Quigley's 2016 Draft Rankings

[Quigley]

Okay it is that time again and it is appropriate to again give the run down of what I am about.

Firstly this is my opinion of how I rate the players not where I think they are going to be drafted. I fully expect that guys like Scrimshaw and Hayward are going to be drafted well ahead of where I have them. I could be wrong about a lot of these guys. I have seen a fair bit of them but nowhere near enough to really make an informed decision. I am guessing quite a lot but it is a semi informed guess.

Do not assume that I have missed someone. It is likely that they are not there because I do not rate them. Collingwood fans not Callum Brown is in this category.

As always I will talk up the Div 2 guys and in particular the Queenslanders. I absolutely acknowledge the bias there but I am happy to live with it.

I have been banging these out for about a month at night. I have proof read once and that is it. There are going to be errors and typos etc but it has gotten to the stage where I just want to get the damn thing up.

Overall don't get freaked out where I have them actually read the reviews. You are much more likely to get information out of that than where I arbitrarily have them.

 

[Quigley]

1. Sam Petrevski-Seton

Petrevski-Seton is at the pointy end of most mock drafts but having him go first will surprise some. To me SPS is quite simply the best player in this draft. At number 1 I want someone who can take over a game and dominate and SPS is the guy I see doing this most often. The other guys I would consider at 1 I think will be very good players but I could easily see them playing forward or back and not really making it in the midfield. SPS is a pure midfielder.

If you are looking for a comparison to a current player I would say he reminds me of a young Shaun Burgoyne. Like Burgoyne he is good on the outside but he is at his most dangerous in tight. SPS' vision and awareness in the contest is fantastic and streets ahead of anyone else in this draft. He has an uncanny ability to know where his teammates are and hit them and he is very smart about how he goes about it. I have watched him keep the ball down low or out in front of himself where most would bring into their body and in doing so it allows him to get the ball away rather than be wrapped up. Very much like Burgoyne he is one of those players who seems to have time in the contest. He is composed and innately knows where he needs to go to buy himself the time he needs. He picks the seams really well and he has an explosive first couple of steps that lets him clear packs. When he is in the grasp he is strong and well balanced and keeps his arms free well. He reads the taps as well as anyone in this draft and his hands are right there to receive the ball cleanly. He has confidence in his ability to collect at pace and he regularly attacks the ball at pace and comes away with it. I like Brodie and Ainsworth as inside prospects but I consider SPS a tier above.

SPS has had hamstring injuries this year and that is a bit of a concern if they look like they could be chronic. I do not think he has been as fit as he can be but that is understandable and explains a fair bit for me why he perhaps did not have the season many expected of him. He was the standout 17 year old last year and for me was the clear cut number one prospect coming into the year. The injuries affected his season and he did not reach the heights that I think are available to him. With that said, I liked the development I saw in his kicking this year and that was a very big plus for me. Last year his kicking was a bit rough around the edges and that was my big question mark about him. This year he still has had games and parts of games where his kicking falls away but at other times his kicking has looked elite. He is good off either foot now and some of his kicking into 50 has been top shelf. He has shown the ability to weight his kicks really nicely and lead his forwards well. There is still room to improve his consistency but the curve has trended up markedly and if that continues he is going to have kicking in the class of Burgoyne as well before long. By hand he is good and can have good penetration although not always so.

As already mentioned SPS is explosive over the first couple of steps and generally his straight line speed is good. Not elite, but he is not getting run down by a lot of people. In tight I think he is very deceptive. He does not appear terribly elusive but he is very difficult to tackle. He has a nice little body swerve that not many opponents can read and a go-to spin move which gets him in and out of trouble nicely. He is a well-balanced player and has the ability to go left or right at any time and does not seem to telegraph where he is going to go.

SPS will play some time up forward especially early in his career and I can see him being serviceable without being in the same category of forward as McCluggage or Ainsworth, both of whom are clearly superior forward prospects. Petrevski-Seton is a pretty good contested mark for his size and reads and moves to space well. When he is playing through the midfield he will more often play behind the ball rather than working forward into the forward 50. He does play that role well and gets where he is needed defensively and provides a nice avenue forward. He is not a big runner with the ball but when he gets out in space he can cover the ground.

For me there are 6 clear top prospects this year and SPS is head and shoulders the hardest defensive worker through the midfield of that group. He is the one that will appear deep in defence when needed. He tackles well both in tight and in space and he works hard to close down a man even when he is not going to get there. That perceived pressure I think is very underrated by most but I am sure top line coaches know how much that is worth if you have a team doing it.

SPS has an enormously high football IQ and I think has a very good chance of ending up being the best player to come out of this draft.

2. Ben Ainsworth

Coming into the Champs this year I was sceptical about claims that Ainsworth should be considered a top 3 pick. For me, you do not take an under 180cm small forward, with limited demonstrated ability to play in the midfield, at the top of the order. Then I watched him play at the Champs and with particular attention on some small patches in the midfield and I am now onboard.

I doubt you will find anyone who has watched Ainsworth a lot who does not think he will be at least a very good forward at AFL level. Despite lacking a bit of height, Ainsworth is an excellent mark overhead with the common comparison being to Jamie Elliott. Ainsworth has a great stretch and often you think the ball is going over his head before he goes up just a bit further and brings it down. He times his jumps very well and arrives at the ball at just the right time. His timing and reading of the ball in the air is as good as you are going to see in a small forward.

When you watch Ainsworth play you can't help but notice how many times he is 2 or 3 metres ahead of his opponent on the lead. Despite a fairly solid build Ainsworth is extremely quick (he recorded 2.90 over the 20m sprint at the Combine) and he uses that to good effect in games. He times his leads really well and leads to dangerous spots. If you watch him, he is also a forward who reacts very quickly to what is happening up the ground and once he gets a step or two on an opponent he is not being caught. He can sustain a lead and will get marks up onto the wing even when he is stationed as a deep leading forward. One slight worry was how he performed when he was matched up on genuinely quick opponents. At the Champs when he was matched up on McGrath and Long he was very quiet but I do think it is a bit of an overreaction to read too much into those two match ups. He has been dominating as a forward for two years now and has regularly gotten the better of good defenders with speed. With that said, it is something to keep an eye on and he will be matched up on more guys who are close to as quick as he is when he gets to the AFL and he is going to need to rely on other tricks than just his pace.

