Crows to take best available - Rendell

[DJ75]

There certainly is some argument that we have depth in the midfield. I'm sure the argument would point to players like:
VB, Vince, Thompson, Reilly, Douglas, Knights, young Doughty, Mackay, Martin, Otten, Dangerfield, Schmidt, Symes, Cook, Sloane etc...

Not to mention that we also have Aiden Riley, Luke Thompson and Matty Wright.

This is however a bit of a furfy as the question is more about top level mids.

At this point we have Vince and VB as the next top level mids, with possibilities for Dangerfield, Otten, Mackay and maybe Martin.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need some top tier midfield depth and so the early picks may need to be midfielders of an elite level.
After that, I'd be looking for some players with natural crumbing ability (and genuine pace), players with elite foot skills (becoming so important these days), one or two emerging ruckmen (200 cm min) and then some genuine tough nuts.

Is that too much to ask??

 

[thebirdman 24]

There certainly is some argument that we have depth in the midfield. I'm sure the argument would point to players like:
VB, Vince, Thompson, Reilly, Douglas, Knights, young Doughty, Mackay, Martin, Otten, Dangerfield, Schmidt, Symes, Cook, Sloane etc...

Not to mention that we also have Aiden Riley, Luke Thompson and Matty Wright.

This is however a bit of a furfy as the question is more about top level mids.

At this point we have Vince and VB as the next top level mids, with possibilities for Dangerfield, Otten, Mackay and maybe Martin.

There is no doubt in my mind that we need some top tier midfield depth and so the early picks may need to be midfielders of an elite level.
After that, I'd be looking for some players with natural crumbing ability (and genuine pace), players with elite foot skills (becoming so important these days), one or two emerging ruckmen (200 cm min) and then some genuine tough nuts.

Is that too much to ask??

Whilst we have a lot of midfielders, how many of them have potential to be A graders? This is where we need to use our top picks to secure some real midfield talent. A few more left-footers wouldn't go astray either.

 

[DJ75]

Whilst we have a lot of midfielders, how many of them have potential to be A graders? This is where we need to use our top picks to secure some real midfield talent. A few more left-footers wouldn't go astray either.

Exactly my point!

One I wouldn't mind having a look at is a guy who plays for Westies U18 and St. Peters College. Patrick Barrett is a guy who might be available with a late pick in the draft. He's got a bit of pace, is a tough nut, uses the ball well and can win contests through sheer desire. I'd be very happy if we were to take a punt on him (I know the Bullies and Lions have expressed an interest in him).

 

[courageous_tom]

Still think we should of gone Sidebottom, a ready made midfielder who had an immediate impact and ripped us to shreds in that dreaded final last year, instead we went Davis who played league all year and is struggling to have an impact now. We need to pick players who are ready to go not going to take 3-4 years to develop and become first 22. Talia also was an interesting one, however, there didn't seem to be any good midfielders left after him, so he might be right with that. Saying that Koby Stevens goes alright.

I think this is the point. Almost every year there is a possibilty of drafting a 'ready made midfielder' who can come in and make an impact in their first year. On the other side of the equation, its simply not possible to draft a 'ready made' key position player. They take years to develop. Thats why we've drafted them early, so we can allow them the 2-3 years it takes for them to develop.

Theres nothing stopping us drafting a 'ready made midfielder' this year, who can come in, and play 10-15 games next year if fit.

A lack of midfield depth is a relatively easy problem to fix, a lack of key position depth is an extremely difficult and long term problem to fix.

 

[thebirdman 24]

I think this is the point. Almost every year there is a possibilty of drafting a 'ready made midfielder' who can come in and make an impact in their first year. On the other side of the equation, its simply not possible to draft a 'ready made' key position player. They take years to develop. Thats why we've drafted them early, so we can allow them the 2-3 years it takes for them to develop.

Theres nothing stopping us drafting a 'ready made midfielder' this year, who can come in, and play 10-15 games next year if fit.

A lack of midfield depth is a relatively easy problem to fix, a lack of key position depth is an extremely difficult and long term problem to fix.

