Player Watch #34: Liam McBean

[Frustrated Tiger]

Maybe the Pies may be interested for a 2nd round pick.....oohh wait

 

[Wallaby]

He's still only 21 - I don't know - could he become a ruckman (he's still built like a stick figure). He's listed as taller than Hampson.

Gawn didn't come good until he was 23. Goldstein didn't play regularly until 22-23.

 

[_RT_]

What's that actually going to achieve? Zilch, zero, nada. You can be miserable, while I'll enjoy my weekends without a care in the world about how bad we played.

I've been #ECI on Martin Cotchin Rance Jack Deledio C.Ellis Short Menadue Rioli Griffiths Hampson most of the year. Conca Grimes Drummond C.Moore and Broad have me curious about what they can bring. The rest is pretty much meh

 

[TigerImposter]

He's still only 21 - I don't know - could he become a ruckman (he's still built like a stick figure). He's listed as taller than Hampson.

Gawn didn't come good until he was 23. Goldstein didn't play regularly until 22-23.

Showed a lot at his first crack in the ruck on a horribly wet day at Coburg. I was surprised the club didn't follow up at Pro on Sunday and on a dry track considering our depleted ruck stocks.
Mobile ruckman are the go nowadays and any switched on FD would be aware of this. I still think Liam could be a good footballer if he falls in smart hands. We are too negative or safe at RFC and we just don't develop players with multiple attacking tricks in their armoury .in fact we often takeaway the only attacking trick they may have by making them overly defensive

 

[Madness101]

He's still only 21 - I don't know - could he become a ruckman (he's still built like a stick figure). He's listed as taller than Hampson.

Gawn didn't come good until he was 23. Goldstein didn't play regularly until 22-23.

His age is the only thing that keeps as all interested I think. But it is hard to change attitude/work rate and it is pointless just having him on the list until he is 24-25 and getting nothing for him. We did that with Vickery and now we can't trade him for pick 150 at the moment.

It would kill me to see him go to Essendon and become a half good player. But he plays in the VFL which is a few steps down from AFL these days and this year he has not done much.

 

[poppa pump]

it would be fullish to let him go without a 3 game ,your in ,the guys hardly ever played in a skilled or good side,allways relying on delivery from a poor side.

 

[Charlie Pannam]

Chaplin and Maric set to retire
Astbury may be delisted
Mckenzie -future uncertain.
And some say that the Bean is as good as gone.
We'll possibly need to recruit up to 4 KPF/KPDs'.
Just don't get why we haven't played him.

 

[poppa pump]

Seems really dumb that we are willing to risk another club taking him without really knowing how he would perform with better players around.
Lets not play russian roulette and give him his chances has he has a excellent record at vfl level,something most our vfl guys haven't achieved.

 

[Tiger7374]

Chaplin and Maric set to retire
Astbury may be delisted
Mckenzie -future uncertain.
And some say that the Bean is as good as gone.
We'll possibly need to recruit up to 4 KPF/KPDs'.
Just don't get why we haven't played him.

Untested (& shit developed) KPPs: McBean, Elton
Old (like this year) KPPs: Maric, Chaplin
Star KPPs: Alex, Jack
Going ok KPPs: Ben G, Hammer
Struggling KPPs: Vickery, Astbury
Trying out KPPs: Choi, CMoore, Soldo
Unsure KPP: Reece

Of 14 big fellas...2 are super, 2 on the up, 3 learning the trade, 2 are struggling 5 can go without impacting this year in any way.

So 50/50 at moment...good news is there are 7 positions ready to be filled...bad news is the current FD might be there to fill them

 

[SumTingWong]

Chaplin and Maric set to retire
Astbury may be delisted
Mckenzie -future uncertain.
And some say that the Bean is as good as gone.
We'll possibly need to recruit up to 4 KPF/KPDs'.
Just don't get why we haven't played him.

We have CMoore who looks likely and Chol as well already on our list.
Todd Marshall/Josh Battle atm look like they could go around our pick this year
We should be looking at either or both of Marchbank/Corr from GWS for defenders
North have a surplus of talls we could look at as well
There's also about 5-6 young ruckman who we should look at in this years draft plus a couple of mature agers like Darcy Cameron we could get as rookies. Plenty if talls around if we are genuinely keen.

 

[mopsy]

Again i am going to make the distinction and break down exactly what we have.

Genuine front line rucks.

Maric close to the end.
Hampson while he has been servicable he remains really poor in too many areas. would make a good back up ruckman .
Soldo well hes a kid whos only footy experience is his two years with us. More likely than not he wont make it.

We dont have a front line ruckman and we have nothing coming thru.
Imo we need to retire Ivan and get in at least two ruckman at differing stages of development.