One other thing to consider when assessing those quiet games was how much time Ainsworth had missed up to that stage of the season. He had a very interrupted first half of the year after suffering a broken wrist and then suffered a knee injury which kept him out for a month. Also coming into the Champs he was forced to miss a month through suspension. At the Champs Ainsworth looked quick but was perhaps a little soft around the edges. I thought he looked to have a harder body in the All Star game in Grand Final week. One of the things Ainsworth needed to work on this year to assuage some of the concerns about his midfield ability was his endurance. His beep test at the Combine would have been one of the most closely observed by teams to see if he had improved his tank over the year. When he ran a 14.3 I am sure a few teams picking at the beginning of the draft probably breathed a sigh of relief knowing that they can pick him with confidence that he will have the tank to run for extended periods through the midfield at the next level.

At the Champs he played some time through the midfield and I thought he looked very good when he did. Coming out of the Champs he started to up his midfield time at TAC level and he got better and better. By the end of the year he was dominating and putting up huge disposal numbers. Like he demonstrates up forward, Ainsworth has extremely clean hands below the knees and when you combine that with his explosive pace he can pick up the ball and go before others react. When I watched Ainsworth through the midfield I always found myself wondering why the ball just seemed to follow him around. The number of times the ball just seems to fall to him is amazing. Eventually you just have to concede that it is not luck and rather Ainsworth just reads the play exceptionally well and puts himself in the right position a step ahead of everyone else.

When Ainsworth gets the ball he evaluates his options very quickly and will not always just go to the easiest and first option. Coming out of contested situations Ainsworth might have the most hurt factor in this draft. He often takes high risk high reward options and is good enough to hit the target and create an opportunity for his side. He can sometimes hang onto the ball a bit too long after he marks it but I expect that will be coached out of him at the next level where moving the ball on quickly is more important that at junior level. Ainsworth is not a big outside runner at the moment but when he does get up and running he covers the ground very quickly without seeming to be putting in too much effort. I think there is a lot of potential for him to have a very damaging outside game as he continues to build his engine. In traffic he is strong and balanced and although he does not seem very elusive that might be deceptive given he is not tackled a lot. By foot and hand Ainsworth is good but probably a bit below elite. Similarly up forward he is a good but not quite elite shot at goal.

The one area where Ainsworth is wanting is in the defensive side of the game. He does have a bit of the superstar approach to defensive running and tackling ie those are jobs for the plebs. That is going to need to change at the next level and he is going to be criticised a fair bit early in his career I think for that. From all I have heard though Ainsworth is a really good guy and I am sure he will get with the program and put in the effort even if it is not his natural inclination.

I have Ainsworth ahead of the likes of McGrath and McCluggage largely on upside. I see a lot of a young Gary Ablett in the way he goes about it and he has a skill set that could potentially allow him to reach those heights of the game. When you are getting at worst a very good small forward and potentially the next Gary Ablett I have no problem reaching for him at number 2.

3. Andrew McGrath

Accepted wisdom is that McGrath will go in the top 2 of the draft and I have no problem with that even though I have him falling all the way down to number 3. McGrath might have the highest floor of any player in this draft. At the very worst I expect McGrath to be an excellent small defender who can shut down an opponent and still provide very good run behind. He is also one of the more well spoken young guys to come through in the last few years and it would surprise exactly no-one if ended up captaining his club at AFL level. When you have that as his floor you can understand why GWS traded up to try and grab him.

Why I have dropped him down to 3 is that the small defender role is often a lower value position and I see to the two above him having better tools to impact games through the midfield. McGrath has been effective in the midfield at TAC level but I thought he did struggle a bit in that role at the Champs. I really rate how quick his hands are and see this as a big plus for his midfield work going forward but he is not as clean as others below the knees. He has pretty good awareness of where players are around him and he is composed when he gets it. For such a strong bodied type in most aspects of the game he is buffeted around a bit when he is onball. When he is in the middle and has time to pick targets and execute is reduced he does tend to scrub his kicks fairly often. When he is in space he executes much better although he can bite off a bit much on occasions. He often gets compared to Heath Shaw (for good reason) and like Shaw he can regularly take dangerous options. He is usually good enough to get the ball there but sometimes not and when he doesn't it often leaves his team exposed.

Down back he is one of the best two way players to come along in recent years. Not only is a good attacker out of the backline, he is also someone who can shut down a forward. The prime example of that was in the VC v VM game this year when Ainsworth was getting away and had 4 goals. McGrath was switched onto him and managed to take him right out of the game without sacrificing his attacking game. That is real talent and he was a very big factor in Metro winning that game. McGrath is a willing tackler both in close and in space and he has the strength to prevent the tackler getting the ball away. Speaking of his tackling it is worth noting that he picked up 19 tackles in one of his early TAC games this year. Those kind of numbers do not happen by accident and demonstrate real application.

Where McGrath really stands out when you watch him play is when he has the ball in hand. McGrath was an elite 400m hurdler (and high jumper fwiw) and once he gets up and going he can seriously cover the ground. He is not the most explosive runner (3.04 for the 20m at the Combine) but he has elite top end speed. McGrath is also extremely agile and his change of direction at speed can devastate defensive set ups. He runs very good lines and can get the ball behind defensive zones very quickly. When he gets the ball and needs a bit of time he backpedals and jinks as well as anyone and can maintain space much in the way that Sam Mitchell does.

Another real strength of McGrath is his marking ability. Despite being under 180cm he is a very good mark and is not afraid to back him in a contested situation. He has a really nice jump on him and his hands above his head are very good and certainly much better than you usually get from small defenders at junior level. He reads the ball well in the air and has excellent body control when he goes up. He uses his body nicely in marking contests to maintain prime position.

Overall McGrath is a fantastic small defender prospect and a pretty good midfield one as well. He captained Metro this year as well as one of the All Star teams and pretty much everyone speaks highly of him. If you had cultural issues in your club he would be a good person to bring in and get things moving in the right direction.

4. Hugh McCluggage

I am actually tempted to drop him down further as I really do see some holes in his midfield game but at the end of the day I think you have to reward his performance over the year. He got a heap of the ball this year and just kept standing up time after time and when it counted as well. I like him up forward and think he could be really good as a half forward flank. It is just in the midfield that I have some concerns.

McCluggage came from the clouds a bit this year. He was not in many people's top 25 coming into the year and coming off a back injury he has been a bolter. He has continued to excel at every change in level over the course of the year right to the end of the year where he was very influential in the All Star game.

So what are my issues with him? First up, have a close look at his kicking. He looks really nice when he kicks the ball, he is very stylish, and he will make some nice kicks each game which causes many people to overlook the fact that he misses many targets you expect him to hit. Another thing which everyone raves about is his hands. I accept that he seems to do well up forward with the ball on the ground but when he is in the midfield he fumbles a lot. When under pressure, whether it is picking up a ball on the bounce or from handball receives, he double clutches very regularly and that is going to allow him to shut down when the players are so much quicker at AFL level and his options will be reduced.