In a few years though are we going to have room for Bock, Talia, Davis, Sellar, Young in one team? Its good to have this kind of depth, but what i'm saying is we could have picked up a ready made midfielder like Sidebottom, and go for a KPP later in the 2nd 3rd, 4th round or rookie draft which is usually where you find some gems (eg. Rutten, Bock). We did this with Dangerfield in 2007, and if he had been in Adelaide he would of played a lot more, and then we picked up Young in the 5th round or something. All the good midfield players are usually gone by the end of the second round.

The next year we picked up Davis, who didn't have an impact all year, then Talia then next year, (a bit more developed physically) who may get a game or two. I just question whether we could have got a project KPP player later on in the draft, like what we did with Bock and Rutten and now Young, and give them a few years. Instead we got them in the first round and still have to wait that long to see what they've got.

We don't have the midfield to match it with a St Kilda of Dal Santo, Goddard, Montagna, or Geelong of Ablett, Bartel, Corey, Chapman. Midfield is the most important part of the ground and first round picks should focus on it.

 

[Chief Crow]

Another article on afl.com.au

SA youth proving a tall order

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/94986/default.aspx

Sam Day in action

 

[ManInTheArena]

Who cares, select best available and if in the future we have too many tall's we can trade..

 

[Drummond]

Please, for once, LOAD UP ON MIDS.

I want every single pick to be used on a midfielder, and I'm not kidding.

Sam Day is such a gun though!

 

[Riggy1]

Please, for once, LOAD UP ON MIDS.

I want every single pick to be used on a midfielder, and I'm not kidding.

Sam Day is such a gun though!

/checks what team he plays for

you're rating a non-Norwood player, must be good

 

[DJ75]

As I've said before if Day is available you take him and then watch as Rendell giggles his way through the rest of the draft!

 

[WALL-e]

Day goes to GC.

Pretty confident about that.

If a tall falls, I reakon it will be Darling.

 

[CroCop]

Still think we should of gone Sidebottom, a ready made midfielder who had an immediate impact and ripped us to shreds in that dreaded final last year, instead we went Davis who played league all year and is struggling to have an impact now. We need to pick players who are ready to go not going to take 3-4 years to develop and become first 22. Talia also was an interesting one, however, there didn't seem to be any good midfielders left after him, so he might be right with that. Saying that Koby Stevens goes alright.

Jetta from Sydney also. Bastinac from North Melbourne also went after Talia

 

[courageous_tom]

In a few years though are we going to have room for Bock, Talia, Davis, Sellar, Young in one team?

In a few years we will have lost Rutten, Stevens, Hentschell, and Burton. Bock already looks like an old man, who knows how long he has left. Chances are some of talls we've drafted in the past few years won't turn out. That's just the way it is.

If even half of: Sellar, Young, Davis, Mckernan, Talia, Craig, Gunston etc turn out to be good players at AFL level, then we will be very very lucky.

Drafting mids is much easier, and can be done once we have the bookends in place

 

[Chief Crow]

Day goes to GC.

Pretty confident about that.

If a tall falls, I reakon it will be Darling.

At AFL level I would think Darling would be more a leading 3rd tall forward. he is only 190cm i think

 

[Crow-mo]

There certainly is some argument that we have depth in the midfield. I'm sure the argument would point to players like:
VB, Vince, Thompson, Reilly, Douglas, Knights, young Doughty, Mackay, Martin, Otten, Dangerfield, Schmidt, Symes, Cook, Sloane etc...

Not to mention that we also have Aiden Riley, Luke Thompson and Matty Wright.

that's not depth, that's quantity.

 

[*PAF]

Talia, Shaw, Gunston, Craig, midfielders?

How would have it looked if Talia's and Gunston's surnames were Cornes and Ayres?

 

[cmndstab]

Rendell is actually pretty easy to read once you get used to him He's one of these guys who says precisely what he thinks, but doesn't bother to go into the whole picture.

Just like in his first couple of years, "best available" will be tempered by club needs. It only makes sense - it's all well and good to say that we'll include speed, ball use, leadership potential etc in our adjudication of a player but you're obviously not going to weight all of those areas equally. How is that weighting decided?

There will be obvious standouts (ie Scully, Trengove, etc) but past that, "best of" depends very much on what weights you choose, which is why clubs regularly have considerably different orders even in the first round to each other. It's also why every recruiter comes out talking about how they rated the player they picked up above the pick they got the player at - because their own weighting system rates their preferred players higher than the rest of the comp.


