Recruiting James Hird Academy (Father/Son and Next Generation)

eDPS

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Haychh

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Good on them.

Get 4 years of university and a degree debt free, and if they are good they can earn more playing NFL than they ever would playing AFL.
Something I’m sure Dad could’ve excelled at too If he wanted. Lucky for us he was really really really good at footy.
 

BrunoV

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I reckon the best thing that can happen to Tex from here is a bit of school of hard knocks.

No draft, test out those genetics over the next 4 months by getting super fit. Train with us, register for the VFL side and aim to play at least half a season of VFL footy as a minimum. There is no reason he has to stick with Essendon but he at least has the 'in' and ought to take advantage of it.

If he is good enough he will get the choice of nominating for the MSD or waiting for the national draft (at which we can hopefully nominate him, I don't know what the rules are second time around ).

There is a big risk the system chews him up and spits him out if he is part of it before he is ready. He doesn't have the luxury of 3 years as a cat B rookie and the extent of the development required from the point of having played virtually no completive footy and being worthy of an AFL list is massive, likely unachievable such that I do not believe it is really possible for him to play himself onto a list for the start of 22 on merit.

Become a player first and then worry about an AFL list.
 

BrunoV

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Why was there so much huff and puff about Tex and then nothing?



There hasn't really been any from Essendon. There has been a bit of external stuff from media but inside the industry Tex is really just an unknown. He was playing soccer until a few years ago and then lost almost all of 2020 and 2021 due to Covid and injury.

That two clubs wont commit says a fair bit.
 
May 6, 2007
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I reckon the best thing that can happen to Tex from here is a bit of school of hard knocks.

No draft, test out those genetics over the next 4 months by getting super fit. Train with us, register for the VFL side and aim to play at least half a season of VFL footy as a minimum. There is no reason he has to stick with Essendon but he at least has the 'in' and ought to take advantage of it.

If he is good enough he will get the choice of nominating for the MSD or waiting for the national draft (at which we can hopefully nominate him, I don't know what the rules are second time around ).

There is a big risk the system chews him up and spits him out if he is part of it before he is ready. He doesn't have the luxury of 3 years as a cat B rookie and the extent of the development required from the point of having played virtually no completive footy and being worthy of an AFL list is massive, likely unachievable such that I do not believe it is really possible for him to play himself onto a list for the start of 22 on merit.

Become a player first and then worry about an AFL list.

You’re eligible as a father/son if / when you are selected by an AFL club.

The WCE kid years ago was early 20’s I believe. Sam Dunell was eligible for us but we didn’t register interest, drafted by St.Kilda ruled him ineligible for us.


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I would suggest he’s better off playing VFL for us for a year and then having another crack, getting drafted this year (especially as a rookie) feels like a great recipe for a one year career and then being delisted when we realise next year’s draft is absolutely boonta and we have 2 smooth moving sons of guns coming through
 

BrunoV

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I would suggest he’s better off playing VFL for us for a year and then having another crack, getting drafted this year (especially as a rookie) feels like a great recipe for a one year career and then being delisted when we realise next year’s draft is absolutely boonta and we have 2 smooth moving sons of guns coming through


It just seems a bit easy, doesn't it, that you can get on to the list with a bit of talent.

I suspect it's not going to be talent that is the issue and that it is more likely to be the lack of desire that seemed to afflict Neagle and Long. Both of those guys had a stack of talent but could have done with being required to earn a list spot and neither really had the body of work to justify recruitment at the stage at which they were recruited.

At the end of the day it would only be the name that gets Wanganeen on to the list, it could hardly be anything else, and that is a horrible reasons to draft him.
 
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At the end of the day it would only be the name that gets Wanganeen on to the list, it could hardly be anything else, and that is a horrible reasons to draft him.
And if you are drafting on the basis of name you might as well own it and pick Fitzroy Greenwool.
 
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It just seems a bit easy, doesn't it, that you can get on to the list with a bit of talent.

I suspect it's not going to be talent that is the issue and that it is more likely to be the lack of desire that seemed to afflict Neagle and Long. Both of those guys had a stack of talent but could have done with being required to earn a list spot and neither really had the body of work to justify recruitment at the stage at which they were recruited.

At the end of the day it would only be the name that gets Wanganeen on to the list, it could hardly be anything else, and that is a horrible reasons to draft him.

I would almost have said the opposite about Long? Seemed to try hard enough, just didn't have the talent to make it.
 
I think it was just the hype of being a Wanganeen, I never got the sense he was a legitimately talked up prospect as a player.

I think the fact he got injured and has only played one game had the biggest effect. They just do not know either way right now. No one other than media or fans have really hyped him. He has always been considered a back end prospect if he was to be taken.
 

BrunoV

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I would almost have said the opposite about Long? Seemed to try hard enough, just didn't have the talent to make it.


The way I saw it he had all the raw ability.

His problem tended to be consistent application within games. I never got the impression it meant that much to him.

I also think he struggled from not really being a player when he was drafted. This is what concerns me about Tex.