McCluggage does not read the ball off ruck hands particularly well and a lot of the clearances he gets come from picking the ball up off the ground. I see him being useful at AFL level inside but I doubt he will ever be considered to be a specialist in that part of the ground. He gets buffeted around a fair bit in the contest and loses his feet a bit too easily. He also does not really mix it up physically and can shy away from committing his body on occasions. He doesn't need to throw himself stupidly into contests but when it is his turn he has to be willing to get involved and that is not always the case at the moment.

Defensively McCluggage does not work as hard at the moment as he will need to. He is one of those who just seems to cruise around the field at 3/4 pace most of the time anyway but too often he can be seen trailing behind the play when it is going the other way. He is a capable if not particularly willing tackler.

Okay that is plenty of negativity about a guy who really is a very good prospect. He is a very smart player who knows where to run and when especially up forward. He is elite when it comes to reading the play and interjecting himself at the right time and place. He finds space up forward and creates goal scoring options where others would not. When he has the ball he is composed and does not seem flustered even when he is in the grasp. He knows where everyone is around him and takes the right options. He is virtually always a participant in possession chains as his team moves forward, often more than once. He gets his team going in the right direction and he moves it on quickly and well and is capable of accumulating a lot of ball.

Up forward he is a very good mark and reads the ball in the air well. He is a guy who will float in from the side and mark the ball in front of the pack with him just reading it that bit better than others. He has very good goal sense and has all the tricks as far as the ability to finish around goals. His set shot is good although I would not say elite.

I do like McCluggage but I do worry that he might lack a few tools in his midfield kit bag. This is one where I could easily be wrong and he could end up a champion of the game. He certainly has done everything asked of him this year.

5. Will Brodie

One of the surprises to me in recent times has been the fact that Brodie has been falling down the expert’s lists. He is not as sexy as other options but I personally have no trouble slotting into the top tier of this draft and if the Lions took him at 3 I would not be overly worried. To me I do not think there has been anyone who are demanded to be taken at the top of this draft but the top tier overall is strong and to have this many quality options is really unusual. In that top tier if you wanted an inside bull then Brodie is the one you go with. There is not a lot of positional versatility with him but what he does, he does well and winning the clearances are still a vital part of the game.

Brodie is a big, strong inside mid who reads taps well, has quick, clean hands and reasonable vision in the clearances. He is well balanced, holds his feet in the contests and does a good job of keeping his hands free. In tight he is very ordinary with his left hand handball, lacking power and control and is a bit indiscriminate with his kicks. Overall though he does well clearing the ball from the contest.

Brodie lacks a bit of top end speed but I think he is underestimated athletically. He is never going to be a standout with his athletic ability but I think he has enough athleticism to do what he needs to do at the next level. He has decent explosiveness with his first few steps and is quite evasiveness. He works well in the phone box and is not as easy to get hold of as you would expect from a guy of his size and with his somewhat lacking top end speed. He has a good step and with his power he can go through arm tackles.

The other area where Brodie can be underestimated is with his outside game. He spreads from the contest well and links up pretty well. He is a strong mark of the ball and at 189cm he has the height to get over a lot of the guys who typically go with him. When he has space and an open man he executes well. Generally when he has time I actually rate his kicking. His style is quite good and he looks comfortable. When things go wrong with his kicks I think the cause is most often his decision making rather than his execution.

I think Brodie has potential to be decent as a resting forward with one very big proviso. As already mentioned he is strong of body and is a good mark. He reads the ball decently in the air and finds space well inside 50. In short, he is a difficult cover for defences and he regularly gets opportunities. The big proviso is that currently he has no confidence taking the kicks for goal and looks for every opportunity to pass the shot off. When he takes the shot I do not see a lot wrong with his technique and really I think it is all between the ears with him.

If you were looking for a comparison I would go with Michael Barlow. Barlow started late and Brodie could struggle a bit early in his career whilst he adjusts to matching up against bigger and quicker opponents every week. Think of how lost Cripps looked in his first year. Bigger guys who lack a bit of pace often take time to adjust.

Brodie was the stand out I thought in the first half of the year and really did nothing wrong in the back half. I am sure any team that takes him will gain confidence from his standout performances against the VFL teams from the AFL Academy. For me he was the clear standout in those games. Brodie was not a huge accumulator of the ball but he did average over 20 disposals a game at every level he played this year which showed that whilst he is not an elite accumulator at the moment he can find it. As his tank improves I expect those numbers to increase.

I think there are a couple of reasons for him dropping down lists at the moment. Firstly he is a bit of a blue collar type and there is more excitement associated with the other prospects and there is a perception that Brodie as a lower ceiling. I think this these reasons are wrong and undervalue what he can give a team. Given the number of interstate teams drafting in the first round the fact that amongst the top group he is considered the biggest flight risk and has the most personality faults has traction and is a very valid consideration.

6. Tim Taranto

I don't see Taranto as a danger to go at number 1 but it would not shock me if he was taken in the top 4. He has been a big mover in the second half of the year. I thought I was being adventurous moving him into the late first round after the Champs but he went from strength to strength after that and is now a big chance to end up at the Gold Coast at 4. He was close to the best performed player in the TAC in the second half of the year and was probably the dominant player of the TAC finals.

Taranto played onball in the TAC but as a half forward at the Champs. He averaged just under 20 disposals at the Champs and showed some really high level skills. He can be dangerous inside 50 but he does his best work I think a kick and a half from goal and up onto the wing. He works hard up the ground and finds space pretty easily. He is a nice mark and plays on quickly. He plays an AFL style of game already and he is already used to playing at pace and assessing his options quickly. He makes things happen when he gets the ball.

I really rate his kicking into the 50 and he will deliver it low into 50 and with good touch that makes it very difficult for the defender. He definitely has hurt factor. Watching him kick it often seemed that he was scrubbing the ball off the side of the boot but after the ball kept getting to a target I started to realise that he was doing it deliberately. It is certainly an odd way to go about it but if it is effective good luck to him. Up forward he is a good finisher without being elite.

Through the middle of the ground Taranto is more of an outside in player but he can be effective on the inside. He can fumble on occasions in the contest but generally I would consider him to be pretty clean but I do think he will continue to improve a he works on it more and gets into a full time environment. One thing I do rate with him through the middle is the quickness of his hands. He is very slippery at getting the ball away and he is good at finding a target.

