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Academy Watch

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Judge said:
On what I'm told, you can be pretty confident that the Lions really like Wagner as a draft prospect.
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Not surprised. Like Keays, he can find the ball however, from what I have observed, he does more when he has the ball and also defends well when the opposition has it. Definitely a good prospect.
 

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BigCat2 said:
Judge do you know their thoughts on Other academy prospects?
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Not really, apart from what's in the public domain.

Just seems to be the case that Keays and Wagner are clearly the first two Academy boys in the draft queue for the Lions at this early, pre-carnival stage.
 
Judge said:
Not really, apart from what's in the public domain.

Just seems to be the case that Keays and Wagner are clearly the first two Academy boys in the draft queue for the Lions at this early, pre-carnival stage.
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MMMMM, stats out on TAC CUP website. Very interesting.
 
Forward We Go said:
MMMMM, stats out on TAC CUP website. Very interesting.
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Stats are an indicator, but there is a lot of extremely important footy stuff not measured. Ie; Effective and number of Shepherds, Pressure on opposition with ball, Run, participation in contests, 2nd efforts, presence, 'class' (how they move, think, time, etc).

That's why scouts get paid the big money.....ha!
 
tigernova said:
Stats are an indicator, but there is a lot of extremely important footy stuff not measured. Ie; Effective and number of Shepherds, Pressure on opposition with ball, Run, participation in contests, 2nd efforts, presence, 'class' (how they move, think, time, etc).

That's why scouts get paid the big money.....ha!
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Spot on Tigernova. Sometimes the stats give a false impression & are obviously a guide to how many times a player gets his hands on the sherrin. The stats in the tac cup are a little different though in the fact that they list effective/ineffective disposals. These are also good indicators on how a given player performs. Its also a challenge for the coaching staff to have these guys play as a team rather than play as individuals because of the obvious want "to be seen" every time they go near the ball rather than doing the team thing. Somehow they need to understand that a well drilled team will reflect much better for all instead of a bad team performance with a few outstanding efforts.
 
Forward We Go said:
Not surprised. Like Keays, he can find the ball however, from what I have observed, he does more when he has the ball and also defends well when the opposition has it. Definitely a good prospect.
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I agree that his hurt factor with the footy in hand is much greater than Keays'; his problem over the years, since ive been watching him, has been maintaining consistency with the number of disposals he gets. However, it seems like he has improved greatly in that regard. Obviously he and Keays are very different players so its hard to compare, but I've always penned Wagner as one of our set-in-stone academy prospects.

For those who dont remember, he also won schoolboys U15 all australian.
 
How tall/short is Wagner?

Any chance of a late growth spurt?
 
whatboutbob said:
I know he was 177cm a couple of years ago. Dunno about now.
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Seems to me, the ONLY thing size has to do with it is the kid can handle the contact and can tackle. Give me a small kid who can handle the contact, can tackle, makes good decisions, Can kick accurately consistently, and is a natural footballer any day.

I read a quote ; "Give us footballers first. We'll turn them into athletes." To me that says it all. Size shouldn't be an issue unless the kid cant handle the contact or cant tackle because of it.
 
tigernova said:
Seems to me, the ONLY thing size has to do with it is the kid can handle the contact and can tackle. Give me a small kid who makes good decisions, Can kick accurately consistently, and is a natural footballer any day.

I read a quote ; "Give us footballers first. We'll turn them into athletes." To me that says it all. Size shouldn't be an issue unless the kid cant handle the contact or cant tackle because of it.
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Individually I'd largely agree with you however when you're talking team balance it can be a very different story. Not saying we wouldn't pick him up but in a team where you've already got Green, Taylor, Zorko and Christensen adding another player at that sort of height is probably a 50/50 call. The fact that he is an academy player and QLDer probably cancels that out so it will likely be down to whether he's judged as good enough. On that I've got no idea as I've never seen him play.
 

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whatboutbob said:
I know he was 177cm a couple of years ago. Dunno about now.
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Any chance of an eight inch growth spurt? Just thinking on a needs basis...

Surely there's a peptide for that?
 
Fatcat08 said:
Individually I'd largely agree with you however when you're talking team balance it can be a very different story. Not saying we wouldn't pick him up but in a team where you've already got Green, Taylor, Zorko and Christensen adding another player at that sort of height is probably a 50/50 call. The fact that he is an academy player and QLDer probably cancels that out so it will likely be down to whether he's judged as good enough. On that I've got no idea as I've never seen him play.
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The chance of them all being on the park at the same time would excite the Lions fans at the moment. So whats your point?

