Is Hugh Dixon our Next Pav?

May 3, 2007
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Tabs should be traded. Just needs to string a solid 10-12 games this year and he will have currency
Tabs is a weird one isn't he? Was out of contract, then signed a 2 year deal ending at the year 2021. Makes him a free agent.

Tabs has worked his bum.... er I mean his Kim Kardashian off the last month. He has been in and out of the team in the last few years. From 2015-18, he has had a run of games at peel, then at freo, then at Peel again. Freo fans are really wanting him to piece it all together.


This.
As much as like tabs , if signing him to another couple years means we lose either cox or Dixon I’ll be ropable.

Still just a hunch at his stage(tho i was keen on him even before we drafted him) but I reckon Dixon has some really good attributes to make a very good kpf at some stage
Now this is interesting. I do rate Brennan cox. I said on draft day when we got him, I knew he was a solid pick up.

I saw him play in the SANFL at Woodville west torrens playing against my beloved South Adelaide. I knew he was going to be solid at both ends.



I think Cox is over-rated. No doubt he is very promising, but I don't think it is so easy to predict what happens with individual KPPs. especially forwards. I remember Connolly being asked about whether the club needed more KPP depth, and his reply was along the lines of; we don't have heaps of players, but they are all quality. Murphy, Polak, Drum, etc. uuurgh.

I like having the stable full with KPPs at the moment. Keep them growing and developing. Hogan is a high risk investment. Lobb may end up needing to play ruck. McCarthy is enjoying the current structure but is a bit flakey. I also read in Dixon's bio that he has also played in defence, which makes it interesting.

The current direction with our forwards, for better or worse, is for them to be multi-positional. In that regard we are blessed with riches. If Walters, Hogan, McCarthy and Sturt can be realistic midfield part-timers then it gives us great flexibility in how we rest players. It gives us cover if someone critical like Fyfe is taken out of the game. Having Cerra resting forward while Sturt runs in the midfield would be exciting. It also gives us a built-in mechanism for shaking the opposition strategy to close down individual players by changing their role if required.

The other talls in Lobb, Taberner and Cox also have a legitimate use beyond the forward line. If push comes to shove I think that kind of thing is critical in deciding who is a keeper, and who may be let go. Dixon either has to be a significantly better forward, or he will need to have a definitive point of difference from the others. Ironically, his point of difference could be that he is the better pure forward. Time will tell.

Interesting reference of Chris Connolly. Amazing that some of our KPP stocks were not as good as I remembered. I mean back in that period, if you are 190cm you are a KPP. Matt Carr was a mid and he was 190cm.

Gutted looking back at that 2003-7 era.
 
May 3, 2007
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Exactly.
Too many times in the past (under Lloyd and bond) we tried to be too cute with our drafting and trading.
We basically tried to be “cheap “

Putting all our eggs in one basket eg grabbing jack Anthony thus passing on jack darling in the ND or using a preseason pick on jack Hannath then passing on Grundy in the ND .

When Jarrod brander and especially Oscar Allen were snapped up by wc with their 2 first picks it raised eyebrows.
Don’t think their too many people would say they got it wrong now.
If the players too good to pass up then just pick them and deal with what comes after.

Injuries, form loss , there’s no guarantees in AFL.
If you be got too many good players in the one position so be it you you trade out for a position of weakness , that’s the whole point of the trade period
Ok I call bull**** in some parts of your post.

You claim times in the past Lloyd and Bond tried to be cute with our drafting and trading. You also claimed we try to be "cheap".

that 2010 draft I cant defend. Jayden Pitt over Jack Darling, well cant say anymore about that. Jeremy McGovern was taken on the rookie list that year too.

You can debate about not getting Mitch McGovern in 2014 but we got Lachie Weller and Connor Blakely before him.

We can talk about our drafting in 2010-15. the only KPP we got with our 1st rounder was Michael Apeness in 2013.Which was fair as he was a key forward/ruckman. That didnt work out well either.

Actually, lets talk about freos 2012-15 picks. Those 4 years were the years freo made finals. Because of that, we didn't have access of a top 10 pick didn't we?

I say freo have done well in drafting and trading from 2016 onwards. Yeah you talk about west coast taking Brander at pick 13, Oscar Allen at Pick 21 in the 2017 draft.

We used pick 2 on Andrew Brayshaw and pick 5 on Adam Cerra. I personally wouldn't of touched Oscar Allen with a pick 5 unless he was certain to be good. I don't think freo wasted their picks on Brayshaw and Cerra.

You NEVER use top 5 picks on project players. Nobody would use a top 10 pick on a ruckman unless they stood out like Nic Nat or they are Key forward/ruckman like Kurt tippet, Ben Brown or Josh Jenkins.