Long finished 2014 with huge tackle numbers in 3 VFL games playing as a small forward and got drafted (having missed most or 2013 and 2014). He then seemed to play wing without any real feel for the spot once drafted and I think that fed a tendency to ball watch.

I would have started him as a small defender and half back. He played the role really well in the end.

Hard thing to teach wing to a guy who basically hasn't played a game of competitive footy as a 17 and 18 year old.
 
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Apr 23, 2016
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The way I saw it he had all the raw ability.

His problem tended to be consistent application within games. I never got the impression it meant that much to him.

I also think he struggled from not really being a player when he was drafted. This is what concerns me about Tex.

Long finished a year with huge tackle numbers in 3 VFL games playing as a small forward. He then seemed to play wing without any real feel for the spot once drafted and I think that fed a tendency to ball watch.

I would have stared him as a small defender and half back. He played the role really well the end.

Hard thing to teach wing to a guy who basically hasn't played a game of co.petitibe footy as 17 and 18 year old.

I'm not convinced Long was ever used particularly well, he seemed to show the most off Half Back but never really played there at AFL level.

We did the same with a few players though, we drafted Mitch Hibberd as a big inside mid, but never played him there.

I think both maybe simply weren't up to it at AFL level, but it doesn't help when they play totally different roles in the VFL to what they do in the AFL.
 

BrunoV

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I'm not convinced Long was ever used particularly well, he seemed to show the most off Half Back but never really played there at AFL level.

We did the same with a few players though, we drafted Mitch Hibberd as a big inside mid, but never played him there.

I think both maybe simply weren't up to it at AFL level, but it doesn't help when they play totally different roles in the VFL to what they do in the AFL.


He's a bit unlucky in one limited sense because he was given as long as anyone who only played 5 games. If his story started 2 or 3 years later there is a very good chance that is how he would have been used.

By the time he got switched, we had Saad, Redman and McKenna playing that role which was as good a fleet of small and running defenders as there was in the game.
 
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I'm not convinced Long was ever used particularly well, he seemed to show the most off Half Back but never really played there at AFL level.

We did the same with a few players though, we drafted Mitch Hibberd as a big inside mid, but never played him there.

I think both maybe simply weren't up to it at AFL level, but it doesn't help when they play totally different roles in the VFL to what they do in the AFL.
2016-2019 weren't a good time to be a green rookie.

I'm not sure if Rutten would have given him many opportunities either if he's not up to it, but the way the club was at that time he probably wouldn't have had many opportunities even if he was exactly what we needed.

2016 let us blood a lot of kids, but he wasn't among them (I think he got like 2 games that year?). 2017-2019 Worsfold and co. refused to play the kids much or at all. Then in 2018 Richardson entered the picture, so then you had three cooks in the kitchen as far as getting the list manager and the coach on the same page. What the list looked like on paper in each of those three offices was probably vastly different, so if one had Long on it it wasn't the one that mattered.
 

Ants

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Dare you not.

Jobe dominated on the inside as a kid. He was just pudgy and unfit.

It seems to me Misiti isn't really a player yet. He's a big kid, a real brute given that he seemed the same size as Hurley, and he looks fit but has been shuffled all over the ground to no real effect.
Didn't Jobe play as a lead-up forward at U18 level? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, it was a while ago now.

What have you heard / seen on Josh Eyre’s you her brother Ryan ?

Apparently a much better prospect, a medium sized midfielder if I recall. Eligible for the 2022 if not definitely the 2023 draft.
Ryan like josh has had his fair share of injuries
his body is beginning to develop too
i think he will end up key position size
good skills and a prospect but he is no joe Daniher at the same age
Given by that time we won't be able to match any pick inside the top 40, maybe a few injuries along the way could be a blessing in disguise. Well, for Essendon anyway! I wouldn't wish that for real on the kid.
 
2016 let us blood a lot of kids, but he wasn't among them (I think he got like 2 games that year?)
I have vague feeling he played 3 and we won 2 of them. Though I might be thinking of someone else
 
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Didn't Jobe play as a lead-up forward at U18 level? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, it was a while ago now.



Given by that time we won't be able to match any pick inside the top 40, maybe a few injuries along the way could be a blessing in disguise. Well, for Essendon anyway! I wouldn't wish that for real on the kid.

Inside the 40 easily right now or borderline 40?


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BrunoV

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Didn't Jobe play as a lead-up forward at U18 level? Maybe I'm remembering wrong, it was a while ago now.



I think that was Sheedy trying to turn him in to a CHF. He became quite public about his dissatisfaction with Jobe's physical condition while he was coach.

Dodoro did a podcast during the shut down of the season last year in which he discussed Jobe's recruitment. He said Jobe was a prolific inside mid. There were question marks about his speed and fitness so Dodoro brought Sheedy to watch a game in which Jobe got something like 30 in the first half and Sheedy basically said 'that's answers your question, doesn't it?" and I don't think he watched the second half...or so the legend goes.
 
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