Delisted #49: Tom Hird - Delisted, thank you for your service - 23/8

[Lore]

Contract Status: Delisted
Last Game Played: Yet to debut
Injury Status: n/a

My Boy Draft 2022: Claim here

 

[ghostdog]

Presumably there are transferable skills, though I did manage to dig this up:

And here's our Lachie Whitfield type. Perfect.

 

[Andronicus]

Presumably there are transferable skills,

Have there been any soccer to football success stories?

 

[Corleone]

Surely will be given the #49

 

[Lore]

Have there been any soccer to football success stories?

Sam Draper? I dunno. What do you want from me exactly?

 

[Andronicus]

What do you want from me exactly?

This seems a pretty loaded question.

Not sure I was being too cryptic.

 

[astrowizzle]

hope he makes it. hird is probably my all time favorite player. Freaky skills and absolutely no fear. Welcome to the greatest club in the county

 

[Doss]

Have there been any soccer to football success stories?

Brad Green played representative soccer in Tasmania as a kid, although really he was just an all-round freak as he also captained the Australian under 15 cricket team.

 

[boncer34]

Have there been any soccer to football success stories?

Scott Pendlebury played a round ball game. Can't remember what exactly, never heard commentators mention it.

 

[Runk]

The best part of this is that it suggests the family must be something close to being at peace with all of the bullshit they had to go through.

It was a bit of a surprise when Tom turned up the first time.

Can't imagine that the teenager who lived the drama would be playing if the wound was still open.

Might see James around a bit more. I’m ok with that.

 

[Runk]

Scott Pendlebury played a round ball game. Can't remember what exactly, never heard commentators mention it.

Or everytime Brad Green used to go near the ball.....

 

[Donakebab]

#55 make it happen. No pressure.

 

[ghostdog]

Nickname has to be Third. Seems logical to me.

 

[BrunoV]

Have there been any soccer to football success stories?

I think Lloyd was an accomplished jr soccer player.

 

[Darealrath]

I'm ecstatic and I don't even expect him to play a game.

 

[CBombers17]

"You take after James,' said Sheedy. 'There is more about you than meets the eye, as I said of him long ago.' Tom wondered if the remark meant more than it said"

J.R.R. Tolkien

 

[Lore]

This seems a pretty loaded question.

Not sure I was being too cryptic.

You seem unhappy with my posting either lacking information or not answering the question well enough.

There really isn't a lot of information to be had. Most of the articles from today just repeat over and over that he's coming from soccer, and that he's fourth generation f/s for Essendon, and then telling us all about Hirdy who coached the club through ASADA and then resigned to sell chocolates. If you're unlucky it will have additional details about James.

As a Category B rookie from another sport, he can't have been registered to play football for at least two years. Under that circumstance, it's unlikely that there will be a great deal of information about his footballing ability, but there really is almost nothing.

We don't know how tall he is, or the position he preferred in soccer. There's no stats about his soccer games available either, so we can't even infer anything from that (eg. goal kicker = offensive ability).

His birthday is the 28th of March 2001, which is about the least useful of the basic information that you could get imo, but it's something.



Later this afternoon I also looked at Twomey's article and the bio in the JHA newsletter, which tells us that Tom is small-bodied (Twomey), has good endurance and good foot skills (JHA newsletter), and is talented and athletic (according to Dodoro). We're also told that he needs to build his strength.

It's pretty vague, and therefore difficult to make an educated guess about how well his skills will translate to AFL at this point without more information.

But if I am to speculate, I would guess that the four key attributes are big-bodied, endurance, speed and foot skills, right? Two out of four isn't so bad, that'd be about on par with most players that get drafted.

If we add footy smarts as the fifth one, and if it runs in the family, Tom could work out nicely. Maybe.

So I guess that's something.

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Nickname has to be Third. Seems logical to me.

Or Fourd.

 

[JayJ20]

A notification from the AFL app popped up with the heading "Breaking news. Essendon sign Hird"

I instinctively had the urge to jump on bigfooty for the oppo melts. Then I read the article fully.
I'm broken.

 

[Andronicus]

You seem unhappy with my posting either lacking information or not answering the question well enough.

You seem to be reading a hell of a lot into a very simple question.

Someone asked if he was any good. I assumed, and I guess most would, that the question was about football, not cooking or spelling.

You said he was good at soccer.

You then mentioned transferrable skills. I wouldn't think there are a significant number of transferrable skills between the two, other than the feet are used for both. Basketball, rugby codes, Gaelic and even cricket have seen some reasonable overlaps. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question about soccer players that had become decent footballers, to perhaps give some insight as to why being a soccer player might help as a footballer. Some posters gave answers, you mentioned an untried Draper and then asked what I want from you.


Strange sequence of events.

 

[eth-dog]

What did his dad wear before 5? Was it 47?

 

[RedmanWasHere]

What did his dad wear before 5? Was it 47?

No. 49.

 

[eth-dog]

No. 49.

Give him that.

 

[Lore]

You seem to be reading a hell of a lot into a very simple question.

Someone asked if he was any good. I assumed, and I guess most would, that the question was about football, not cooking or spelling.

You said he was good at soccer.

You then mentioned transferrable skills. I wouldn't think there are a significant number of transferrable skills between the two, other than the feet are used for both. Basketball, rugby codes, Gaelic and even cricket have seen some reasonable overlaps. I asked what I thought was a reasonable question about soccer players that had become decent footballers, to perhaps give some insight as to why being a soccer player might help as a footballer. Some posters gave answers, you mentioned an untried Draper and then asked what I want from you.


Strange sequence of events.

Of course he was asking about football. Million dollar question, no one has the answer.

The kid is a category B rookie. No one knows if he's any good at football because he hasn't been a registered football player for at least 2 years.

If you don't think his soccer background is a relevant point in answer to that question, then you are discounting the only information that we have.

As far as transferable skills, I said presumably there are some transferable skills. There are two reasons for presuming this:

Firstly, because everyone keeps repeating his soccer background ad nauseam, as though it means something. If people such as Dodoro and Twomey think it's meaningful enough to mention over and over again, maybe it's meaningful.

Secondly, we don't know enough about his ability as a soccer player to really say anything about it beyond the very basic things like 'competitive' and 'team sport'. We don't know what position he plays in, and we don't have a stats sheet that might indicate a strength or weakness in that sport.

Presuming anything more than that based on nothing more than the sport he played would be like assuming every AFL player can kick over a jam tin, take a mark and lay a tackle.

 

[yodellinhank]

We gave Jake Long 5 years, so I'm looking forward to seeing Tom play in the VFL for the next decade while earning an AFL wage.

My boy

 

[ghostdog]

Of course he was asking about football. Million dollar question, no one has the answer.

The kid is a category B rookie. No one knows if he's any good at football because he hasn't been a registered football player for at least 2 years.

If you don't think his soccer background is a relevant point in answer to that question, then you are discounting the only information that we have.

As far as transferable skills, I said presumably there are some transferable skills. There are two reasons for presuming this:

Firstly, because everyone keeps repeating his soccer background ad nauseam, as though it means something. If people such as Dodoro and Twomey think it's meaningful enough to mention over and over again, maybe it's meaningful.

Secondly, we don't know enough about his ability as a soccer player to really say anything about it beyond the very basic things like 'competitive' and 'team sport'. We don't know what position he plays in, and we don't have a stats sheet that might indicate a strength or weakness in that sport.

Presuming anything more than that based on nothing more than the sport he played would be like assuming every AFL player can kick over a jam tin, take a mark and lay a tackle.

Soccer's a 360 degree game. Presumably he has good peripheral awareness.