Teen Wolf
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jul 5, 2011
- 8,116
- 8,925
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- Afghanistan women's cricket team
Not sure it's much of an art, seems like there's a few obvious standouts every year while the rest are good but interchangeable. The output of the latter is going to be mostly determined by the environment they're drafted into. If Sophie Molan had ended up at Carlton and Grace Egan at Richmond, the current narrative around those two players would be reversed imo. One was helped by slotting into a team of readymade AFLW players, the other wasn't afforded such a luxury.True, but then some players perform fine in their first year, while others struggle, and picking one from the other is an art that Richmond thus far haven't demonstrated. While Carlton, for example, has been great -- Grace Egan being case in point.
I don't think it would've been seen as ridiculous if she was in the same shape as she is now. A few years back the likes of Phillips, O'Dea and Davey were already performing well as predominantly on-ballers, and they are around the same height as Garner.You can see the general trend in how the older players are playing too, like Jasmine Garner moving into the midfield, which would have been seen as ridiculous a few years back.
With a top 3 pick in the Vic draft, Melbourne would be expecting a more immediate impact than that. They gave up the chance to draft a lot of could-be-good-in-a-few-years types just to improve their first selection, which should allow them to bring in one of the freak exceptions who could be an All-Australian or 'Norm Smith' winner in her first year.Eg; I think Melbourne are probably after Allyssa Bannon this year (speaking of six footers who could play on a wing). Bannon may take a year or two to develop to AFLW level, but when she does she'll transform that team.