Thanks for clarifying.When theres a quality academy player, we take them (for a variety of reasons), ie, Campbell, Gulden, Blakey, Mills, Heeney - theres a lot of recent top picks. It means we dont take the player/type of player/position that we might have otherwise.
eg.. If we finish with p10 last year. All of our picks go towards Campbell and Gulden and we probably have a late pick to choose from the draft pool. If Campbell and Gulden dont exist, then we take a mid 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round player from the pool with free reign to choose what type of player we want/need
Dont get me wrong, Im a huge fan of the Academy and this year am just as excited about Sheather as the other two (Good size and one of the quickest in this years draft)
We are tied in a way. We want to support the Academy.. We get those players on the cheap.. makes sense to match the bids and we always do.
hypothetical.. Next draft we might have a top 10 academy kid who plays small forward, but our genuine need is a tall defender. History says we pick the academy kid with our early picks and get a tall defender later in the draft.
Theres been a lot of praise for Dalrymple and his ability, just saying it will be nice to see his work
I would hope that the selection of an Academy boy in the first round of the draft would be based primarily on their comparative football abilities, rather than just because they’re an Academy boy.