Taranto is a nice size and I think he will end up powerfully built before he is finished. At the Combine he weighed more than Brodie. He did not test at the Combine so I am going by eye here but I expect that his endurance as quite good (maybe around the 14 mark) but his pace would be probably be nothing to write home about (I am thinking 3.0 to 3.1 somewhere). His agility is decent. In general he moves around the ground really well and he is very active as a half forward. He hits the ball at pace regularly and creates opportunities when he comes away with it. Taranto is often compared to Fasolo and you can see the similarities but Taranto works much harder than Fasolo does. I think he should be compared to those half forwards who are effective in the midfield as well - so Robbie Grey, Swanny or Chappy are probably better comparisons or even Jimmy Bartel.

Defensively I think he will need to improve at the next level. At the moment he has not really had much defensive impact. He needs to improve his two way running.

Taranto was a big accumulator of the ball in the second half of the year and it is not much of a stretch to see that continuing when he starts to work into the midfield at AFL level. There are some very good half forward options in this draft and Taranto can stand with them. I think he lacks a little bit of the top end class that a couple of others have but I can easily see him getting to AA level by sheer weight of numbers.

 

[Quigley]

7. Will Settlefield

I have seen Dodoro has come out and said that they were considering taking Settlefield at number 1. That would have to be one of the most hollow threats I have ever heard. GWS are all about quality and if Essendon picked him number 1 I doubt they would be able to get to the microphone quick enough to pass. Settlefield is a nice player but he is not in the same class as the guys fighting out for the number 1 spot. In fact I think GWS are no certainties to match a bid on him unless they were getting value given the midfield depth they already have. In short I would not be bidding on Settlefield unless I seriously wanted him.

I do think Settlefield is the best of the GWS boys this year. I am not a fan of Perryman and Macreadie has fallen away over the year after getting a lot of unrealistic hype early in the year. Settlefield does not have a lot of stand-out features but is just one of those guys who does everything well.

He is not going to wow anyone with his athleticism but he is athletic enough. He did not test at the Combine so I am guessing a little, but from what I have seen of him I expect he would be pretty midrange across the board except maybe in the agility testing where he might be a bit more to the poor end. He seems a little awkward when he starts moving and he is not that smooth when he changes direction. Overall though I don't see anything which worries me overly from an athletic perspective.

In traffic he is very composed and he seems one of the more comfortable guys when he is in amongst it. He works through the crowd easily and often with a bit more pace than those around him. He is not explosive in traffic by any means but he is one of those guys who is always on the move and uses that to his advantage. He is a tall midfielder with a good frame and he is going to fill out into a big bodied type. He uses that strength well but he is not the kind of extremely well balanced types who are impossible to get off their feet.

I have read about how clean he is in traffic but again I would rate him as good but not outstanding, especially for an inside player. His hands are small and I think this does make it a bit harder for him to control the ball both on the ground and above his head. He reads the ball pretty well in the air and certainly takes his fair share of marks, but he does drop some that guys with really strong hands take.

I don't think it is certain that he ends up playing through the midfield at AFL level. He is certainly a chance there but if GWS take him I think he would have a better chance of getting games in defence. He has played a bit of defence this year and is a disciplined defender who is difficult for a forward to get the better of. He has good size, reads the play well enough to compensate for only having average speed and is very good below his knees for a defender. He does not panic in defence and uses it well. He is not a big runner from defence but he can work forward and he does well in space. Settlefield is a strong and willing tackler and puts up big tackle numbers especially when he is playing in the middle of the ground. At the Champs from memory he averaged 8 tackles per game.

Skills-wise again he is good without being outstanding. He played in defence in the All Star game and took a number of the kick ins and hit his targets nicely. He can drop in a really nice weighted kick from time to tome but will also have his fair share of clangers. He has reasonable length. Overall there is scope for him to tidy up his kicking but there is not too much wrong with it as it is. By hand he is again quite good but I would not say he is close to being elite. He does tend to get better results from clearances than many others and will not just hack it forward.

Overall I see Settlefield as a high floor, lower ceiling type. Not out of the question that he could end up as a Josh Kennedy type but I think more Greenwood or Hibberd comparisons might end up being more apt.

8. Jy Simpkin

Okay an admission here I have only vague recollections of Simpkin from the one AFL academy game I saw him play earlier in the year and from watching him last year as a bottom ager. I am going to be going by gut a bit here, watching the limited highlights on the AFL site, reporting on some facts and stealing a bit from others. So moving right along there was a bit of hype around Simpkin earlier in the year with him being talked up as a possible top 5 pick. He is not likely to go that high now but he has the talent to taken on spec with a mid to late first round pick or at latest an early second round pick. Teams have access to a lot more information that I do and reports from last year, the preseason and his early work with Murray and the AFL Academy this year and it is not out of the question that someone could go high on him.

Simpkin was predominantly a small forward last year who was transitioning into the midfield this year. He is quick and moves through traffic well and, those who have seen a fair bit of him, seem to be onboard with him making an easy transition into the midfield. The Bushies talent manager has stated that he managed 26 disposals in his round 1 TAC game this year although I note officially he is listed as only managing 18 disposals. He played as a forward in the two games he played for the AFL Academy this year. From what little I have seen of him onball he seems pretty clean but I did not have him pegged as an inside specialist but he could well have shown more in that area if he had not gotten injured. I do like the way he moves through a pack and his ability to read the tap work and the bounce of the ball on the ground. He gets an early read and moves before others.

Most of Simpkin's exposed form has been as a small forward. In that role he has looked good and I think it is highly likely that is where he is going to start his AFL playing career. He picked up 7 goals at the Champs last year for Vic Country as a bottom ager and showed really nice goal sense and ability to be in the right place at the right time. He has good football IQ and he positions himself well around goals. His skills are pretty good and he hits targets inside 50 nicely. He kicks a little under the ball with his set shots but I am not seeing too much technically wrong. He has good penetration on his set shot and kicking them from 50 is no trouble for him. He is not the same caliber of leading small forward or mark as Ainsworth but he is reasonable in both of those categories.

On the outside he shows some nice ball carrying ability. He positions himself to receive in a way where he can move it on or run straight away. He moves the ball on quickly in the direction of goal and has pretty good hurt factor on his disposals. He is evasive with the ball in hand and has a nice burst of pace.

From watching him play I would have thought he had equivalent athletically to Ainsworth, so sub 3.00 pace but with perhaps a fraction better endurance (although Ainsworth tested better in the beep test than I thought he would so they may be about even now). He looks to have good agility although he is more of a fluid mover than a type who gets away from an opponent with a violent change of direction.

