Preview 2020 AFL National Draft thread

[King Corey]

Spoiler: Lore's 2020 Draft Order

 

[Snake_Baker]

A fair chunk of these kids are on scholarships.

I don't think LDU down in Rye and Bonar at Seaford were born into Ferrari's......


Anyway this is a good thing for us if we have a top pick, it's more exposure for these guys to our recruiters.

I know, and I wasn't having a dig at you, but you know what I am getting at.

The game that rose from nothing due to the common people, has now been gentrified and stolen from those people.

 

[Pykie]

I know, and I wasn't having a dig at you, but you know what I am getting at.

The game that rose from nothing due to the common people, has now been gentrified and stolen from those people.

The game that rose from nothing was first played between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar, it was invented, rules fostered and administered by the cities elite.

 

[Snake_Baker]

The game that rose from nothing was first played between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar.

............and it was comparable to rowing at that time.

In fact, I think more people would have shown up to the local "regatta".

 

[The Warlord]

I know, and I wasn't having a dig at you, but you know what I am getting at.

The game that rose from nothing due to the common people, has now been gentrified and stolen from those people.

The game that was invented when Tom Wills went to the exclusive Rugby school in England and came home with ideas for a new football code?

The game where the first recorded matches are between elite private schools like Melbourne Grammar and Scotch College?

Yes it rapidly became popular across the booming city, but for someone who claims some level of genius, you regularly speak monumental s**t mate.

 

[The Warlord]

The game that rose from nothing was first played between Scotch College and Melbourne Grammar, it was invented, rules fostered and administered by the cities elite.

Game developed by Tom Wills, who was sent to England for an expensive posh schooling at Rugby.

Rules formalised by the Melbourne Cricket Club.

Mind boggling.

 

[giantroo]

 

[DaveyBoy123]

Dodoro will be ecstatic that he gets to ask all of his stupid questions... as well as interview the draftee's fathers!

=====

Ban lifted: Draftee interviews back on

THE BAN on clubs interviewing NAB AFL Draft prospects will be lifted later this month as recruiters start to resume work around the competition. The AFL suspended interviews between clubs and draft hopefuls in March when under-18 competitions were put on hold due to COVID-19.

But with clubs beginning to recall their list management teams in recent weeks and over the next period, the AFL has opened up the time to interview players again. From June 27 clubs will be able to interview players via online methods, with no home visits permitted.

Clubs will only be allowed to interview a player a single time, so for instance South Australian prospect and potential Adelaide father-son pick Luke Edwards will not be able to be interviewed by any club more than once for the time being. They will need to lodge their interviews with the AFL beforehand so the League can monitor each prospect's load.

In recent years they have always submitted their interviews in a centralised online system to ensure no prospects are being over-interviewed by recruiters. The League has opened up the mid-year interview window to be in sync with the school holiday period for draftees who are completing their year 12 studies. The interviewing rules will be reassessed after six weeks to see if more flexibility can be added if social gathering restrictions continue to be eased.

 

[Rooboys Rool]

WARNING – Long read.

There's been a bit across various threads lately about how we stuffed up this pick or that whole draft, so thought I'd go back and look at who we took vs who was still available. In my view, our drafting really hasn't been anywhere near as bad as many seem to think. It's always easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and regret something like, for example, taking Anthony over Sloane in 2008. But when you're getting to picks in the 40s where every club has already had a few picks and a player like Sloane is better than the majority of them, it's really only using hindsight to say we stuffed it up (and probably combined with fantasising about what could have been).

Have gone back to 2006 (still have Goldy on the list from that draft) through to 2016 (bit early to call 2017 onwards). Firstly what we didn't stuff up:

2006-2009 - Pretty good period of drafting. Most of our best players on the list in Goldy (2006), Taz (2007), Ziebell (2008), Cunners and JMac (2009) come from this period. Multiple 200 gamers and probably a couple more if not for injury.

2010-2015 – Many point to this period as really costing us now because the players from these drafts should be in their prime, whereas we have a real lack of guns in that 24-29 year old age bracket. This is true. That said, when you break it down, I don’t think our drafting was as bad as it may seem:

2010 – GC compromised draft. We took Atley and Harper in the first two rounds. If not for Harper’s injury, this would be a pretty successful draft. Maybe we could have taken Isaac Smith rather than Atley? But whilst Atley hasn’t turned into a gun like we hoped, we still got a 200 gamer, which is good. Luke Parker would have been great as our second pick, but have to go 13 picks after Harper to get to him, so many others passed on Parker too. And I think we’d all be happy with Harper if not for injury.

