Opinion Priority Picks

[The Nostradamus]

We should ask for the AFL to step in and find some competent people to run the club.

Or more soft cap space so we can poach competent people

 

[Val Keating]

Is this bump a piss take?

 

[The Nostradamus]

Is this bump a piss take?

i dunno are we about to be 6 years in a row bottom 2? which is unprecedented

And yet somehow never got a start of first round pp that over half the clubs have gotten

 

[Roostorm]

i dunno are we about to be 6 years in a row bottom 2? which is unprecedented

And yet somehow never got a start of first round pp that over half the clubs have gotten

Agree yet some in media circles are moaning about the bounty in 22 that we were bestowed with.

 

[Val Keating]

i dunno are we about to be 6 years in a row bottom 2? which is unprecedented

And yet somehow never got a start of first round pp that over half the clubs have gotten

Can only ask the question I spose, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath

 

[Devil Fish]

I mostly agree with you but ...

After 2020 we have very few poor draftees. Only Miller Bergman hasn't shown enough at AFL level so far. Even Duursma has done okay really in 20 games. Obviously could do better but still has multiple goals four times, took 11 marks in a game once and that includes six games where he was sub.

And don't forget the hangar he took. Freak.

 

[ferball]

And don't forget the hangar he took. Freak.

That was a a good mark but I'd rather he took 6 or 7 less spectacular ones every game.

 

[Chadwiko]

After 2020 we have very few poor draftees.

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

 

[Themanbun]

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

Don't agree with everything you say mate but this is bang on.

We've effectively got 6 consistently available best 22 players from 4 drafts, which included an unusually high number of early first round picks.

6 from 37 picks is horrific.

 

[Chadwiko]

We've effectively got 6 consistently available best 22 players from 4 drafts, which included an unusually high number of early first round picks.

6 from 37 picks is horrific.

Perfect summary. I should have just written that. It would have been a lot quicker.

 

[Themanbun]

Perfect summary. I should have just written that. It would have been a lot quicker.

Nah it definitely helps to see it all laid bare, pick by pick.

 

[The Nostradamus]

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

2020 draft i think we still made the right choice at the time with phillips and powell the screwup was spicer over mcreery in the same team and forward line

2021 we did the right thing at the time also had to back ourselves in with the sook or trade the pick but once we didnt trade it it was the choice to go with

so really out of those 2 ND and even the 2022 ND imo only one mistake at the time and it was with a 3rd rounder

rookie and msd drafts are another story
had to take treacy over pat walker

 

[Chadwiko]

Nah it definitely helps to see it all laid bare, pick by pick.

Oh and it's 5 drafts by the way, not 4.

 

[Roo202]

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

In general I think that is a good assessment of what we have got out of those drafts, maybe do need to give the more recent picks more time, however, is it drafting the wrong players or is it what happens to them after they arrive at our club that is the main problem?

We are consistently picking the one or two players in the top 5 of everyone's (not just our) draft boards. Later picks may not always be as predictable, but the kids we are selecting aren't players no one else had in their top 50.

Without going into every individual pick, year on year, we are bringing in 3-5 of the top 50 rated junior players in the country, including 1 or 2 of the top 5.

While there may be debate regarding taking one player over another with a specific pick, we still are regularly drafting lots of players that are universally accepted as amongst the best available.

What is more likely; that the players we consistently pick, just happen to be the ones that us and every other draft pundit, recruiter, talent identifier gets wrong and wouldn't have succeeded wherever they went OR we have roughly the same amount of potential talent coming into the club as most other clubs and we are letting ourselves down with the way we are developing it?

Hindsight of comparing names who haven't worked out for us to now established players at other clubs, assumes that those players, if selected by us instead, would have developed just as well with us as they have at the club that did select them.

I'm not by any means suggesting there isn't room for improvement with our talent identification and drafting, there isn't any part of our current footy operations that couldn't be improved, I just think it is more likely the development after the draft is primary cause for the less than impressive returns on those drafts than drafting the 'wrong' players.

 

[ferball]

We've effectively got 6 consistently available best 22 players from 4 drafts, which included an unusually high number of early first round picks.

6 from 37 picks is horrific.