KPF/RUCK

Vickery - continues to struggle to round out his game in either role.he is not the answer either as a kpf or ruckman.
Griffiths - Played a few afl standard games this year but mostly he continues to struggle. Like Vickery he is not good enough in either role apart from the odd game. Of all the ruck/fwds we have Griffiths is the most likely to make it as a KPF.
McBean - Again club insists he can play ruck but dont play him there. so far he is a bit like Vickery kicks goals that the smaller blokes would normally kick but doesnt play like a kpf. Most likely he wont be with us next year. The trouble is we dont know what he can offer at Afl level.
Chol - Club claims he can play ruck. Has a great leap and agility. Most likely if he makes it it will be as a kpp. A rookie for a reason but a rookie worth trying to develop.

The primary role of all 4 is as a fwd. None so far have shown themselves to be of high qualitty in fact the first three have more often than not shown themselves to be below standard.While the fourth is a rookie who may or may not get there who knows.
Would cut/trade two of these types, freeing up room to target TWO Genuine quality KPF'S.

Genuine KPF
Riewoldt - The only high quality kpf that we have. The gap from him to the next kpf is a virtual chasm.
McKenzie - Well we all know his story even with out illness at such a late pick it was always going to be a bit of a long shot.

These are the only two genuine Key fwds we have imo. yes i am making distinctions. The situation is dire, One is High quality the other probably wont make it. I could possibly place Griffiths here but he must find consistency, play to a high enough standard where his poor is not scraping the bottom of the barrel and imo he should play almost exclusively as a F/F.
Gotta keep both and hope McKenzie can make the grade. We need to add two quality KPF's to this group.

Genuine KPD
Rance - See what i said about JR. It is a mirror image.
Chaplin - Old slow and past it.
Astbury - Wow even slower than Chaplin and does not have Chaplins smarts.
Elton - 5 years in played just 2 games and continues to struggle in the two's.

If the kpf stocks are dire Then the KPD stocks are diabolical.Not even a junior worth giving games to. All bar AR have to go.
We need to cut the deadwood and target at least three KPD's at differing stages of development

Tall FWD
C Moore - A rookie pick who does have good attributes. Again i make the distinction between KPP and tall. Callum IF he makes it is more likely to be a third tall type.

He is the only Tall fwd we have having made the distinction between kpf's yet he is only a rookie .
We need at least one more Tall fwd of Moore's type on the list.

Tall DEF
Grimes - Again he is the only third tall type we have yet his primary role really has been to play much smaller.
McIntosh - Reluctant to put him here because atm he is more of a running type. He may be tall but does not really perform a talls role.

Would be looking for at least one Tall DEF who can play on your Gunston types and offer some rebound.

Imo with our talls at least we need to go into full scale rebuild.Just imagine how we will go if we lost both Rance and Riewoldt for full seasons we really do fall of a cliff.

 

[tropicaltiger]

astbury wont be delisted

 

[juss]

astbury wont be delisted

He cant be until we find a genuine number 2. Chaplin might retire, and Grimes is ideally number 3. Elton has shown nothing and is gone. It looks like they might be giving Chol a crack at it.

 

[mopsy]

How hard would it be to find an upgrade on Dave Astbury.Besides we did try to off load him last year but Dave did not want to go.
Grimes imo is not a #3 he should be looked upon as a bloke who plays on med/sml forwards despite his height.

Personally i would go hard at N Brown as a F.B and Aiden Corr as the third tall type. I mention these two because i feel they are gettable both are not getting a go atm for whatever reasons. Back line would look like the following.

B: Grimes - N Brown - Corr
HB: Yarran - Rance - Deledio.

There are plenty of tall defenders names being bandied about.There are also a few in state leagues that are doing well.

 

[smurfin]

How hard would it be to find an upgrade on Dave Astbury.Besides we did try to off load him last year but Dave did not want to go.
Grimes imo is not a #3 he should be looked upon as a bloke who plays on med/sml forwards despite his height.

Personally i would go hard at N Brown as a F.B and Aiden Corr as the third tall type. I mention these two because i feel they are gettable both are not getting a go atm for whatever reasons. Back line would look like the following.

B: Grimes - N Brown - Corr
HB: Yarran - Rance - Deledio.

There are plenty of tall defenders names being bandied about.There are also a few in state leagues that are doing well.

State league sounds OK, but is that where we got Nathan Broad from? He's not setting the world on fire, didn't even get a mention on your list.
Darcy Cameron as a state-league ruckman keeps getting mentioned. Don't know him but thought big Orren was quite servicable as a back-up ruck and think its something we should seriously look at.
What are people's thoughts on Mitch Brown - ex Geelong, Essendon top up player. Looks like he would currently be an upgrade for us as either forward or back.