2011 – GC & GWS compromised draft. This heavily compromised draft was a pretty ordinary one overall, with very few noteworthy players outside the top 15. We had picks 18 and 40, which we used on McKenzie and Curran. If not for all the GWS picks we may well have had a Haynes or Greene with our first pick and then it would be a different story. But with a weak draft pool it would have been very lucky to pick out one of the few guns from later in the draft.

2012 – GWS compromised draft. Took Garner, Jacobs and Wood with our early picks. Not sure if I should count Jacobs here, but nevertheless he and Garner would be very important players for us now if not for injury. Wood has obviously promised so much and is yet to deliver, but you can’t really knock him as a pick 41. Taking Wilkins at pick 47 was certainly a strange pick, but didn’t really cost us anything. Only player of note for the remainder of the draft is Hutchings at pick 60 (and, if you want to be really generous, Gleeson at pick 53).

2013 – Took McDonald, Dumont and Brown. Sure we didn’t play it smart by committing ourselves to McDonald too early, but unless we were definitely taking Cripps (who went at pick 13 – 5 picks after McDonald) it really didn’t cost us anything. In fact, we could well be worse off if we ended up with something like Freeman, McDonald and Brown from the draft.

2014 – Many knock us for taking Durdin as a first round pick, but we had identified a need to take a KPD (which has proven to be the right call) and Durdin was the best available. The picks taken after him include such illustrious names as Kyle Langford, Blaine Boekhorst, Jayden Laverde, Hugh Goddard, Daniel McKenzie and Pat McKenna (then Daniel Nielson, but I won’t discuss him here). We also took EVW in this draft, who looks every bit a 200 gamer if injury doesn’t get in his way.

2015 – This would have to be one of the worst draft pools ever. 2011 was bad, but at least the top 15 were pretty good. 2015 can’t even say that. So whilst we only have McKay (our first pick at pick 21) still on the list from this draft and it’s not looking great for him, very few clubs did well out of this draft.

So, whilst that 2010-2015 period hasn’t delivered us what we need now, that period hurt us more through a combination of injuries, compromised drafts and poor draft pools than us just being bad at drafting.

2016 is also looking pretty good overall in that we took Simpkin, Larkey and Zurhaar. Have already delisted the second Queenslander taken in Williams and a fair few people call this a bad call, but I don’t think it really was. We had identified the need for outside run, which we clearly need, so using a pick in the 30s on addressing that need is fine. And if you look at the remainder of the draft there weren’t any successful outside players taken after him anyway. Will discuss the other Queenslander selection below.

Now for what I think were the truly poor drafting decisions:

Daniel Nielson at pick 25 in 2014. We had already taken one KPD, so it was a very strange decision to reach for another KPD who would have likely been available much later in the draft. And several of the players taken just after him in Toby McLean, Touk Miller and Brayden Maynard would all have been very handy on our list. The funny thing about this one is EVW slid in the draft and would have been a good pick at 25 (had been rated in the teens). We could have taken Nielson at pick 37 and it wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as bad of a decision. But the fact EVW slid doesn’t mean much. Nielson was plain and simple a bad call.

Declan Watson at pick 34 in 2016. We could obviously see we still had a need to bolster our backline. When it got to our pick in the 30s it was pleasing to see some players in Josh Battle, Tom Stewart and Brennan Cox on the board that had been rated quite highly. But instead we went for some obscure selection out of Queensland that I think left many scratching their heads, with those other players going in the handful of subsequent picks. Seems there may have been an influential Queensland scout in our team since we took Williams too. Not sure if we ever found out on here who that was, but hope they are gone now as this was another bad call.

But that’s it for me. I reckon just two really bad calls over the course of a decade and I’m sure every club would have stories like that. For me, this little exercise really reiterated what a crap shoot the draft is, especially later in the draft. There is a lot of luck involved with those later picks and we didn’t have much of it for a while there. But with things going our way lately like getting Larkey and Zurhaar late one year, Scott dropping which allowed us to snag Taylor, and hopefully more to come, we might just be in for our turn of luck.

 

[Steele7]

WARNING – Long read.

There's been a bit across various threads lately about how we stuffed up this pick or that whole draft, so thought I'd go back and look at who we took vs who was still available. In my view, our drafting really hasn't been anywhere near as bad as many seem to think. It's always easy to look back with the benefit of hindsight and regret something like, for example, taking Anthony over Sloane in 2008. But when you're getting to picks in the 40s where every club has already had a few picks and a player like Sloane is better than the majority of them, it's really only using hindsight to say we stuffed it up (and probably combined with fantasising about what could have been).