Its also a ridiculous way to measure it.

Eight of those players were selected in r1 side this year (tho seven should be considered regulars,) two of the players who weren't have been in the side since they came in and depending on who gets picked tonight have been in the side since (barring concussion). Another two were selected late in the season and their form has kept them in since tho that might change tonight. None of them has had three full seasons at the club.

Over a third of players are from the last two drafts. Do you expect them all to be playing before the end of their first or second year? Of those players a quarter of them are talls in their second season.

And its 30 players since 2020, we drafted 7 in 2020.

 

[Mr north man]

Yes I believe we need Priority Picks
In AFL appointed people to save us
Out Hood,The Board,Watt,Rawlings and any other Token Gesture of the NMFC Woke Empire.
Bring in a Professional outlet from Day 1 be up front with Supporters and stop the BS and treating supporters as there stupid with the All is well garbage.

 

[Midas]

Why aren’t we asking?

Weak leadership, pull every lever.

 

[Horace]

Why aren’t we asking?

Weak leadership, pull every lever.

Call it weak leadership if you want to, but there is no way we should be asking for any assistance this year.

We have to stand on our own two feet now and post season, post the 2025 Draft, those who remain at whatever level or position in the Club, just need to forget what has gone before and make an unequivocal commitment to each other to work harder, strive to achieve more, extract as much as each can extract from the talent that each of them was blessed with that got them to where they are now.

In my opinion, that list of players is not without some pretty good talent within it and as someone else has said here, at the top end of each of these drafts particularly, other clubs would have selected them if we had not.

These boys can do it in my opinion if they commit themselves to the hard work. As the old saying goes "the harder I work the luckier I get" and that applies to every walk of life. Just go and do it I say.

 

[kool kangas]

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

interesting write up , l often wonder if F/S wasnt around who would we have taken in 2021...JHF, Daicos or Darcy? Remembering that what we didnt know then to what we know now. l would have taken Darcy, Daicos and then JHF..Isnt hindsight wonderful...

 

[Midas]

Call it weak leadership if you want to, but there is no way we should be asking for any assistance this year.

We have to stand on our own two feet now and post season, post the 2025 Draft, those who remain at whatever level or position in the Club, just need to forget what has gone before and make an unequivocal commitment to each other to work harder, strive to achieve more, extract as much as each can extract from the talent that each of them was blessed with that got them to where they are now.

In my opinion, that list of players is not without some pretty good talent within it and as someone else has said here, at the top end of each of these drafts particularly, other clubs would have selected them if we had not.

These boys can do it in my opinion if they commit themselves to the hard work. As the old saying goes "the harder I work the luckier I get" and that applies to every walk of life. Just go and do it I say.

Bullshit. You don’t get any favours and ruthless clubs explore every avenue to grow. Increased cap space, extra rookie list spots, the fall back position from a no on priority picks can help us.

We’ve got a rubbish NGA, no Free Agency Currency and have been useless with Cat B and Irish recruits.

This is a simple request based on extended poor performance that takes anyone with ChatGPT 15 minutes to justify a case for.

If it meant we kept two rookie list spots or an increase in development spend it would be worth the submission.

Over and over again, let me repeat, we are 25 per cent worse on Win Loss over any five years x 2 than the next worst team in the AFL era which was Sydney in 94.

And we are now in an era where the playing field is even more compromised than then.

And we shouldn’t ask for help and have a plan for it?

It beggars belief anyone thinks we should be seeking anything less than a first rounder and / or access to the NT for two seasons or similar.

Every other basket case has been granted it.

 

[Midas]

Call it weak leadership if you want to, but there is no way we should be asking for any assistance this year.

We have to stand on our own two feet now and post season, post the 2025 Draft, those who remain at whatever level or position in the Club, just need to forget what has gone before and make an unequivocal commitment to each other to work harder, strive to achieve more, extract as much as each can extract from the talent that each of them was blessed with that got them to where they are now.

In my opinion, that list of players is not without some pretty good talent within it and as someone else has said here, at the top end of each of these drafts particularly, other clubs would have selected them if we had not.

These boys can do it in my opinion if they commit themselves to the hard work. As the old saying goes "the harder I work the luckier I get" and that applies to every walk of life. Just go and do it I say.

