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2012 draft

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From the best of the Drafts board:

Quigley:

Pick 20 – Adelaide

There is every chance that Adelaide will lose this pick but whilst they have it I will give them Towers who I think would be very handy in their group. They could use a bit of pace on the outside and he could add another dimension to their side.

Dean Towers
DOB: 4/5/90 Ht: 190 Wt: 84

Towers is a guy who would have been on not even the most thorough team’s radar as a junior. He was playing in the country and was not even in his local team’s best on a regular basis. Through drive and consistent effort though he has made himself the 2012 Fothergill Medallist and likely high draft pick. The Fothergill Medal has been a good guide in recent years to VFL players who can make an impact at AFL level and recent winners have included Saad, Hibberd, Barlow, Nahas whilst Aaron Davey and Firrito have also won the award.

Towers is a wing / flanker who has the ability to break the game open with his speed in the way that Isaac Smith and Jetta do for their sides. With the AFL being very much a copy cap league I expect teams will be looking to adopt what worked for the grand finalists and one of the thing that worked very well for each of them was the outside speed that those two mature aged recruits provide. Towers has the same kind of speed as both of those although he probably plays a bit more power-based style than Smith and Jetta who are bit more finesse-based. All of them can break the lines though and once they are gone there are very few in the league who are going to run them down.

Towers has a big side step on him which can make him difficult to tackle but he does lose a fair bit of momentum when he uses it. He has a bit of a swerve on him but he is not able to make the opposition miss cleanly like Jetta in particular can. His swerve is good enough to get players off balance though and he has the power to break arm tackles and get through that way. Once he is into space he has an easy long stride that does not look particularly fast but definitely is. His top end speed is up there with anyone. He clocked a 2.89 in the 20m sprint at Combine after having an only average first 5m. His last 15 metres were quicker than anyone other than Adam Saad by my rough calculations. He also finished 6th in the 30m repeat sprints and showed like in games that he can sustain his speed over distance.

At the Combine he also excelled in the jumps and broke Coad’s 15 year old record in the standing jump with an 85cm leap. In games he is a good mark and often I think surprises opposition with his pace and jump. He tends to take a lot of cut out marks from short to intermediate kicks where he lurks a little off a likely target and then closes very quickly and out-jumps the target after the ball is kicked. He also doesn’t mind a fly and is pretty good in pack mark situations. He is courageous and will go for marks knowing he is going to get crunched or come down hard. He is a pretty good judge of the ball in the air and has reasonable hands.

Kicking wise he is solid but I would not have him in the same league as Jetta, or Smith either probably. He has pretty decent penetration but not the same as those guys. I have seen him put a wet ball through from outside 50 so he is not lacking in distance it is just that he is not a consistently long kick. He does tend to go long as his first option if he doesn’t run into range himself. On the run he is a pretty good kick at pace and will usually find a man or a contest at the very least. He loves to run into the 50 either with the ball in hand or to mark and when he does he is an efficient finisher on the run. His set shot is solid and he does tend to wind up a bit when he needs distance. There is definite room for improvement with his kicking but he has been improving in this area quite a bit and there is no reason to think that will not continue.

By all accounts Towers is very coachable and learns very quickly. He not only takes feedback but will seek it out and then work very hard to implement it. When he came to the VFL last year he used to download the game tape to take home and watch and then prepare questions for the coach on what he was doing and how he could improve. This is a kid who has come from country football two seasons ago to making the Victorian VFL side earlier this year and mostly it has been done through dedication and hard work. At the next level he will need to improve his engine a bit but from what he has shown I would back him in.

Knightmare:

#42 Richmond (Via Adelaide) – Dean Towers (VIC – Mid)
Height: 189cm, Weight: 83kg, DOB: 04/05/1990
Recruited from: North Ballarat
Style:
Player comparison:
Range: 25-65
Profile: Mature ager who has really impressed this year at times. Has come from a fair way back and has shown some strong development over these past two seasons. Tested strongly at the draft combine standing out with his leaping ability and speed both on display. More your outside line breaker. One criticism of Towers is being that outside line breaker and with his pace being that primary feature I just don’t see enough of it. He doesn’t threaten to take over games with his pace as a Lewis Jetta or Isaac Smith can and he just doesn’t utilise that pace enough in games. At his size and with limited time in the VFL system might be an interesting player to develop with more potential for improvement having not been in the system for as long.

Snoop Dog:

# 42 Richmond
Dean Towers
North Ballarat
189cm / 83kg / ‘90
Wouldnt surprise to see him drop here as a ready made replacement for Young. Has come from the bush to dominate at VFL level this year and then showed his ability when he played state as well. Clubs won’t have any issues convincing themselves of his upside. Is lightning quick, tested as elite in the vertical jump and is a very good ball user so he presents as one of those players you can transition the ball through. My only worry is whereas Smith’s form got better as year went on Towers appeared to taper but that may be more a reflection of the engine not yet being ready and a couple of injuries he had.
 

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For those that didn't hear Shifter this morning on SEN he named Dean Towers as his red hot smokey.

Said he has serious toe and a real excitement factor when he gets the ball.

Good to see we are continuing with the bold fast player type we started with Rohan and Jetta.

DST
 

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