Have gone back to 2006 (still have Goldy on the list from that draft) through to 2016 (bit early to call 2017 onwards). Firstly what we didn't stuff up:

2006-2009 - Pretty good period of drafting. Most of our best players on the list in Goldy (2006), Taz (2007), Ziebell (2008), Cunners and JMac (2009) come from this period. Multiple 200 gamers and probably a couple more if not for injury.

2010-2015 – Many point to this period as really costing us now because the players from these drafts should be in their prime, whereas we have a real lack of guns in that 24-29 year old age bracket. This is true. That said, when you break it down, I don’t think our drafting was as bad as it may seem:

2010 – GC compromised draft. We took Atley and Harper in the first two rounds. If not for Harper’s injury, this would be a pretty successful draft. Maybe we could have taken Isaac Smith rather than Atley? But whilst Atley hasn’t turned into a gun like we hoped, we still got a 200 gamer, which is good. Luke Parker would have been great as our second pick, but have to go 13 picks after Harper to get to him, so many others passed on Parker too. And I think we’d all be happy with Harper if not for injury.

2011 – GC & GWS compromised draft. This heavily compromised draft was a pretty ordinary one overall, with very few noteworthy players outside the top 15. We had picks 18 and 40, which we used on McKenzie and Curran. If not for all the GWS picks we may well have had a Haynes or Greene with our first pick and then it would be a different story. But with a weak draft pool it would have been very lucky to pick out one of the few guns from later in the draft.

2012 – GWS compromised draft. Took Garner, Jacobs and Wood with our early picks. Not sure if I should count Jacobs here, but nevertheless he and Garner would be very important players for us now if not for injury. Wood has obviously promised so much and is yet to deliver, but you can’t really knock him as a pick 41. Taking Wilkins at pick 47 was certainly a strange pick, but didn’t really cost us anything. Only player of note for the remainder of the draft is Hutchings at pick 60 (and, if you want to be really generous, Gleeson at pick 53).

2013 – Took McDonald, Dumont and Brown. Sure we didn’t play it smart by committing ourselves to McDonald too early, but unless we were definitely taking Cripps (who went at pick 13 – 5 picks after McDonald) it really didn’t cost us anything. In fact, we could well be worse off if we ended up with something like Freeman, McDonald and Brown from the draft.

2014 – Many knock us for taking Durdin as a first round pick, but we had identified a need to take a KPD (which has proven to be the right call) and Durdin was the best available. The picks taken after him include such illustrious names as Kyle Langford, Blaine Boekhorst, Jayden Laverde, Hugh Goddard, Daniel McKenzie and Pat McKenna (then Daniel Nielson, but I won’t discuss him here). We also took EVW in this draft, who looks every bit a 200 gamer if injury doesn’t get in his way.

2015 – This would have to be one of the worst draft pools ever. 2011 was bad, but at least the top 15 were pretty good. 2015 can’t even say that. So whilst we only have McKay (our first pick at pick 21) still on the list from this draft and it’s not looking great for him, very few clubs did well out of this draft.

So, whilst that 2010-2015 period hasn’t delivered us what we need now, that period hurt us more through a combination of injuries, compromised drafts and poor draft pools than us just being bad at drafting.

2016 is also looking pretty good overall in that we took Simpkin, Larkey and Zurhaar. Have already delisted the second Queenslander taken in Williams and a fair few people call this a bad call, but I don’t think it really was. We had identified the need for outside run, which we clearly need, so using a pick in the 30s on addressing that need is fine. And if you look at the remainder of the draft there weren’t any successful outside players taken after him anyway. Will discuss the other Queenslander selection below.

Now for what I think were the truly poor drafting decisions:

Daniel Nielson at pick 25 in 2014. We had already taken one KPD, so it was a very strange decision to reach for another KPD who would have likely been available much later in the draft. And several of the players taken just after him in Toby McLean, Touk Miller and Brayden Maynard would all have been very handy on our list. The funny thing about this one is EVW slid in the draft and would have been a good pick at 25 (had been rated in the teens). We could have taken Nielson at pick 37 and it wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as bad of a decision. But the fact EVW slid doesn’t mean much. Nielson was plain and simple a bad call.

Declan Watson at pick 34 in 2016. We could obviously see we still had a need to bolster our backline. When it got to our pick in the 30s it was pleasing to see some players in Josh Battle, Tom Stewart and Brennan Cox on the board that had been rated quite highly. But instead we went for some obscure selection out of Queensland that I think left many scratching their heads, with those other players going in the handful of subsequent picks. Seems there may have been an influential Queensland scout in our team since we took Williams too. Not sure if we ever found out on here who that was, but hope they are gone now as this was another bad call.