And the latter half of your argument make complete sense … asking for priority picks or assistance does not preclude you from making that commitment though, they are mutually exclusive.

 

[Chadwiko]

interesting write up , l often wonder if F/S wasnt around who would we have taken in 2021...JHF, Daicos or Darcy? Remembering that what we didnt know then to what we know now. l would have taken Darcy, Daicos and then JHF..Isnt hindsight wonderful...

If father/son wasn't a factor, Nick Daicos would have been the consensus #1.

Even the day before the draft a lot of the phantom guides/rankings said things along the lines of 'he could go #1 in an open draft', and that's without all the hype of availability.

 

[Horace]

Bullshit. You don’t get any favours and ruthless clubs explore every avenue to grow. Increased cap space, extra rookie list spots, the fall back position from a no on priority picks can help us.

We’ve got a rubbish NGA, no Free Agency Currency and have been useless with Cat B and Irish recruits.

This is a simple request based on extended poor performance that takes anyone with ChatGPT 15 minutes to justify a case for.

If it meant we kept two rookie list spots or an increase in development spend it would be worth the submission.

Over and over again, let me repeat, we are 25 per cent worse on Win Loss over any five years x 2 than the next worst team in the AFL era which was Sydney in 94.

And we are now in an era where the playing field is even more compromised than then.

And we shouldn’t ask for help and have a plan for it?

It beggars belief anyone thinks we should be seeking anything less than a first rounder and / or access to the NT for two seasons or similar.

Every other basket case has been granted it.

And bullshit to you too.

 

[Horace]

interesting write up , l often wonder if F/S wasnt around who would we have taken in 2021...JHF, Daicos or Darcy? Remembering that what we didnt know then to what we know now. l would have taken Darcy, Daicos and then JHF..Isnt hindsight wonderful...

If there was not a father/son rule then I would have taken Daicos. I thought at the time he was the best of that bunch and so far he has delivered the most. Darcy, though, unless he succumbs to injury, looks as though he could be anything.

The real tragedy is what happened with Horne-Francis. There is no doubt he has heaps of talent and will be a terrific asset for a long time for Port Adelaide, if they get the petulance out of his game. The combination of events that saw him depart, including not in small part the doubts around Clarko and how he might fare from the racism situation at Hawthorn, could not have come at a worse time, because if I am not mistaken, Horne-Francis had committed to stay, until that all broke.

Doubtless if he had stayed, we would have had our moments with him, but the longer term product, would I think have been worthwhile.

Nevertheless, I would still have taken Daicos at 1, then Darcy followed by Horne Francis.

Of course, on Sunday we are likely to see Pick 11 put forward his credentials for number 1.

And then the following weekend another boy taken at Pick 3, is very likely to say, "hey how about me?".

What a draft that 2021 draft has turned out to be? (We have our own gem in pick 35.)

 

[Horace]

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

11 O’Sullivan Windsor

Let's take off the royal blue and white tinted glasses and look at this objectively. We'll include national, rookie, and mid-season drafts, starting with the 2020 National Draft;

2020
National Draft
#3 Will Phillips
#13 Tom Powell
#36 Charlie Lazzaro
#42 Phoenix Spicer
#56 Eddie Ford

Rookie Draft
#2 Patrick Walker
#18 Connor Menadue

Overall, pretty average. I personally love Phillips but even I'm not going to argue we got value at pick #3 with him. Same deal with #13 and Powell - there's a very real chance that by the end of this season or next season, neither player are on our list. Add to that that Lazzaro and Spicer are out of the AFL and Ford is about to be, and the 2020 Covid draft is shaping up to be particularly poor

2021
Mid Season Draft
#1 Jacob Edwards
#16 Charlie Ham

National Draft
#1 Jason Horne-Francis
#22 Josh Goater
#35 Paul Curtis
#38 Miller Bergman
#59 Jackson Archer (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Jared Polec

Horrible MSD, but the arguably the 'strongest' national draft result you'll see in this entire post. The JHF situation sucked, but he was the best available player at pick 1 with Naicos and Darcy both N/A with father/son shennanigans.

