. The problem is the KPF thing, where clubs will reach massively for sub standard key forwards - see McCartin and Boyd, and to a lesser extent Patton.

Whitfield isn't definently the 2nd best player at all.

Wines Vlastuin Daniher Grundy are all arguably up there. You also picked what looks like the worst draft in history.

Either way you have named 2 players in 25 years of drafting. The number 1 pick is the most over rated piece of s**t in the history off all sports.