List Mgmt. 2025 AFL Draft - The Final Countdown

[Mr Magic]

Yes they are mate.

They may not be as good (slightly worse) but they are certainly on the same tier.

All significantly better than the following tier, and none on the tier of the top 3.

Your deluded posts show you have never had an idea.

Love how being shorter despite having vastly superior speed/endurance (what the game has turned to) suddenly makes a player to be generally perceived as a lower ceiling - Like Butters, Daicos, Serong, Neale, Smith etc aren't some of the best players in the comp.

Such a weak draft, and with little difference between blokes in this tier. You can take a slight "reach" and address a significant area of the list needs.

I'm sure our recruitment team will make the correct call and will find the balance of addressing list needs and best available so we don't turn into North Melbourne. We won't be drafting an inside mid for the next 5 years if they are the "best available" at our pick.

you have no idea.

bookmark your posts and the revisit will be done

your propaganda is not working, but I assume you will disappear after the draft

I know you are trying to get a narrative going but it lacks sense

 

[THE_GUN]

That's not just true.

You can't just say because Duursma has largely been a bust years later that they didn't take the best available.

Zane was the best available, and Thithorpe was picked before Phillips.

People seem to think there's a clear "best available" at every pick - when that's not the case as there's often there's tiers.You take the best talent available when they are clearly the better product. When the talents are 'even' you take what suits us best.

I would say this year that would be Duursma, CDT, Robey as tier 1.

Sharp, Cumming, Grlj, Taylor as tier 2.

Dovaston, Phillipou, Farrow, Lindsay, Schubert, Marsh Tier 3.

Incorrect

I think we all know now that Thilthorpe is a better selection and even Caddy/Curtain
Zane was the higher rated in the media but that could have been due to word getting out about Norths intentions
But Norths talent recognition was wrong with that selection

 

[THE_GUN]

Mate we obviously accept that in an instant.

We slide 5 back in a weak draft, and get Melbourne's 1st in a superior draft that will likely be a top 5 pick.

The problem is that is insanely bias and it will never be offered.

Gold Coasts future pick tied to Melbourne would be what is offered by them to trade up

That all depends on how desperate they are for the player and where they believe they will finish and Melbourne are expecting to play finals in 2026 or thats the word coming out.

Would you have thought it was my Bias if i had told you we would only trade pick #27 last year and this years pick #30 for pick #4 this year ?

 

[RockJobster0312]

Incorrect

I think we all know now that Thilthorpe is a better selection and even Caddy/Curtain
Zane was the higher rated in the media but that could have been due to word getting out about Norths intentions
But Norths talent recognition was wrong with that selection

Will Phillips was pick 3 and Thilthorpe pick 2. Can’t admonish North for not taking a player that wasn’t available to them.

Not to say they shouldn’t have taken Logan McDonald however, which they absolutely should have.

Zane was also the third highest rated player in 2023 behind Harley Reid and Jed Walter. Twomey had him at #3 in August and had him there the whole way through. Zane was phenomenal in his draft year.

Can see the argument that 1. They should have taken Zane over McKercher and then 2. After taking McKercher should have diversified and not taken another mid in Duursma.

That said, I largely agree with your point. Best available still has to factor in how best the club selecting them can best develop them too.

 

[dean33]

All the mocks have us taking Taylor and grilj. Guess thats it then...

 

[Calcium Man]

They both follow Richmond.

Than they should know our list better. I watched the vid and he picked XT because he said it was our biggest need.

Must have missed us dumping Trainor on a wing all year to get him game time because our backline was full.

Not to mention making a purely needs based pick with our top 3/5 pick (which was for our least pressing need) when their own rankings have sharp at 3 and Robey at 4 and XT at 6 is stupid. Our actual need is mids and forwards, we were the worst scoring team in the comp vs 4th worst defensive team and most rebound 50s, while also having the least i50s and clearances.

Plus somehow in all that you’ve also got to give Grlj backline time, and where is Smil starting next year? Big call to say afl midfield when he’s never played a game before. He could probably go forward but his bottom age CTL campaign was across HBF.

 

[Azzleberry]

I'm also not sure there's a single "elite mid" in the whole draft pool. Certainly not a complete package. But maybe Karp3_dm can tell us who he's referring to. IMO there's a bunch of guys with appealing attributes, but they come with key questions marks, every single one of them. More so than most years, it seems.

I'd been thinking this as well. Knowing we look at drafts in 3 year blocks, I wonder if we don't go a pure mid because we know we're a chance of getting a better one in 2026 draft.

Might be a case that we think we're better off going the elite pure mid next year given only 3 can be in the centre clearances at one time.

 

[ivansarmy]

All the mocks have us taking Taylor and grilj. Guess thats it then...

If they were who we wanted I think we would slide pick 3 back to 7 with Melbourne and get Gold Coasts future first if they are really keen on Robey.

We could then take Taylor at 4 as Essendon are linked to him but not Grlj and then we take Grlj at 7. Gold Coasts first rounder can help get us Tanner Armstrong next year. Or if Tanner slides we have two first rounders in what is meant to be a better draft.

 

[sregit]

Hypothetical scenario....
We are on the clock with our first pick, ignore all top end academy/father son picks for simplicity.
Melbourne offer pick 8 and their 2026 1st for our pick 3 and 2026 2nd, should we do it?

Yes pick 7

 

[4tune8]

I'd been thinking this as well. Knowing we look at drafts in 3 year blocks, I wonder if we don't go a pure mid because we know we're a chance of getting a better one in 2026 draft.

