Just did a bit of reading on Smouha.
Excellent draft camp results in the beep test (2nd best) and won the 3km run, but a Queenslander who has only been playing AFL for a year and at 196cm may not develop into a ruckman at AFL level.
I'd like us to take a genuine ruckman.
I know virtually nothing about this year's crop, but McEvoy (1st rd) or Bellchambers (2nd rd) could be options. I'm not keen on taking project players or tweeners (are they KPP or ruckmen?) in the first 2 rounds.
The consensus seems to be that this years draft is light on for genuuine KPPs, which makes our decision last year to overlook players such as M.Brown/Dawes and choose an outside midfielder in D. O'Keefe even more baffling.
I'll be very reluctant to take a pure ruckman, especially with the relatively high picks we have this year. I'll be honest and say that I have extreme doubts in our coaching staff in developing AFL-calibre ruckman while having relative success at making 'tweeners into good AFL players. We already have Currie as a project ruckman, not sure we want to go for another ruckman when we have more immediate concerns in KP depth (both forward and back).
Another thing is that there are very picks in the second round (and especially beyond 26) that have turned into AFL ruckmen - Charman is the only successful one in the past decade that I can recall. Most of the better ruckman these days are either top 10 picks or hidden away and taken with rookie picks.
We have more concerns in KP depth at the moment and given the preceived lack of depth in KP prospects in the draft, I will definitely prefer to use #11 on a KP prospect rather than #26. I will also prefer a mobile, 'tweener type over a slow, true ruckman type (Torture still haunts me with his lack of any ability other than rucking) due the direction that AFL seems to be heading towards - and where ruckman is expected to do a fair bit around the ground rather than just to ruck. And Goodes did win a Brownlow as a mobile, undersized ruckman.
I agree that taking DO'K was not something that we should have done given our situation, but if we do it again and miss out on a decent KP prospect...I don't even want to think about that.