Matts Draft List....

[KUNG FU]

Sloane has since been confirmed as that player in an interview The thing is, I think you're right, he does just go by the "best available" approach, but because he (or the club) wants to focus on a certain type of player, their "best available" list is tilted towards that type of player. In that way, club needs are taken into account.

I have no doubt that last year pace was the focus and the best available list was adjusted accordingly - see Dangerfield's rating as #3 for example. This year, athletic talls were the focus, and Davis accordingly shoots up to #2.

Although Myers and Dangerfield are rated highly, I just don't that stacks up against a player like Ebert at 7 or Selwood at 8. Or how eclectic that lists looks.

1. Kreuzer
2. Cotchin
3. Dangerfield
4. Myers
5. Morton
6. Henderson
7. Ebert
8. S.Selwood
9. Rance
10. Lobbe

 

[cmndstab]

Although Myers and Dangerfield are rated highly, I just don't that stacks up against a player like Ebert at 7 or Selwood at 8. Or how eclectic that lists looks.

1. Kreuzer
2. Cotchin
3. Dangerfield
4. Myers
5. Morton
6. Henderson
7. Ebert
8. S.Selwood
9. Rance
10. Lobbe

I guess what it means is that they rate Ebert extremely highly in spite of his lack of pace.

Obviously it's not this simple, but imagine they gave each player a score and rated them in order of highest score to lowest score. Perhaps being a speedy player could mean you multiply the score by 120%, or something along those lines. A highly rated player will remain highly rated, but a speedy player will move up.

 

[FAITH]

If Hartlett was available at 10 and Davis wasnt, Matt stated he would have picked Hartlett not a tall.
But he knew Hartlett wouldnt be there at 10 therefore looked at who would be there if Davis wasnt there.
Johnston/McKern/Trengrove were rated in his top 10.

 

[Crowman8]

needs vs best available........
I don't think the 2 lists are mutually exclusive.

If you identify that talls are a higher priority, then you're list is already skewed towards your needs.
A 50-50 choice is already leaning toward the tall.
So come draft day, you have a list and are picking purely on best available at that pick from your list. But your best available has already taken into account ability, attitude, relocation factor, height, etc, etc.
I think the ability/character/maturity to handle the relocation should not be over looked.
I've heard Rioli was considered top 5 purely on talent last year, but the fact he may not be able to handle the relocation and training meant he dropped down the list.
You only need to see Dangerfield at his interview when drafted to know how mature he was for a 17yo and that he could handle it.
You're much better off at least drafting people that will give it every shot if they're going to relocate.

 

[twentydollarnote]

matt and craigy apply their 'character' clause which rules out half the draft, players like rioli and i presume masten from previous years. I dont think its ever done solely on a needs basis, although this year its pretty obvious we just went with the strength of the draft which suited us.

 

[Mismatched]

Although Myers and Dangerfield are rated highly, I just don't that stacks up against a player like Ebert at 7 or Selwood at 8. Or how eclectic that lists looks.

1. Kreuzer
2. Cotchin
3. Dangerfield
4. Myers
5. Morton
6. Henderson
7. Ebert
8. S.Selwood
9. Rance
10. Lobbe

I think you'll find they may have 5 or 6, probably more different areas they look at and rate each player in these areas, for simplicity lets just say out of 10 and then at the end you add these up, perhaps wieghting each one differently, to give an overall score.

It might be something like:

Skills: /10
Ball finding ability: /10
Endurance: /10
Power/Speed/Agility: /10
Character: /10
Ability to fit into AFC culture: /10

Or something along those lines, maybe some are out of 5 or 3, maybe you include height, or something to do with position played, like 5 bonus marks if they are a KPP, if you're need KPPs, that way won't necessarily miss out on an amazing talent, but also won't ignore the needs of the team.

Overall this gives a score which allows you to rate your players and maybe if a player scores really badly in one area, you just eliminate them, ie have a "pass" mark, other wise they arnt' draftable, or maybe not before say the 4th pick or rookie draft.

As a recruiter, this would be one of the things you'd love as it could quantify what is largely qualitative data and if you got your weightings right, could be a very useful scale, not necessarily the be all and end all, but I'd say a lot of the analysis of players is done this way.

This could explain why Rendells list seems all over the place, whilst Ebert and Selwood weren't super quick or flashy, they just scored really highly in character and maybe a "likelihood to make it" area, pushing them above some flashier, maybe better prospects talent wise.

 

[Big Gazoongas]

How ? well the law of averages says so.

If every club ranked the top 30 players exactly the same and picked on best available then the 30 players that any particular club thought were the top thirty would all be gone by pick 30.

The further away clubs opinions on players get, the greater the chance that a club will snare someone it ranked highly with a low pick. Now obviously clubs picking for needs contributes to these differences also.

In addition it appears that he had differences in ranking with the journalist lists (Quayle/Burgan etc).

But using last year as an example, I would challenge you to suggest that every player the crows selected, were generally regarded as top 28 selections.... Hence Rendells opinion of best available differed significantly from others.

this isnt a good or a bad thing, its just a statement

I agree generally with this post, however when you say 'If thats the case, then his rating do generally seem to be way out of wack with other recruiters across the board' would imply you have seen the club lists cause you refer to 'recruiters across the board'
I don't know that Quayle/Burgan are recruiters, but yes you are right that his rankings seemed to differ from journalist.

Anyway, as I said agree generally with what you say, I am just being a bit pedantic with what you imply

 

[Mong]

If I could be bothered I would go back to last year, or the year before that and simply cut and paste the same comment. But I can't be bothered so I'll type it again:

It astounds me how many people think there is some sort of order that most clubs agree on. They don't. All clubs' preferences differ greatly. Go back and read all (or even one) of Burgatron's phantoms and this will become obvious to you. He tells you which clubs are interested in which players and where they might go. The variation is massive. And then listen to all the clubs after the draft when they all say we can't believe that player was still there. Obviously enough other clubs didn't agree otherwise he wouldn't have been there. That's why all clubs are so happy.

Similarly, if you put all current AFL players into one massive draft pool and we all came up with a list of preferences they would differ massively. Maybe the top 10 would be fairly predictable but after that eveyone would go in different directions. Imagine how difficult that task would be! Well, drafting underage players would be even harder because many don't play against each other, and you're drafting on potential as much as previous form, which throws more variables in.

It is just simply not as straight forward as so many on here seem to think. If you actually put some thought into I don't see how you could disagree with me.