It's a bit drafty in here...

[TigerTank]

Burgatron (aka Matt Burgan) from www.afl.com.au has listed a "phantom draft", where he predicts which teams will select each player in turn for the draft.

Burgatron predicted that Richmond's first selection would be:

9. RICHMOND - KAYNE PETTIFER
(MURRAY BUSHRANGERS) 22/1/82, 181cm, 75kg

"Had an excellent season in the TAC Cup, which saw him gain All-Australian honors and the Larke Medal for the best player in Division One of the U18 Championships. Pettifer is a quality half forward/midfielder who is a strong mark for his size, while he possesses good goal sense and finishing skills. He is highly regarded and is a likely Top 10 pick, as he is regarded as one of the best players to hail from Victoria in the National Draft. Richmond appears very keen on him, as they will look at drafting a small forward early."

In my view, small forwards are generally easier to come across than key position players, ruckmen and quality midfielders, and that, all things being equal, you wouldn't start looking for a small forward until the 2nd or 3rd round of the draft.

But the article does make the very good point that Richmond has precious few good, reliable short forwards, with the possible exception of Rogers (Dragicevic has potential, but not reliability at this stage).

Should Richmond use early selections to cover obvious deficiencies in the current line up, or should the club invest in a potential champion ruckman or key position player, and hope to fill gaps with later picks?

What do you all think of Pettifer as Richmond's first pick?

 

[CJH]

I don't know where I read this - it was a few years back - but some very successful coach (don't remember who) was being asked about his drafting stratgies.

His response was that they always took the best available player at the time regardless of what position he would fill. Worry about specific postions in the second and later rounds. This always seemed to make pretty good sense!.

If this suggested kid is the best available player, then grab him.

Won't he have fun trying to pronounce his time while in a fit of seething Tiger passion!

. We've only just learnt to get out tongues around Dragicevic!

 

[oh_my_hat]

CJH, I agree. BPA is the way to go in in this case Pettifer just happens to be the type of player we need. Rogers wont be around forever and Drago & Fiora could still yet be busts. Go for Pettifer and in the 2nd round look for a key position defender, preferably a full-back.

 

[geelong4eva]

It doesn't matter whom Richmond draft, they still will be crap for the next 5 or so seasons anyway. Just dump the entire list and start from scratch, is what I say. Rogers is pathetic, Dragacevic inconsistent, Richardson too injury prone (i could go on and on) but i'm safe in the knowledge that Geelong will be top 4 material next year. As Nelson Muntz would say "HA HA"

 

[CJH]

9. Kayne Pettifer (Murray Bushrangers)
25.Mark Coughlan (Perth)
40.Chris Hyde (Murray Bushrangers)
41.Andrew Krakouer (South Fremantle)
55.Chris Newman (Dandenong Stingrays)
57.Steven Sziller (St.Kilda)
69.Pass

I'm pleased that we picked up Pass with our last selection as this has been one of the skills that has let us down in past years!

Sorry!

 

[karnaby]

Good onya Tiges for picking up Steven Sziller. He's been a good average player for us & was arguably a bit unlucky to get delisted.
I hope he does well for you & may your luck change around a bit for 2001.

 

[oh_my_hat]

Well thanks for not going on g4e, give it a break pal your are extremely boring. How about something intelligent for us for a change, now there is a challenge.

 

[geelong4eva]

you silly goose oh my hat, don't you take a hint ? Is it my fault that Richmond is crap ? no, I delight in baiting Tiger fans as they are so defensive of their team, yet they love bagging them when they lose (which is basically every second week) - Richmond are 3 years (at least) away from making the finals again so grow up and face the facts.

 

[Guest]

Hello Richmond fans.

I've got a bit to do with footy up in Sunraysia. There's a player from here, Robert "Sonny" Lindsay going down there to do pre-season with Richmond and he hopes to get picked up the pre-season draft. Last year he kicked something like 134 goals 91 points in 18 games including at least five bags of 10 plus. Some people say he's the best player ever to play in Sunraysia which is a big wrap considering names like Mark Leigh, Dale Weightman, Josh Bowen, Matthew Knights and Chris Tarrent came from these parts. He's probably 6'1" or 2" a little bit light but has a huge leap, fantastic balance and can kick a goal from anywhere inside 60m. Also his ability to make a contest out of nothing and then follow up is brilliant. His only problem is that he's a bit of a looney when he drinks which is fairly often.

Anyway, if anyone sees him at training I'd appreciate it if you could let me know how he's going either here or on the crows board. I sort of wish him all the best but wouldn't mind him back up here next year.

Thanks

 

[CJH]

Spogs,

Tell me more. How old is he? Playing senior Country League football I take it? Did he try out for / play in the TAC U18 Cup? Any mitigating circumstances as to why he wasn't drafted?

From your description he sounds like Justin Plapp who starred at the reserve level but couldn't make the grade as a senior.

I will keep my eye out on him

------------------
This is a hallucination and these faces are in a dream. A computer generated environment; a fantasy island you can do anything and not have to face the consequences.

 

[Guest]

CJH,

He's 21 and originally from Port Melbourne. He trained with either Hawthorn or Saint Kilda but had an attitude problem. We recruited him a couple of years ago and I think the country life seems to have matured him a fair bit.

He didn't play under 18's again more because of his attitude than anything else. But I was watching the replay of this years grand final the other day and although he only kicked four goals, two were massive roosts and one was just a miracle bauk and goal from the boundry after contesting the mark at CHF.

Get the attitude right, beef him up a bit and you'll have a very exciting player. I for one would give my left knacker to have a quarter of his tallent so I hope he doesn't waste it. By the way the Port Adelaide magpies are also interested.



[This message has been edited by Spogs (edited 31 October 2000).]