Simpkin suffered a severe broken leg that kept him out for most of this season. Bad leg breaks can be serious and some guys are never the same. Reports I have read though have indicated the he is recovering well and should be right to go for the start of the preseason with the club who picks him.

9. Oliver Florent

Florent had some moments at the Champs but for me he was looking more like a third rounder rather than a first rounder after playing up forward for Metro and averaging 12 disposal a game across the four games. He had been consistent in the TAC but the concern was that he did not have the ability to step up to the next level. The All Star game though changed the perception of many including myself. With Brodie and Settlefield not playing, Florent got the chance onball and was one of the best on ground. He finished with 28 disposals in what was probably his best game of the year. He then followed that game up with a very good performance at the Combine.

At Combine, Florent was equal first in the clean hands test and the beep test. He was also top 10 in the agility test with an 8.26 and in the top 15% in the running jumps. His speed test was a bit slower than I expected at 3.02 but certainly good enough. He did have a couple of bad and unusual results though. His repeat sprint was particularly baffling at 26.06 which given decent speed and good endurance was hard to explain. The other was his 3km time which unlike his beep test was very average. Overall though I consider him to be a good athletic package.

Florent probably starts on a half forward flank but I am not sure he really stands out in that role. He is quite good getting up the ground and can deliver the ball into the 50 but I do not see him as a dangerous enough goal kicker at AFL level. He takes quite a few marks in space but in the contest his marking is nothing to write home about and his finishing around goal is poor. He lacks confidence and talks himself into missing shots on goal.

If Florent is going to succeed I see him doing so through the midfield although he still has a lot to learn in that role and needs to work on accumulating more of the ball. Despite picking up a very nice 28 disposals in the All Star game he did not get over 30 disposals in any of his TAC games and averaged a tick under 20 per game over the year. He regularly has very quiet periods during games and he disappears for significant periods. If I took him I would look to play him in the reserves next year purely as a midfielder. Let him work on his midfield skills and get them to a level where he can be introduced the year after and succeed.

Onball he has good elusiveness in traffic and gets to where the taps are going really nicely. He positions himself well to collect the ruck taps and his hands are pretty clean especially with the ball on the ground where he keeps his head down well. He does not have a lot of hurt factor when he is onball at the moment but he can give his team first use of the ball which is important.

Physically he has okay height although he tends to play short. He is still fairly fine in the upper body but his lower half is solid and he looks like he will fill out well as he matures. He lacks strength at the moment and will need to spend a lot of time in the gym in his early years. Both in the arms and through the body he needs greater strength and power.

Skills-wise is a bit of hit and miss at the moment but the good is very good. He is capable of delivering a lovely low kick to a target which can create opportunities for his team. On the other hand he does have more than his fair share of clangers which seem to go straight to the opposition. Teams will be hoping with more work his kicking will be more consistent and they can take the shockers out of his game. It could be something that is noticed early in his career. By hand he is pretty good and is capable of delivering a nice long handball is needed.

Florent has a high risk of failure and probably more than you would like in the top 10. It is entirely possible that he ends up another Christian Salem but the team that takes him will be hoping that they end up with another Zach Merrett on their hands.

10. Brandan Parfitt

I think Parfitt is the most underappreciated player in this draft. He has excelled at every level and he has got a lot of elite traits that will translate to AFL football. There are only a few players who can take over and dominate a game in this draft and Parfitt is one of them. In Div 2 I have watched him both this year and last and he has been fantastic as the midfield leader of the NT side. Kennelly (who is an abysmal coach imo) insisted on playing him mostly deep forward for the Allies and he did not stand out, but if you paid attention when he was in the middle you would have noticed that he was actually one of the Allies most effective midfielders. Kennelly played favourites to the detriment of his team and there were several kids like Parfitt who deserved more of a chance than he provided. The Allies and the team he coached in the All Star game both badly underperformed and guys like Parfitt are going to fall down the pecking order because of his incompetence.

Anyway enough of my rant on Kennelly's shortcomings. Parfitt I think is right with Brodie and SPS as the best inside ball winners in this draft. Parfitt is not tall but he is powerful over the ball and is probably one of the most difficult guys to get on the ground in this draft. He has a low centre of gravity and is exceptionally well balanced. He has good elusiveness but is scragged a fair bit but rarely goes to ground. He has a series of go to moves and excels at getting through, around or shrugging these tackles. He takes his time getting the ball out from the clearances which often sees him end up in the grasp but he rarely dies with the ball, keeping his arms free excellently and getting the ball away almost without fail. He positions himself well to receive at the ruck and is an elite read of the taps whether from his own or the opposition ruckman.

When playing though the midfield he spreads and links up well. He can rack up big numbers if he is given the opportunity, for example in Round 21 of the SANFL U18s he collected 47 disposals, 10 marks and 10 clearances in a hugely dominant display. Parfitt is a bit of a confidence player and is at his best when he is the main man in his team. He can go into his shell a little when he is not valued highly. I think his coach is going to need to be cognisant of this and manage him accordingly and it could take him a little while to really come into his own at AFL level.

The one area where he really needs to work on in his kicking. At the moment he is pretty untidy and misses targets too regularly. He is capable of delivering some really nice kicks especially into 50 but at the moment he is too casual and perhaps a bit eager to get it onto the boot rather than taking the half second more to balance up and fix his target in his mind. When he is in space he can be very damaging but he can waste a lot of possessions at or not make them count as much as they should. I am not exactly sure what makes me have this opinion but I have the feeling that Parfitt's kicking might be something which can be turned around fairly easily. Up forward I am less confident. He was put in the forward pocket in a lot of rep games this year and I am not convinced that he will be best served to play there at the next level. He does some good things and gets some chances but I do not think he has great goal sense and his finishing is quite poor.

Where Parfitt does add value no matter where he is playing on the ground is with his defensive work. He reminds me a lot of Cyril with his tackling and chase effort. When you look at Parfitt you do not expect a speedster but that is deceiving. He has really nice pace, plays the angles really well and chases with 100% effort. Take a look at the run downs of Rotham and Piper at the Champs. Both are speedsters and Parfitt mowed them down in the open field. The Piper one was particularly of note for me given it was over about 40m and is not the kind of chase you often see from the star players at junior level. Parfitt is a very willing tackler and if he gets his chance in the midfield at AFL level his tackle numbers will be very good.

If the pundits are correct and Parfitt goes outside the top 30 I think someone is going to get a serious bargain. As you can see I rate him highly and think he could end up one of the steals of the draft.