2022
Mid Season Draft
#2 Kallan Dawson

National Draft
#3 Harry Sheezel
#4 George Wardlaw
#26 Brayden George
#56 Cooper Harvey (father/son)

Rookie Draft
#1 Blake Drury
#19 Hamish Free
#33 Daniel Howe
#39 Kayne Turner

Again, terrible MSD and Rookie Drafts and a common theme throughout this post will be our absolute lack of quality added through these processes. The National Draft looks great because of Sheezel/Wardlaw at the top. Sheezel has proven he can be a superstar, whereas Wardlaw has flashed enormously positive signs... however if we're playing Devil's Advocate there were undeniable question marks about his hamstrings in the lead up to the draft and that appears to have played out at least partly in the last 3 years. That said, even though those injury concerns were legitimate, he's still the best available player at that pick and this is the rare instance where North don't look silly for passing over one of the players taken immediately after him. Brayden George had big wraps, but the injury history there was even more of a considerable risk, and those risks have not been kind to North with sausage still yet to play an AFL game three years later.

2023
Mid Season Draft
#2 Robert Hansen Jr

National Draft
#2 Colby McKercher
#4 Zane Duursma
#20 Taylor Goad
#22 Wil Dawson
#23 Riley Hardeman

Rookie Draft
#2 Finnbar Maley

I suspect my opinion here will be divisive, but overall this is a poor draft. Walking away from one of the most stacked top-10s of the last decade in terms of top-end draft talent with two picks, and one of those picks cannot get a consistent game in our AFL team despite not being a developing KPF/KPD is not great. Especially when you look at the calibre of player we passed on to take him. Goad and Dawson are both talls who we knew would take years to develop, so that's "fine". Hardeman looks like great value at #23. But overall, not a great draft when you consider the ready-made talent that we missed on.

2024
Mid Season Draft
#1 Geordie Payne
#15 Brynn Teakle

National Draft
#2 Finn O'Sullivan
#27 Matt Whitlock (trade)
#57 Luke Urquhart
#67 River Stevens (father/son)

Rookie Draft
Nil players

Admittedly there's a huge element of "it's too soon to judge" with the 2024 cohort, but outside of FOS I think it's fair to say that this draft class doesn't look super exciting. Payne can't get a game, Teakle has proven himself a very limited battler, and Urquhart/Stevens both struggle with any form of consistency at the VFL level. Whitlock is, unfortunately for him, always going to be held to a super high standard because of the nature of the trade that resulted in us taking him. The signs are positive at the VFL level for a second round tall prospect... but he could have been a top 3~ first round draft pick instead and those are huge shoes to fill.


Summary
So in summary, I think we unfortunately have plenty of "pretty poor draftees" since 2020, and overall I think the most generous grade you can objectively give to our drafting in this period would be a C+. At best.

It's a big reason why the club is in the position that it currently finds itself. Instead of having a super strong cohort of 50-150 gamers, we struggle with consistency and talent at these levels outside one or two outlier players.

I think you are a bit harsh in your assessment of our work in the top 10 in the 2023 Draft. Here is a comparison between the actual Draft and Twomey's Phantom Draft.

Number Twomey’s Actual Draft
Phantom

1 Harley Reid Harley Reid
2 Walter (GC Academy) McKercher
3 Duursma Walter
4 McKercher Duursma
5 Watson Watson
6 Sanders Curtin
7 Windsor Sanders
8 Curtin Caddy
9 Read (GC Academy) Read
10 Caddy O’Sullivan
11 O’Sullivan Windsor

We were never going to get Reid or Walter. We then took after them the two next best as rated by Twomey (FWIW).

I've shown the top 11, because outside the first 4, in my opinion, on form so far, Watson, Caddy and O'Sullivan are the best.

But would we have been better off taking Watson rather than Duursma? Watson has had the advantage of having a far superior outfit around him, which surely makes life easier. The same can be said for O'Sullivan at Geelong. If you had a kid good enough to be drafted, you would be really hoping for him to go to a club like Geelong.

Caddy is the one who at the time I would have liked to see us get (despite who his uncle is). In my opinion he has exceeded expectations, against a backdrop of a very ordinary football team in *essendon. (Where's *danksy when they need him?)