Our priorities havr to be an explosive (inside) midfielder and a KPF with the order depending on the characteristics of the players available.
I'm not interested in "best available" as much as recruiting guys who will compliment the side by addressing weaknesses:
- KPF: really only want someone who can get around the ground (e.g. Sam Day or Tomlinson type, with height above 193cm being irrelevant) who could compliment Ambrose and enable Danhier to play closer to goal as opposed to a Carlisle clone (i.e. someone who is all class but more of a lumberer); and
- midfielder: an inside midfielder with the size, strength/power and speed to break through stoppages.
I am not talking about recruiting athletes who can't play, before anyone jumps to an extreme. Simply think that our best side rarely plays our best footy because it is unbalanced tending towards clumps of similar players who just don't cover the enough ground quickly enough.
I look at our talls, for example, and we are loaded with slower larger guys who are really good overhead but not great at covering the ground. Where would you fit another Carlisle or Hooker in in the next 6-8 years? I would much rather recruit rawer more athletic players and teach them the rest.
Dustin Martin explosive: Christian Petracca. Nickname 'Quadzilla' should say it all. Absolute bull and can push forward and be a legitimate marking threat. Not slow, but you wouldn't say he had elite pace either, has explosive power, rather than the break away speed of say patty dangerfield.
Unfortunately he's about it for guys who play inside and are physically explosive, but there are others like Blakely, Manyard or Bampton who are very competent inside ball winners, even if they lack a yard of pace. Unless we go for a littler bloke like Clem Smith who is as quick as you'll see but apparently is a bit dodgy and inconsistent by foot.
Thing that gets me excited about this draft is the bucketload of 187cm+ type running players in the Jack Macrae/Marcus Bontempelli/Dyson Heppell mould. De Goey is getting a lot of hype, as is Laverde, Nelson is a really smooth moving run and carry type, and then there's the others that are flying slightly under the radar like Menadue, Vickers-Willis, Hayes (more a marking forward than a mid tbh) and Maher flying under the radar. These kids have enormous potential, especially Laverde and De Goey as mentioned above, because they've got that spatial awareness in traffic that recruiters fawn over for very good reason.
Early doors, but i'd be hoping for one of Petracca (pipe dream?), Kietel (KPF), De Goey, Laverde, Nelson, Lachie Weller or Connor Blakely