11. Sam Powell-Pepper

SPP was widely considered to be a top 10 pick at the start of the year but has fallen away for most people since that time. I am keeping the faith though albeit I have him just outside the top 10 here. SPP is the kind of superior power athlete that is made for the AFL and I see him as a Tom Bell type who can actually kick the ball (I acknowledge that some will be sceptical with this statement as to his kicking ability). He is very strong, has great endurance, is explosive off the mark and is elusive. That kind of package should be attractive to a lot of teams and I think he can become a weapon at the next level.

Lets deal with the two big perceived negatives first. The first is his kicking. I think a lot of the negativity about his kicking this year probably comes from game against Metro where he could not hit the side of a barn. He missed target after target that day. I acknowledge people should be worried by that game but for me that is an anomoly and is not reflective of how far he has come. He was very raw last year with his kicking and I think he has made great progress over the last 12 months ironing out the flaws. Now I think he has a well-balanced, uncomplicated kicking style that generally works well. There are still off days but there has been definite improvement and that was very evident in the All Star game where I thought his kicking looked very tidy. There is still room to improve but he is trending in the right direction and he is already better than most appreciate. I think the big weakness with his disposals is not with his kicking but with his handballing. He is very untidy by hand and it is something which still needs a lot of work. The kid will work though and I think he gets there.

The bigger issue for me is the simple fact that he does not find enough of the ball. For someone with his physical gifts he should find more of the ball. At the Champs he only averaged about 15 disposals a game and it was not like he was stuck in a pocket. He was on a flank mostly with significant time onball and on the wing. He improved on that a bit in the Colts and the WAFL but not enough to give me comfort that his feel for where to run to receive has gotten good enough. Most of his disposals are hard won and he does not get out and link up enough or find space for the cheap and easy possessions. There is going to need to be a fair bit or work done on his running patterns but if they can teach Tom Bell where to run I am sure SPP can be taught as well.

What SPP does better than anyone else in this draft is hit a pack at pace and come away with the ball. He is a big unit (already 90kgs) and opponents are reluctant to get between him and the ball. He is powerful, well balanced and has explosive pace and that makes him difficult to contain when he gets it. He also has a devastating sidestep which is going to be as effective at AFL level as it is at junior level. It is a big sidestep and he executes at pace which makes him very difficult to tackle even if he was not as big as he is. Unless you get your shoulder behind the tackle he will just brush through and come out the other side. Teams are going to want to get him the ball more than he is now as he can turn teams around. He might not have fantastic top end speed but he is not slow and he has recorded a 15.5 beep previously (he only managed 14.5 at the Combine where I think he was carrying a bit of extra poundage).

Speaking of the Combine, he was one of the stars there and certainly reminded teams of what he can do. In addition to the beep test he was also top 10 in the agility test with an 8.24 which is excellent for such a bulky guy. His 10m 28sec in the 3km was good and 3.00 for the 20m very solid. I am generally not the biggest fan of the skills test but it is worth mentioning that SPP lead the way in the goal kicking test with a perfect score and was in the top 10 in the clean hands. The one negative he had for the weekend was the repeat sprint which was quite poor for some reason. Overall it is hard not to be impressed with his performance given how many of those who played the week before in the All Star game, like he did, did not have good performances at the Combine.

Whether SPP succeeds at AFL level could very well come down to where he plays. If he is played in defence I think he could very well flop. In defence he tightens up with his kicking and turns it over a lot. He also tends to curb his natural attacking game and gets too conservative. Where he needs to be played is on a forward flank with some time on the wing. He is not the best mark of the ball but with the ball in hands he will attack a defence and can find a seam. He is a pretty good kick of the ball into 50 and can create opportunities. He has good penetration on his kicks and can kick them from outside 50 if needed. With the ball on the ground I think he has pretty clean hands (maybe not elite but good for a forward) and he can finish. He has been a consistent goal kicker in the west this year. He is particularly dangerous in contested situations up forward as he can use his big body to clear the way and create opportunities and his attack on the ball makes things happen.

SPP might be the best tackler in the draft this year. He tackles hard and often and opponents know when he is about and this can make things happen as they make sure they get it away quickly. To finish the year SPP had 7 tackles in the Colts GF and another 5 in the All Star game. He influences games with his defensive work and coaches will like that from a forward / midfielder. Speaking of the All Star game, I thought he was very influential in that one and looked like one of the better prospects out there. He again only managed 18 disposals but he was certainly an impact player. He is likely to start his career as an impact player off the forward flank but hopefully he learns to find more of it and he moves into the midfield. If he learns to find more of the ball he could be a very important player for a team.

12. Brennan Cox

People have been very negative about the key positions this year and whilst I am onboard with that for the key forwards, I think it is well off base for the key defenders. There is quality and depth this year and whilst there is not someone who is the quality of Weitering, there are 7 or 8 guys who could be critical pieces of their team's defence going forward. It is difficult to pick who is the best of those options and with only a little confidence I am going with Cox to take the title.

Cox is a big, powerful guy with reasonably good pace and neat skills. He measured short at the Combine (so did a great number of players which causes me to think that the AFL have cocked up the measures again) but to me he looks to have nice KP size. It is worth noting he did some rucking at SANFL Ressies level and did okay. He has a very good running jump (top 6%) and a good reach which combined with his height should allow him to compete with virtually anybody. He is already over 90kgs and he is going to be a big unit after he has finished growing and spent a couple of years in an AFL gym.

Cox has good agility and change of direction and combined with nice short burst speed allows him to go with most forwards operating in the forward 50. Where he can struggle a bit is sustaining that pace after about 30m. So if you can get someone who can get out on long leads he can get worked over a bit. So I could see him handling a Jack Reiwoldt type much more easily than a Nick Reiwoldt type.

Cox reads the ball in the air pretty well and is a reasonable mark of the ball. There are certainly better marks in this draft but he does position himself well to mark, uses his body and strength well and will take his fair share. He is a defender though who does not take chances. If in doubt he will spoil and he lead the champs in spoils at 3.5 per game. I like his discipline.

With the ball in hand Cox is one of the most relaxed key defenders you will see. He takes his time with the ball, doesn't panic and looks like the kind of guy you can rely on to make good decisions. Going forward his style is a bit like Heath Grundy. He has an easy kicking style and he does not overkick his passes. His vision and option taking are good for a key position but probably only average for a smaller player. Still he is a guy that can be relied on when they are moving the ball forward and I would have liked him to be more involved in the offense than he was at the Champs. 13 disposals a game is pretty decent for a KPD but there is scope for him to do better than that.