And wasn't it Geelong who on the weekend benefited from including a couple of good, small, young footballers in their side?
 
tigernova said:
The chance of them all being on the park at the same time would excite the Lions fans at the moment. So whats your point?
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Really? You don't see an issue having 5 guys on the field all under 177cm in an AFL environment? Personally I think that we suffer at times having 4 of them in there and 3 of them in the forward line with a lack of marking strength up forward. Don't get me wrong they bring other positive attributes that largely outweigh the negatives but it would be a bit naive to think that our forward entries aren't compromised at times by having 3 of them in the forward line together. As for the midfield its fairly evident at stages during the games that our lack of height in the midfield does cost us on occasions, especially involving either offensively bringing the ball back into the corridor or defending it. There's always a place for smaller players in the game but running with too many in the one side does have its downfalls.
 
tigernova said:
And wasn't it Geelong who on the weekend benefited from including a couple of good, small, young footballers in their side?
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They had 2, stokes and gregson. They didn't have 5.

I'm not saying that theres no place for smalls in the game, there certainly is. I was merely pointing out that height comes into calculations when picking players almost all the time and that its not as black and white as you are making out.
 
Fatcat08 said:
Really? You don't see an issue having 5 guys on the field all under 177cm in an AFL environment? Personally I think that we suffer at times having 4 of them in there and 3 of them in the forward line with a lack of marking strength up forward. Don't get me wrong they bring other positive attributes that largely outweigh the negatives but it would be a bit naive to think that our forward entries aren't compromised at times by having 3 of them in the forward line together. As for the midfield its fairly evident at stages during the games that our lack of height in the midfield does cost us on occasions, especially involving either offensively bringing the ball back into the corridor or defending it. There's always a place for smaller players in the game but running with too many in the one side does have its downfalls.
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I agree. But ideally they aren't supposed to be in the forwards. You need Key talls for those key positions back and front, but most other places height isn't a great concern IMO.

Fyfe would be just as good a footy player even if he was 3 inches shorter.
 
tigernova said:
I agree. But ideally they aren't supposed to be in the forwards. You need Key talls for those key positions back and front, but most other places height isn't a great concern IMO.
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Up forward you need a spread, some crumbing smalls, some talls and a medium or two. At the moment we're playing a small too many for my liking on a fair few occasions.

I'd argue it does become a concern at a point. If you had a midfield made up of 3 guys under 177 going up against the Freo midfield for example i'd be extremely worried about matchups around the ground and how that can be exploited. I'm not saying its a be all end all but at some point it would become a concern.
 

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Wagner is about 180cm. I mentioned on here somewhere at the end of last year that Wagner was slipping under the radar a little bit with the hype around Keays. Wagner is certainly a better kick than Keays but up until now didn't get big numbers like Keays has shown. If Wagner can show an ability to consistently find the football over the course of the season there's no reason for him not to shoot up draft boards.
 
thoselionslads said:
Wagner is about 180cm. I mentioned on here somewhere at the end of last year that Wagner was slipping under the radar a little bit with the hype around Keays. Wagner is certainly a better kick than Keays but up until now didn't get big numbers like Keays has shown. If Wagner can show an ability to consistently find the football over the course of the season there's no reason for him not to shoot up draft boards.
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takes that issue more out of the equation then. I've only been able to look at stats but its his handball receives numbers that stand out for me in the games so far this year. I know they can be deceiving sometimes but it tends to point towards a willingness to work hard to put himself in a position to get the ball. Is an encouraging sign.
 
Fatcat08 said:
Up forward you need a spread, some crumbing smalls, some talls and a medium or two. At the moment we're playing a small too many for my liking on a fair few occasions.

I'd argue it does become a concern at a point. If you had a midfield made up of 3 guys under 177 going up against the Freo midfield for example i'd be extremely worried about matchups around the ground and how that can be exploited. I'm not saying its a be all end all but at some point it would become a concern.
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I agree with your sentiment. When we also had McGrath playing earlier in the year, he was playing well but I did think that the balance of our team was a bit off. We already seem at times a bit too small and too easily pushed off the ball or out-marked. There is a point of too many short guys to play in the one game
 

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