I have very little doubt that we'll see a mid picked up with our first pick, particularly since it's likely to be an early pick modulo the Gold Coast, who you imagine would spend many of their early picks on talls.

 

[cmndstab]

that's not depth, that's quantity.

To be fair though, most of those names have at least depth quality to them already. Not all but a large number of them.

 

[cmndstab]

Still think we should of gone Sidebottom, a ready made midfielder who had an immediate impact and ripped us to shreds in that dreaded final last year, instead we went Davis who played league all year and is struggling to have an impact now. We need to pick players who are ready to go not going to take 3-4 years to develop and become first 22. Talia also was an interesting one, however, there didn't seem to be any good midfielders left after him, so he might be right with that. Saying that Koby Stevens goes alright.

This is always an interesting one that gets brought up each year - should you go for ready-made players, or ones that you predict will develop but haven't done so/finished doing so yet and will not be able to contribute for a while. Obviously if we are hoping to push for a flag next year it makes a bit more sense to go for ready-made players than it does if we're expecting to sit around the bottom of the ladder, but I always come back to the closed system argument. There is a certain amount of talent to go around (ie there are a group of players who each have a certain number of units of talents), and a draft order. If you knew precisely what the talent of each individual was, then you could simply rank these players in order and it would match up with the draft order, ignoring team needs of course. If we assume perfect information (which is a false assumption, but let's go with it anyway), them if being "ready to go" is seen as a desirable thing, those sorts of players will be rated higher than their long-term talent would suggest. By making ready to go players a priority, we end up with a less talented squad overall than if we simply make talent the only priority.

With the talent over immediate impact model, it works fine if you assume that you can accurately predict how those players will develop. Yes, Talia has no impact this year, but Davis begins to have an impact, and Dangerfield starts to become a super important player. In theory, we pick up a player at the end of this year who has no impact in 2011, but Davis starts to become a super important player and Talia begins to scratch the surface. If you are able to read the draft accurately each year, then you can keep this up sustainably, and in theory the player that steps up from several drafts ago is a more talented player than the one you could have drafted with the same pick in the most recent draft who is ready to go.

Of course, drafting is not an exact science by any stretch. You never know how well a player will step up from the juniors to AFL. You never know which players will rise to the pressure and which will crumble. You never know whether injury will cut a player down just as they are going through crucial developmental years, or if their body simply won't develop the way you think it will. Anyone who has mostly developed already and is ready to go comes with considerably less risk as well as the more immediate reward. Recruiters also tend to go for longer-term talent, particularly in the first round, so there are often players still left over in the mid-late first round that are ready to go simply because the recruiting market in general seems to favour the high risk-high reward approach. From that point of view, it makes sense to go against the tide while still maintaining the relative safety of ready to go players. The likes of Rich and Sidebottom come to mind - perfectly talented players, but not seen as having as high a "ceiling" so they were ignored until the middle of the first round despite the fact that their floor was also seen as much higher than many of the players that went before them.


It's a really fascinating problem, one that I'm frankly amazed hasn't been studied in greater detail. Good recruiting is arguably the most important part of a footy club. At the very least, they should be hiring a mathematician or two to try to do some kind of predictive optimisation on the problem. Though, it wouldn't surprise me if the issue is that many recruiters are somewhat "old school" that prefer to rely on gut feelings and standalone tests than any kind of science. It seems to me that recruiters draft players with the ceiling in mind, but rarely the floor.

 

[BigSledge]

Great post Stabby


Like all of us I would prefer to go for a mid with our first round draft pick, but I trust Rendell's judgement. With Davis starting to show a bit and Danger was a great pick for us. Along with McLeod's form watching our youth that we've picked up has been the highlight of my footy year. We've blooded a lot of players this year this should hopefully mean the are better placed to take the next step next year. With that in mind I don't believe we need a 'ready made mid player' with our first pick just the one that will be the best over the journey. Although I'm not gonna complain if they are the one and the same.

 

[amer]

Mid-fielders, mid-fielders and more mid-fielders.

That's what our weaknesses are at the moment - a lack of quality mid-fielders.