 

[theflea]

How hard would it be to find an upgrade on Dave Astbury.Besides we did try to off load him last year but Dave did not want to go.
Grimes imo is not a #3 he should be looked upon as a bloke who plays on med/sml forwards despite his height.

Personally i would go hard at N Brown as a F.B and Aiden Corr as the third tall type. I mention these two because i feel they are gettable both are not getting a go atm for whatever reasons. Back line would look like the following.

B: Grimes - N Brown - Corr
HB: Yarran - Rance - Deledio.

There are plenty of tall defenders names being bandied about.There are also a few in state leagues that are doing well.

A lot of clubs want good tall defenders so I would never say its easy.

 

[mopsy]

A lot of clubs want good tall defenders so I would never say its easy.

It was not really a question. Imo it would not be too hard to upgrade on Astbury Elton either in the ND thru trade or state league.

 

[Bojangles17]

It was not really a question. Imo it would not be too hard to upgrade on Astbury Elton either in the ND thru trade or state league.

Hartley and Mitch brown were about best KPD in vfl , not sure they exceed astbury capability

 

[theflea]

It was not really a question. Imo it would not be too hard to upgrade on Astbury Elton either in the ND thru trade or state league.

Imo if it were that easy then all those clubs that need them would do it I a heart beat. Just think this isn't the case but each to their own.

 

[RememberRoyce]

Imo if it were that easy then all those clubs that need them would do it I a heart beat. Just think this isn't the case but each to their own.

Yes. But most teams don"t 'need' them as much as we do. I agree that if they are playing state league it's probably for a good reason...they are unlikely to suddenly lift to AFL level once they get to an AFL club, unless young and developing.
If we could somehow get another club to see Astbury in a different light to some of us on here and get a 2nd rounder, would do it in a heartbeat. Would use that on a kid with some upside. eg Collins last year. Then rookie one of those state league late developers as depth. Elton is contracted next year for more depth.

 

[Dr Tigris]

Liam has a huge problem in breaking into an over tall forward line. And without him regularly setting the scoreboard alight he won't get in. It's not bad problem for us to have really.

The big issue is that both Griff and TV show genuine talent for a while, then drop off. Massive problem. they both can be very good AFL players, and are not ATM. Probably decent trade prospects, but we'd almost certainly get underpaid for them. Interesting times - unless one or both rip it up consistently.

 

[guruisatiger]

State league sounds OK, but is that where we got Nathan Broad from? He's not setting the world on fire, didn't even get a mention on your list.
Darcy Cameron as a state-league ruckman keeps getting mentioned. Don't know him but thought big Orren was quite servicable as a back-up ruck and think its something we should seriously look at.
What are people's thoughts on Mitch Brown - ex Geelong, Essendon top up player. Looks like he would currently be an upgrade for us as either forward or back.

Mitch brown is not a top up player. He was drafted by the bombers in the 2015 draft

 

[Del65166]

Hartley and Mitch brown were about best KPD in vfl , not sure they exceed astbury capability

I don't mind they way Hartley plays. Will find it hard to fit in with the 34 back next year. A replacement for Chaplin?

 

[mopsy]

Liam has a huge problem in breaking into an over tall forward line. And without him regularly setting the scoreboard alight he won't get in. It's not bad problem for us to have really.

The big issue is that both Griff and TV show genuine talent for a while, then drop off. Massive problem. they both can be very good AFL players, and are not ATM. Probably decent trade prospects, but we'd almost certainly get underpaid for them. Interesting times - unless one or both rip it up consistently.

Aaahhh finally someone else sees it.
So with two very similar blokes obviously in front of him Griffiths and Vickery, all be it blokes who have regularly under performed. Why have we not tried to play/DEVELOP a bloke like McBean as a KPD? We have thrown just about every tall we have drafted into the backline in search of another KPD but the one who actually showed a lot as a defender thru his junior years we have steadfastly refused to try back despite the very obvious fact that we now not only have two very similar 200cm types playing fwd but now a third in Chol who is also being groomed as a ruck/fwd. There is just no logic to what is going on.

It is almost as if they do not understand the exact types they have on the list and are hoping hese players can become something they are not.

 

[theflea]

Yes. But most teams don"t 'need' them as much as we do. I agree that if they are playing state league it's probably for a good reason...they are unlikely to suddenly lift to AFL level once they get to an AFL club, unless young and developing.
If we could somehow get another club to see Astbury in a different light to some of us on here and get a 2nd rounder, would do it in a heartbeat. Would use that on a kid with some upside. eg Collins last year. Then rookie one of those state league late developers as depth. Elton is contracted next year for more depth.

Sure but it was put that to find better than Astbury is easy to find and I simply don't believe its that easy. I want a better player than Dave, and would love to find one cheap. Some can come thru but it also depends on the club they go to.