Resource Noob's 2025 Draft Prospect Video Thread

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Sam Swadling has had a strong start to his top age season and continued it with an excellent performance here. The one thing we wanted to see from Swadling this year was an improvement in his composure and decision making with the ball, and while he still had some rush of blood moments here the improvement over all is significant. The rest of the package has always been exciting with his size, agility and nose for the footy every bit as good as it's always been.

 

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Another strong performance from Grlj who's rapidly risen to contend for a spot in the top 10 of draft lists. Its easy to see Grlj's dancing feet and bursts of pace and think what he might be capable of in a couple of years with more maturity in his game and body.

 

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Patterson turned in a fantastic performance for the AFL Academy in game 1 against Richmond. On a day where many of his teammates were fumbly and imprecise with their skills, perhaps showing some nerves on the big occasion, Patterson was clean and confident. He also showed his trademark intensity and commitment at the contest and his ability to bring a physical edge even with his relatively small frame.

 

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This performance from Duursma got some criticism on the day but I think on rewatch he was pretty solid, especially when you consider that he sacrificed his game and played out of position to help a terribly unbalanced Academy squad. He did his best to match up on the mature Richmond tall forwards, attacked contests in the air, and showed a few moments of class with the ball.

 

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This was a much better performance from Addinsall than I thought on first watch. The one thing we know he can do is find the footy and he showed that again here even with the step up to VFL level opposition. He led his team in disposals and did a lot of the subtle linking work around congested packs that helped the Academy team get from inside to outside.

 

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Filling in the last game in the backlog of Sam Grlj's performances so far this season. Here we get to see why he's quickly become one of the hottest names in the 2025 draft pool. He shows excellent movement around congestion and slick hands to release teammates, and when he's able to get out into space he has the pace to break lines.

 

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Playing on a heavily rain soaked track which created slippery and scrappy football, Adam Sweid still managed to turn in a strong performance for Vic Metro. His skills got a little scrappy at times like most on the day, but he fought for every ground ball and threw himself into his tackles making it difficult for the Young Guns to exist stoppage with any fluency.

 

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After a relatively quiet start, Sharp is building nicely into his season. He was much better in game 2 for the AFL Academy, leading a midfield group that dominated their more mature Coburg opponents for most of the game. Sharp wasn't just winning the ball at the coalface, he also gained territory pumping the ball inside 50 on 10 occasions and while some of those kicks weren't as spearing and precise as you might like was still responsible for setting up a number of scoring opportunities for his forwards.

 

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Another in the running for BOG in this game, Josh Lindsay was at his damaging best with his dash and incisive kicking off the half back line. His tendency to try and pick off attacking targets in the corridor is admirable and he was able to successfully set up several scoring chains for the Academy this way.

 

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Ollie played a little less through the midfield and more across half back in this game but still managed to find plenty of the ball and showed an improvement in his disposal by foot, getting involved in many of the productive chains of transition ball movement for the Academy. Ollie is one of the few pure midfielders in the open pool at the top end of this draft that has turned in consistently strong performances so far this season.

 

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With Emmett and Murray splitting time with CDT in the ruck we got a chance to see him playing more as a key forward than he has been for Calder. He took up good positions, presented up at the ball carrier on a couple of occasions and competed well in the air including one excellent contested mark late in the game. It's been difficult for the talls in this completely unbalanced squad, but Cooper turned in one of the better performances from that contingent here.

 

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It's been a slower than expected start to the season for Louis Emmett, but he seems to be starting to hit his stride. He was the best of the tall contingent for the Academy in this game, showing his aerial strength as a forward and around the ground, as well as his ability to compete hard in the ruck and follow up at ground level.

 

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Once again playing primary out of position as a key defender (although he did get a run onball in Q4), Willem turned in a fairly strong performance here. He took a couple of nice intercept marks but was most impactful with his involvement in the Academy teams run out of defense. I've had a watch on his disposal by foot this year and he put some of those concerns to rest with some composed and attacking darts onto his teammate's chest.

 

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A fantastic performance by Lachy Dovaston who formed a dangerous and dynamic small forward duo with Hussien El Achkar that the Young Guns simply couldn't handle all game. It seems likely that we'll see these two lighting it up on the main stage for metro at the champs a few weeks from now.