But that’s it for me. I reckon just two really bad calls over the course of a decade and I’m sure every club would have stories like that. For me, this little exercise really reiterated what a crap shoot the draft is, especially later in the draft. There is a lot of luck involved with those later picks and we didn’t have much of it for a while there. But with things going our way lately like getting Larkey and Zurhaar late one year, Scott dropping which allowed us to snag Taylor, and hopefully more to come, we might just be in for our turn of luck.

Along with the drafting is player developmemt. Was shocked by Hansen’s last interview. How they were treated during the Tasmanian alignment. Wonder how successful the Werribee and Ballarat alignment was for player development as well. We could see better results with our own VFL team. And maybe with out a coach who had his favourites.

 

[The Y Factor]

Along with the drafting is player developmemt. Was shocked by Hansen’s last interview. How they were treated during the Tasmanian alignment. Wonder how successful the Werribee and Ballarat alignment was for player development as well. We could see better results with our own VFL team. And maybe with out a coach who had his favourites.

Great combination of posts. Its all so complex with a diabolical mix of luck and timing mixed in. All teams have injury impacts but I feel like ours have been profound.

I think the point about developments is a massive piece of the puzzle as well.

I certainly feel like we are in a better place these days development wise. Some higher picks this year should help too.

 

[Hojuman]

Along with the drafting is player developmemt. Was shocked by Hansen’s last interview. How they were treated during the Tasmanian alignment. Wonder how successful the Werribee and Ballarat alignment was for player development as well. We could see better results with our own VFL team. And maybe with out a coach who had his favourites.

Was that Loogie Steelo ? What was said about the Tassie alignment ?

When you go back we have not done well in that area;
Murray Kangaroos
Port Melbourne
Tasmania
North Ballarat
Werribee

 

[Snake_Baker]

Was that Loogie Steelo ? What was said about the Tassie alignment ?

When you go back we have not done well in that area;
Murray Kangaroos
Port Melbourne
Tasmania
North Ballarat
Werribee

You can't be too critical of the 2000-2010 stuff. The place was a sinking shambles.

 

[Steele7]

Was that Loogie Steelo ? What was said about the Tassie alignment ?

When you go back we have not done well in that area;
Murray Kangaroos
Port Melbourne
Tasmania
North Ballarat
Werribee

yes it was. He was saying how crazy Cresswell was as a coach. But must feel more of team to play in now with our own VFL

 

[Rooboys Rool]

Along with the drafting is player developmemt. Was shocked by Hansen’s last interview. How they were treated during the Tasmanian alignment. Wonder how successful the Werribee and Ballarat alignment was for player development as well. We could see better results with our own VFL team. And maybe with out a coach who had his favourites.

Yeah player development is definitely a big part of it. I'm not as critical as some of the Scott era, but no doubt it could have been better. And hopefully it is something that will be a lot better in coming years. Have heard a few mention that Hansen interview, so will have to track it down.

I think another part of it is how long we keep players on the list before calling time on them. There was a while there where we gave players too long to prove themselves when it was obvious they were only ever going to be an average player. A good example of this is how we gave Max Warren three years on the rookie list, delisted him, then re-drafted him for a 4th year. Cut him for good after 1 game over 4 years. Now he was a handy little player and showed good endeavour, but he was the type of player that was only ever going to be a bit player at AFL level. The type of player that if we really needed a player in that role we could find another quite easily. That sort of player we should've made the call earlier and given another player a shot. Chances are the replacement rookie wouldn't have done much either because not many of them do, but with those late picks / rookie picks it is better to keep turning them over to increase our chances of finding that gun.

It is something we have become far better at in recent years, with most of the 2015 draft being gone quite quickly and players like Matt Taylor and Gordon Narrier only being give one year as a rookie and they were out. We keep up that approach and it will do us good in the long run I reckon.

 

[shinboner magic]

If lists are to be cut - it’ll be interesting who be delist.
Will it be the guys who have reached their ceiling and others are likely to be overtaken. Or will it be the injury prone types that can’t get any continuity.
Will be very interesting with Snoz in full control now.

 

[Snake_Baker]

If lists are to be cut - it’ll be interesting who be delist.
Will it be the guys who have reached their ceiling and others are likely to be overtaken. Or will it be the injury prone types that can’t get any continuity.
Will be very interesting with Snoz in full control now.

List balance will also be a factor.

IMO, it's a bit redundant discussing this at the moment until we know what the AFL list pathway looks like.