More than likely we will lose 3 of our current mid-field rotations in Goodwin, Edwards and McLeod, and that's from a mid-field that can't match it with the big boys now.

We need mid-fielders.

Rendles will go for midfielders, and will pick up some quality ones, but I think history is going to show that we've got a pretty good stack of them right now. If the majority of people aren't pleasantly surprised by how well our midfield copes next year in the absence of Goodwin and (most likely) Edwards, I'll eat a DVD.

Sloane is the one who will impress people, once he can get some continuity about his footy (which hasn't occurred as yet). Don't think it'll be long before Craigy finds a spot for him, he'd be in there now if not for the injury.

 

[Crow-mo]

To be fair though, most of those names have at least depth quality to them already. Not all but a large number of them.

but we have a limited need for depth quality, having so many is not something to celebrate. it is failed recruiting.

I need 3 ruckman on my list, if I have 7 its because I have done a bad job of acquiring 3 who matter, not a matter of god depth.

 

[amer]

but we have a limited need for depth quality, having so many is not something to celebrate. it is failed recruiting.

I need 3 ruckman on my list, if I have 7 its because I have done a bad job of acquiring 3 who matter, not a matter of god depth.

Rule of thumb in recruiting is you recruit 2:1 for needs. We need 22 quality footballers, we keep a list of 44 to draw from. We want three high quality ruckmen, we recruit 6 to draw from - your ruckman analogy is rubbish, 7 is only slighly over the odds, and in that situation one will occupy a rookie spot. St Kilda lists 6, Geelong 5, Bulldogs 6, Sydney 6.

We need a large number of decent midfielders, we've recruited a larger number as is the norm and the jury is out on a good few of them. It's failed recruiting if they actually fail.

 

[hugecannon]

I'm not too fussed if we draft a KPP with our first pick, If Sam Day slips and we take him great, but what I don't want us to focus on is anymore utility/tweeners like we have over the past 3-4 years. If we draft a KPP make it a genuine KPP or genuine 200cm+ ruckman.

2006:- Sellar-Plays his best footy in the ruck but not quite tall enough, perhaps a KPD but hasn't had enough opportunities yet.

2007:- Dangerfield-We all hope he can be Roo-like midfielder but ATM play his best footy as the 3rd tall in attack

- Otten-Ultimate utility has shown he can play small and tall players in defense, hopefully will play in the midfield next year, could also play in attack as the third tall if needed as he has good instincts for goal.

- Kite-Touted as Bassett's replacement as the 3rd tall after a promising 1st year. Now delisted

2008:- McKernan-Like Sellar appears to play his best footy in the ruck, again perhaps not tall enough, has shown glimpses in attack and defense but not consistently enough. I'd like to see him play as a tall wingman Richo style but that's me.

-Lee- Super athletic 3rd tall type was never big enough for a KPP and didn't show enough to get a second year on the list.

-Young- Has shown plenty in the SANFL as a KPD, had a rough 1st game against Sydney and hasn't been back in since. I haven't seen a lot of him TBH but there is a massive difference between KPF in the SANFL and AFL, does he have the speed and skills to match up on smaller players or the size and strength for KP. Still ? marks IMO

-Henderson-Plays CHF for Central but won't be tall enough to be anything other than a flanker at AFL. I'd like to see him play in the midfield as he appears to have great speed, agility and lateral movement, which are all great attributes for midfielders.

2009:- Talia-Showing a bit so far but there are ? marks whether he's a KPP or the 3rd tall or a big midfielder.

-Gunston-Another skinny 3rd tall utility, made a promising debut on Sunday and has plenty of tools too work with but isn't KPP size or strength, does he have the mobility for a midfied role?

-Shaw-192cm wingman/flanker just coming back from serious injuries.

-Craig- 195cm ruckman who may or may not be able to play as a KPD

-Thompson- another utility type who plays forward, back, a bit on the wing. Looks to have good strength and speed but enough for KPP or just as flanker.

My preference would be the best midfielder available, small crumbing forward, genuine KPP, genuine 200cm+ ruckman, utility 3rd tall in that order.

 

[King Elvis]

Bock already looks like an old man, who knows how long he has left.

Almost like he's just come back from a long term injury.