On a heavy track and a slippery ball that other players struggled to deal with, Lachy was clean below his knees. He showed a bit of everything you'd want to see in a small forward: slick and creative with the ball, impacting transition ball movement up the ground, tricky and evasive, dangerous around goals, and last but not least, some strong tackling and smothering pressure.

 

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The second half of the dynamic small forward duo with Dovaston, Hussien El Achkar was inches away from tearing the Young Guns apart in this game. His ability to continually find dangerous space in the forward 50 and create shots on goal was elite, but he was unfortunately unable to direct most of those shots through the big sticks.

 

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One of the most quietly impressive performers across the two Academy games was Harley Barker from SA. In a team with a multitude of players competing for time in their preferred role, Harley played exclusively wing in both games and looked extremely comfortable doing so with attributes very much suited to it. He's tall, rangy and clean in the air which allows him to present down the line as an exit option or for a switch of play, and allows him to impact as a third up in marking contests at either end of the ground. He's a powerful runner with seemingly excellent endurance and has tidy and efficient disposal to help link the play while rarely biting off more than he can handle.

 

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Matt LeRay is a tall outside leaning mid who plays more of a utility role for Central Districts but was predominantly deployed as a winger for the Academy, a role which suits his strengths well. This game was better than the stats suggest, with LeRay presenting well and using his solid kicking skills to his team's advantage. He also threw himself enthusiastically into pressure acts which don't show up on the stat sheet.

 

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Swadling is proving to be unstoppable at Colts level. In this game he racked up an impressive 40 disposals due to his strength and size over the footy at stoppage and his huge work rate to find space outside of the contest. The concerns over his decision making and disposal by foot seem to have been put to bed with Swadling showing a significant improvement in his composure with the ball and ability to hit the right target on the chest.

 

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Wes will have more prolific games, but this was a pretty solid showcase of the talents and traits that Wes brings. His marking prowess is one of his biggest strengths which we got to see on display in this game, clean hands and one grab, strong on the lead and willing to leap at packs, and his crumbing and pressure game is solid. His kicking skills have been a little bit variable in the past both field kicking and set shot conversion and while he nailed a really nice 50m shot from the left flank it remains a bit of a watch.

 

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A look at prolific rebounding defender Jacob Farrow from the West Perth Falcons. Jacob works hard to find space and present an option for his teammates and uses the footy fantastically well with his classy left boot. His 189cm height and solid marking ability should allow him to be a versatile defender at the next level, and in this game he conceded nothing to his direct matchup in 1v1 contests.

 

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As an Essendon tragic I occasionally indulge in producing something for my people. Son of the great Darren Bewick, Koby Bewick has been hyped for years coming up through the junior grades and here we see his arrival at the elite level, debuting for the Cannons at 15 years old and just quietly going about his business with an excellent first up performance.

 

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In this second episode of State of the Draft for season 2025 I give my high level thoughts on how this draft pool is shaping up, go through my very early player ranks and cover some prospects that have emerged through this first block of games.

 

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The highly rated and anticipated Max King

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debuted in the Talent League for the Swans Academy in round 4 and put in a solid display. He was clearly a little bit rusty, dropping a couple of marks he'd normally take and a bit wayward with his kicking skills, but he was involved in most of the productive forward moves for the Swans and created enough opportunities to kick a bag of five on another day.

 

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Another week, another massive performance from Swadling in the WAFL Colts, upping his 40 disposals from last week with 42 this time. There was so much to admire about this performance, his combination of size, speed of mind and footwork allowing him to move around congested space to find a stack of the footy and give West Perth a significant stoppage advantage. Maintaining our watch on his disposal, he was poised and creative with hands, but his kicking was a bit off here, regularly missing targets short early in the game and even coughing up a goal on turnover.

 

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What we managed to get of this Rory Wright performance was solid. He's increasingly showing his aerial prowess and we're starting to see some slick moves in tight spaces to dance his way out of trouble. He had some of his typical lovely left foot darts, but also missed more targets than we're used to seeing from him.

Unfortunately we also lost all of the third quarter and a chunk of the fourth due to the classic Talent League Technical Difficulties, so Rory might have been absolutely brilliant in that term, we'll never know.