 

[andana]

Hale School will kick off their Public Schools Association premiership defence against Wesley College at home on Saturday morning.

The Jason Norrish-coached team went through the entire 2019 season undefeated, claiming a fifth title in eight years with a 12-0 record and a whopping percentage of well over 300.

And you can see it all on thewest.com.au, with The West Australian exclusively streaming one live game each week, starting with Saturday’s clash between Hale and Wesley from 10.30am. PERTH TIME

A couple of youngsters with AFL bloodlines will line up for Hale on Saturday, Richie Farmer, the nephew of former Fremantle and Melbourne star Jeff Farmer, and Elijah Hayden, the younger brother of North Melbourne forward Kyron.


Hayden will play mainly up forward and pinch hit in the ruck when McDonald needs a rest.

“Elijah is a gun basketballer, he plays SBL for Perry Lakes Hawks and is super fit, has got good skills and is a good size at about 6’5”,” Norrish said.

“He’s got a massive leap on him and spent the shutdown period training with his older brother Kyron.

“If he can mark a few at full-forward, he’ll have AFL scouts all over him.”

 

[shinboner magic]

Hale School will kick off their Public Schools Association premiership defence against Wesley College at home on Saturday morning.

The Jason Norrish-coached team went through the entire 2019 season undefeated, claiming a fifth title in eight years with a 12-0 record and a whopping percentage of well over 300.

And you can see it all on thewest.com.au, with The West Australian exclusively streaming one live game each week, starting with Saturday’s clash between Hale and Wesley from 10.30am. PERTH TIME

A couple of youngsters with AFL bloodlines will line up for Hale on Saturday, Richie Farmer, the nephew of former Fremantle and Melbourne star Jeff Farmer, and Elijah Hayden, the younger brother of North Melbourne forward Kyron.


Hayden will play mainly up forward and pinch hit in the ruck when McDonald needs a rest.

“Elijah is a gun basketballer, he plays SBL for Perry Lakes Hawks and is super fit, has got good skills and is a good size at about 6’5”,” Norrish said.

“He’s got a massive leap on him and spent the shutdown period training with his older brother Kyron.

“If he can mark a few at full-forward, he’ll have AFL scouts all over him.”

Tank young Hayden

 

[Waussie]

Hale School will kick off their Public Schools Association premiership defence against Wesley College at home on Saturday morning.

The Jason Norrish-coached team went through the entire 2019 season undefeated, claiming a fifth title in eight years with a 12-0 record and a whopping percentage of well over 300.

And you can see it all on thewest.com.au, with The West Australian exclusively streaming one live game each week, starting with Saturday’s clash between Hale and Wesley from 10.30am. PERTH TIME

A couple of youngsters with AFL bloodlines will line up for Hale on Saturday, Richie Farmer, the nephew of former Fremantle and Melbourne star Jeff Farmer, and Elijah Hayden, the younger brother of North Melbourne forward Kyron.


Hayden will play mainly up forward and pinch hit in the ruck when McDonald needs a rest.

“Elijah is a gun basketballer, he plays SBL for Perry Lakes Hawks and is super fit, has got good skills and is a good size at about 6’5”,” Norrish said.

“He’s got a massive leap on him and spent the shutdown period training with his older brother Kyron.

“If he can mark a few at full-forward, he’ll have AFL scouts all over him.”

Some pretty impressive sportsmen come out of that school. None of that play for fun stuff, win, win, win.

 

[Hojuman]

Some pretty impressive sportsmen come out of that school. None of that play for fun stuff, win, win, win.

Elijah got his brothers drive Waussie ?

 

[Waussie]

Elijah got his brothers drive Waussie ?

I haven't had a lot to do with him, he only plays his PSA footy and his suppose to be a top basketballer. He's a massive unit, hands like a wood cutter, I think he would easy nudge 6'6
Norrish is a top coach, doesn't dish out comments like that if he can't back them up.

 

[Waussie]

I haven't had a lot to do with him, he only plays his PSA footy and his suppose to be a top basketballer. He's a massive unit, hands like a wood cutter, I think he would easy nudge 6'6
Norrish is a top coach, doesn't dish out comments like that if he can't back them up.

I might pop over to his game and check him out.

 

[Hojuman]

I might pop over to his game and check him out.

Get in his ear from 1.5 metres about how Kyron says he would love to play with him at North

 

[Waussie]

Get in his ear from 1.5 metres about how Kyron says he would love to play with him at North

I don't know yet if they'll let in spectators

 

[andana]

I don't know yet if they'll let in spectators

Say you are an AFL scout