Might be a case that we think we're better off going the elite pure mid next year given only 3 can be in the centre clearances at one time.

Reckon we take one inside mid this year and that will be Kellaway, he'll suit our build given that he needs a couple of preseasons to get strong enough to compete with the bulls.

 

[sregit]

Probably the club least likely to bid considering they have 3 other academy players to match.

Adelaide is the team most likely to bid on Kellaway with their 3rd rounders. I suspect that they're the other club that interviewed him.

Freo interviewed Kellaway. Does not matter if Adelaide or any other team pick him after 36 we can take him for free.

 

[Lacustrus]

Kid is nice overhead but I prefer Grill, and both of them only really interest me if we split pick 4. At pick 3/4 you ought to be picking one of the handful of kids each year who play onball and can smash the game apart.

Don't mind him at a pick around 10-15. No offense to anyone but we have the wrong picks for this kid and we can probably find just as good a prospect at pick 10-15 next year.

If we split pick 4 we may be able to pick both Grill and Taylor as well as whoever we pick at 3. But my preference is probably 2 of Robey / Sharp / Cumming.

XT sort of fits the mold of Dylan Grimes who we picked up in the pre season draft. FMD

 

[beema limapep]

Hypothetical scenario....
We are on the clock with our first pick, ignore all top end academy/father son picks for simplicity.
Melbourne offer pick 8 and their 2026 1st for our pick 3 and 2026 2nd, should we do it?

Take giving back our second, and if CDT is available and we don't want him, then yes.

If Robey is on the table, no. Take Robey and offer the same deal with pick 4.

 

[beema limapep]

Taylor and Grlj are not in the same tier as Cumming and Sharp

Gunna have to disagree

 

[THE THIN MAN]

All the mocks have us taking Taylor and grilj. Guess thats it then...

 

[PetterdHoisted]

XT sort of fits the mold of Dylan Grimes who we picked up in the pre season draft. FMD

would be incredible if we did this

especially in light of our stated recruiting philosophy, to take players that will win you the big games at the end of the year.

that's Robey to a tee, on potential

 

[THE THIN MAN]

Than they should know our list better. I watched the vid and he picked XT because he said it was our biggest need.

Must have missed us dumping Trainor on a wing all year to get him game time because our backline was full.

Not to mention making a purely needs based pick with our top 3/5 pick (which was for our least pressing need) when their own rankings have sharp at 3 and Robey at 4 and XT at 6 is stupid. Our actual need is mids and forwards, we were the worst scoring team in the comp vs 4th worst defensive team and most rebound 50s, while also having the least i50s and clearances.

Plus somehow in all that you’ve also got to give Grlj backline time, and where is Smil starting next year? Big call to say afl midfield when he’s never played a game before. He could probably go forward but his bottom age CTL campaign was across HBF.

Don't forget the annual Essendon feel-good stories; they’ve started earlier!

 

[fargothegreat]

I'm not looking forward to draft night here if we don't take Robey.

You campaigners are obsessed

 

[_RT_]

you don't rack up 40 disposals in the middle if you're not a mid?

agree that he is a blend of mid/forward, but I think that is a huge call to say he isn't a mid.

Big Footy logic dictates that unless you've played 100% midfield for your entire junior career you are not a mid

 

[beema limapep]

All the mocks have us taking Taylor and grilj. Guess thats it then...

The Taylor smokescreen has been set.

Essendon to trade pick 5 and 21 for pick 4 after we take Robey at pick 3. Then we get Grlj (who we were going to pick at 4 anyway) at 5 and use 21 on whoever we like.

 

[beema limapep]

I'm not looking forward to draft night here if we don't take Robey.

You campaigners are obsessed

It will be unprecedented carnage here. And rightly so

 

[dean33]

I'm not looking forward to draft night here if we don't take Robey.

You campaigners are obsessed

My favourite part of the draft is when we select someone no-one has heard of, usually that doesn't happen until a bit later but could we do it in the first 10??

 

[captain cotch 9]

If they were who we wanted I think we would slide pick 3 back to 7 with Melbourne and get Gold Coasts future first if they are really keen on Robey.

We could then take Taylor at 4 as Essendon are linked to him but not Grlj and then we take Grlj at 7. Gold Coasts first rounder can help get us Tanner Armstrong next year. Or if Tanner slides we have two first rounders in what is meant to be a better draft.

The fans seem to have Robey ranked that high but nobody actually knows where the professional recruiters have him ranked.

 

[tigerfan1961]

Incorrect

I think we all know now that Thilthorpe is a better selection and even Caddy/Curtain
Zane was the higher rated in the media but that could have been due to word getting out about Norths intentions
But Norths talent recognition was wrong with that selection

Thilthorpe was pick 2, Phillips 3. How could North get him before Adelaide’s pick? They couldn’t

 

[wormy]

The only apparent knock on Robey (who is best available and also our #1 positional need) seems to be the fact that he's only been in the Talent league for a short duration of time, so he doesn't have as many runs on the board as some others.

This completely fails to recognise the way our recruiters operate.

Of our 4 top picks last year, 3 of them, Lalor, Hotton, Faull were unseen for large parts of the year with injury. Likewise, Smillie exploded out of the blocks at the start of the year and had a quiet back half of the year.

Our recruiters won't have any issues picking Robey based on a huge end to the year, in the same way they didn't hesitate to pick Hotton after a hot start to the year