By hand Cox lacks a bit of power and can be a bit untidy. With that said he did produce one of the more memorable plays in the All Star game with a handball. At one stage he had his kick smothered, followed up and got a high handball receive and jumped to collect the ball with a man coming at him. Cox collected and brought the ball down and handballed around the opponent to his man. It was both very smart and very skilful.

Whilst I am promoting Cox as a defender it is also worth noting that he has played quite a bit of time up forward and he could be swung forward to good effect at the next level if there is a need. Overall I think he is a nice package that will play a lot of games in the AFL at a very high level. I would say Chip Frawley is a fair comparison for him.

 

[Quigley]

13. Griffin Logue

Logue is the first KP coming off a lot of people's board now that Marshall has fallen down the list. I have dropped him below Cox mainly because I have a bit of positional uncertainty with Logue. Logue has played in defence, up forward, through the midfield and even some ruck. He was doing well in the midfield in the Colts and suddenly everyone thinks he is going to be another big bodied mid at the next level. Personally I think if he is going to make it, it is going to be as a defender. He played in defence in his WAFL games this year and I thought he looked best when in defence for WA at the Champs. The problem with him in defence is he is a bit of a tweener and he lacks the height you would like in a key position and when he is getting compared against some of the medium defensive options he doesn’t stand out not nearly as much. I do think he has the ability to play big and there could well be an opportunity for him to play as a specialist on one of the 190-195cm medium forwards who are becoming more prevalent e.g. Gunston, Mitch McGovern, Tom Lynch (Adelaide version), Darling, Bont.

What I really rate with Logue is his aggressiveness. A lot of the bigger guys you see at junior level just cruise through on their talent. When you see a big guy who attacks the ball and hunts the ball it really makes him stand out. Logue has a hyper competitive attitude that he brings to his football and he just does not want to lose a contest. Package that with decent size and elite athleticism and you get someone who you would back to succeed at the next level.

Logue comes from a running and elite rower background. Given his background it should surprise no-one that he has elite endurance but his Combine results showed he has more strings to his athletic bow than that. He was in the very top few in the endurance tests at the Combine finishing with a 15.1 in the beep and going under 10 minutes in the 3km. Those are very good results from a guy who was carrying quite a bit of bulk (weighing in at 94kgs). I also liked that with that bulk he finished in the top 10% of the jumps and went under 3 seconds in the 20m. His agility test was also pretty good and he was just outside the top 10% in the repeat sprint. Overall it was hard not to be impressed with what he managed to do at the Combine.

Logue brings that athleticism to his game. He covers a lot of ground and does so at pace. When in defence he can get forward and provide nice, linking running. As mentioned above he does lack a little height but his jumping compensated for that at this level. Overall at the Champs he seemed to be able to go with his forward match up without too much drama. In addition to his athleticism he is a bit of a wide load that doesn't mind throwing his weight around. He is strong and he is hard to move once he has set himself.

Skills-wise Logue is solid. He is a left footer who has the typical easy left footer style. He does not bite off a heap with his kicks and for that reason his passes usually get where they are aimed at. Logue is getting some comparisons to Bontempelli which quite frankly I do not see apart from in one area. That one area is his handballing. When Bont was a junior his big weapon was not his kicking but his handpasses. His kicking was pretty average I thought but his handballing was elite. Logue's handballs are not of that level but they are very good and like Bontempelli at this age his handballs are usually more dangerous than his kicks. Logue has excellent penetration on his handballs and he can really set his teammates away.

As far as the way he plays football, I think he plays a lot like the McGoverns. He does not mark the ball as well as either of the brothers (although he is a pretty good mark) but he has that kind of loose confident way of going about things. He is the size of Mitch rather than Jeremy but he plays more physically like Jeremy does.

14. Jarrod Berry

There were a few bottom agers from last year who were really expected to kick on this year, who disappointed a bit this year. Berry would be one who would fall into that category for most I would suggest. He is still likely to be taken in the teens, so he has not fallen too far, but he is not seen as the can't miss prospect he was at this stage last year. A big selling feature for him has always been his character and that continues to be the case despite having a less than ideal year. He was the Vic Country captain and won the medal at the AFL Academy for the player who best epitomised the academy ideals. Character is valued higher than ever in the AFL at the moment and that helps Berry get picked higher than guys who had comparable seasons.

Berry had a shoulder reconstruction after last season and had an interrupted preseason as a result. He also had some issues with the shoulder over the year and that would concern teams as shoulders never get back to the way they were and it could affect his marking ability. Take Fyfe as an example of a guy who is an excellent mark but the shoulder issues just keep reoccurring. That could easily happen with Berry. Interestingly, Berry looked lighter to me this year than last year. Last year Berry looked a very developed bottom ager with some nice muscle bulk. This year he looked more slight and not as cut as he was last year. Despite his slight build I thought he showed some nice strength through the hips but it might have been that his shoulder injury has affected the amount of time he has spent in the gym.

The other concern for me is probably the lack of disposals he managed this year. He was mostly on the defensive flank but he did move around a fair bit in the TAC this year, spending time not only at the back but also through the midfield and some time up forward. In the TAC he only managed 16.8 disposals a game which is a bit low for a running flanker type. He seems smart enough and has the endurance to run his opponent into the ground but he did not seem to be getting to space enough. I am not sure exactly what was going on but the lack of production is a bit of a flag for me.

One area where Berry did improve quite a bit this year was with his kicking. I had serious concerns about his disposal skills last year but this year he looked much more solid. He seems to have cleaned up his kicking style, with less of an around the corner style and he has wound back the risk level on his kicks. When I have seen him this year he has taken the safer options most often and hit them. The touch on his kicks seems a lot better this year as well. Although I don't put a lot of store in the skills testing at the Combine it is worth noting he was in the top 15% in both the kicking and clean hands test. The goal kicking was a different story though where he was in the bottom 5%.

Overall Berry had a very good Combine with no real weaknesses being highlighted. He won the 3km with 9.46, a personal best, and was equal first in the beep test with 15.1. He was also in the top 10 in the agility test and the repeat sprint. His 20m was nothing to write home about at 3.01 but it was not a weakness by any means. He probably performed poorest in the jumps where he was average or below in each of the tests. Taken as a whole though, Berry demonstrated that he is a very impressive athletic package.

I see Berry as a back flanker at AFL level and I think he should do pretty well. Defensively he is quite good and does a job well. He has been a very good intercept marker and if that is not affected by his shoulder problems he could be a nice option as a loose option at the back. He does need to make better use of his run though. If I was asked for a comparison I would probably go with Nick Haynes of GWS.