You talk about Jack Anthony. Yes looking back at it, he was Garbage yet somehow kicked 50 goals in 1 season.

Remember back in 2012, the 1st year of Free Agency, the media brought up Articles and news of Freo willing to get Travis Cloke as a free agent and Pay him 1 million a year? That wasn't a cheap method isn't it?


Also in the middle of 2013 both Dockers and Eagles were linked to Buddy Franklin. GWS offered him 2 million a year for 6 years then the swans got him offering 10 million over 9 years.
 

UYD 4 Life

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i think they correctly identified one of our main issues in that period was a lack of skill through half forward/midfield but every player they picked for that role didn't work out.

Pitt - heart condition
Sylvia - off field
Simpson - off field
Crozier - not good enough
Bennell - injured
Yarran - off field

I can't think of too many good key forwards who would have been available to us since 2010 - Jack Darling, Ben Brown, Josh jenkins
 

MadMundy

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I'd ideally like to see Hugh have some big form in Peel for a month or so then when he's ready test hi up in the big leagues to see how he goes. Dixon and Cox as Peel's main forwards would do them the world of good
 

bushchook

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Tabs is a weird one isn't he? Was out of contract, then signed a 2 year deal ending at the year 2021. Makes him a free agent.

Tabs has worked his bum.... er I mean his Kim Kardashian off the last month. He has been in and out of the team in the last few years. From 2015-18, he has had a run of games at peel, then at freo, then at Peel again. Some Freo fans are really wanting him to piece it all together.
.

EFA.

It seems there are quite a few on this board who are still actively hoping for Taberner to fail. The guys that want him dropped after every game no matter how well he plays.
 

bushchook

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i think they correctly identified one of our main issues in that period was a lack of skill through half forward/midfield but every player they picked for that role didn't work out.

Pitt - heart condition
Sylvia - off field
Simpson - off field
Crozier - not good enough
Bennell - injured
Yarran - off field

Was Crozier really not good enough or did we just not use him very well? He finished 8th in Bulldogs B+F last year.
 
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Ok I call bull**** in some parts of your post.

You claim times in the past Lloyd and Bond tried to be cute with our drafting and trading. You also claimed we try to be "cheap".

that 2010 draft I cant defend. Jayden Pitt over Jack Darling, well cant say anymore about that. Jeremy McGovern was taken on the rookie list that year too.

You can debate about not getting Mitch McGovern in 2014 but we got Lachie Weller and Connor Blakely before him.

We can talk about our drafting in 2010-15. the only KPP we got with our 1st rounder was Michael Apeness in 2013.Which was fair as he was a key forward/ruckman. That didnt work out well either.

Actually, lets talk about freos 2012-15 picks. Those 4 years were the years freo made finals. Because of that, we didn't have access of a top 10 pick didn't we?

I say freo have done well in drafting and trading from 2016 onwards. Yeah you talk about west coast taking Brander at pick 13, Oscar Allen at Pick 21 in the 2017 draft.

We used pick 2 on Andrew Brayshaw and pick 5 on Adam Cerra. I personally wouldn't of touched Oscar Allen with a pick 5 unless he was certain to be good. I don't think freo wasted their picks on Brayshaw and Cerra.

You NEVER use top 5 picks on project players. Nobody would use a top 10 pick on a ruckman unless they stood out like Nic Nat or they are Key forward/ruckman like Kurt tippet, Ben Brown or Josh Jenkins.

You talk about Jack Anthony. Yes looking back at it, he was Garbage yet somehow kicked 50 goals in 1 season.

Remember back in 2012, the 1st year of Free Agency, the media brought up Articles and news of Freo willing to get Travis Cloke as a free agent and Pay him 1 million a year? That wasn't a cheap method isn't it?


Also in the middle of 2013 both Dockers and Eagles were linked to Buddy Franklin. GWS offered him 2 million a year for 6 years then the swans got him offering 10 million over 9 years.

No matter how you slice and dice it we failed to get decent forward support for Pav during his career and it cost us a flag. Anyone better than Zac Clarke in the forward line and Lake doesn't win the Norm Smith.

Whatever strategy we had it is completely indefensible. It didn't work and mistakes were made.
 
Sep 22, 2011
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A injury free pre season will go a significant long way to him performing to his ability. Can tell he has the natural talent but his tank holding him back.
He’s just a tad off getting to leads. Once he gets that right, he’s gonna kick bags for Peel.

He’s need to be a stay up forward type. Has natural instinct to find the goals. Tabs can go down the wings getting the contested marking
 
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