15. Jack Bowes

I am not the biggest fan of Bowes but it has probably come time to get him off the board. For the record I am not doubting Bowes talent. He is a very talented player but I do doubt his application and the amount of work he does for his team. I would compare him to Hamish Hartlett in both his talent levels and the likely level of disappointment that fans will have watching him. Hartlett is extremely talented but also extremely frustrating as any Port fan will tell you. They can see that the potential to be a great player is there if he worked harder and gave a crap. Hartlett puts up nice stats and supporters from other clubs will just look at the numbers and think he is a good player without realising all the things he doesn't do and that he could easily be doing. Expect your stress levels to rise next year GC fans.

Bowes plays all over the ground but probably does his best work in the midfield. He reads the play nicely and positions himself to receive well. He is composed when he gets the ball even if he is in the grasp. He wins his share of the clearances but I would not say he is a clearance specialist. He finds quite a lot of the ball inside but does not do a lot with it and you will often not notice his work. He will get little handballs out that do not clear the pack and are held in or he just scraps something out. His hands are pretty quick but he is not always clean with his collects. All that is despite the fact that he smooth as he moves through the contest and you sort just assume he is doing something useful.

Style over substance is a bit of a common trait of Bowes' midfield game. His kicking is another prime example of this. Bowes' kicking style is very nice. He is relaxed when he kicks the ball and kicking just seems an extension of running for him. The unfortunate thing is that his kicks fail to get where they should, an alarming number of times. Watch a game and keep an eye on the number of times his kicks bounce in front of his target. So whilst his kicking might look very pretty, the weighting of his kicks need a lot work. With that said I do think his reading of the play is good and he assesses his options quickly and takes the right one virtually all the time when he has some space. His vision is good and he seems to know what is happening around him.

Bowes can be dangerous up forward. He is a good mark of the ball and a pretty good finisher around goal. He gets forward from the centre and can be a goal scoring threat ahead of the ball when playing through the midfield. He can buy himself time up forward and create goal scoring opportunities for himself and those around him. He has gotten onboard with the Stevie J, around the corner kicks up forward and generally he is pretty skilled with their use.

Athletically Bowes is very solid. His tank is pretty good and he ran a 14.3 beep and 10.17 3km which are both in the good categories. Similarly his jumps were in the top 20% and his agility and his repeat sprints were above average. His 20m runs were interesting and I think helped me explain some discrepancies in my notes. I had noted several times in games I watched that he seemed slow around the contests and other times commented that he was showing a good burst of pace. At the Combine Bowes' 20m was really solid at 3 seconds flat but invariably his first 5m and 10m were very slow. I think what that shows is that Bowes lacks a bit of explosiveness but has good top end speed.

My big issue with Bowes throughout the year has been consistency and effort. Bowes disappears for long periods in games and sometimes for whole games. He has been a featured player in every game he played this year but more often than not has not deserved the time he has received. He has been a pet of the coaches even when his effort did not warrant it. I have noted several times when I was watching him specifically that he just seemed to be content to cruise around the park without any real desire to put that little bit more effort in to involve himself in play. This is particularly the case with his defensive run. When he is actually playing in defence he is not too bad but when he is in the middle or up forward he puts no effort in to do the work needed and is instead just content to trail along behind and when he is in a position to make a tackle more often than not he mails it in with a half-hearted arm tackle. I have supported a team this year whose whole midfield look good on paper but who consistently put in the kind of effort I saw from Bowes this year. The Lions midfield was a central reason for our historically bad defensive performance and Bowes will leak more goals than he gets with the effort levels he currently shows. Until he learns to do differently I can see him having Rocket's boot about 3 foot up his arse.

16. Shai Bolton

Bolton is the kind of flashy impact player that some team falls in love with each year and ends up going higher than most expect. I rate Bolton's ability to bring his game to the AFL and am willing to back him in to succeed and think this is about as low as he is likely to go on the actual day.

The two issues that I have with Bolton are that he is short and the fact that I would like him to find more of the ball. You can't do much about the former but I can see Bolton finding more of the ball as he improves his endurance. His endurance is on the low end of acceptable but, like most of the indigenous guys, I expect his tank to improve significantly once he gets into a full time environment. The rest of his athletic profile though is impressive. He ran a 2.95 in the 20m, was right at the top of the jumps and was a 25.10 runner in the repeat sprint.

As is often the case for guys who don't train for it (see Cyril) Bolton struggled in the agility test a bit. You only have to watch him play though to recognise that he has exceptional agility. He plays at pace and his cuts are sharp and clean. His stop and go work are the best in this draft class and he is generally very elusive. With all that said, I do think he needs a bit of work on selling his sidesteps and direction changes. His moves can be read and he will be nailed on occasions at the next level.

The player I would compare him to is Lewis Jetta. Like Jetta, Bolton is a line breaker. He loves a run and his long, balanced gait eats up the turf. He is an outside player but he is exceptionally clean below his knees. He specialises in his one handed pick-ups at pace and will be there and gone before the opponents can shut him down and once he is gone he can get in behind defensive zones very quickly. He is mostly an outside player but he can go inside on occasions and he is okay in the phone box despite being very much a string bean. Like Jetta, Bolton has a very lean build and really needs to put on some muscle to compete fully at AFL level.

One thing that really stands out for Bolton is the pace at which he plays the game. Whilst that makes a lot of things happen when he gets the ball it can affect his kicking. He is a bit scrappy at the moment and often just misses his targets. I think when he gets into an AFL team his coaches are going to stress that he needs to take his time and concentrate a bit more and perhaps slow down marginally a step before he delivers. He seems to be quite good off either foot and I really do think the issues he has at the moment arise from his desire to do everything at full speed. He does slow and balance when kicking for goal and is a pretty good finisher. He might start his career as a small forward and he has pretty good goal sense and finishing ability.

Bolton does some decent defensive work but I would not say it is a big part of his game at the moment. He is a reasonable tackler for an outside junior and he will mix it up well for a guy who weighs virtually nothing. He does have a bit of a hunter mentality though and I could see him bringing that to his work as a defensive forward. He has the closing speed to shut defenders down as they are trying to exit the defensive 50.

Another big positive for me with Bolton is his 1%er work. He has a real impact on games with his smothers, tap ons etc. Bolton is a footballer and reads the play really nicely and knows what he has to do to help his team. He will get his hand in where it needs to go or just be in the right place. Overall I think he is a nice prospect in the second half of the first round or beginning of the second and could be a nice finishing touch for a team who have their engine room sorted out.

17. Brad Scheer

For a long time I had Scheer ahead of Bowes but in the end I just couldn’t do it although it was tempting and probably deserved. I think he is the complete opposite of Bowes in a lot of respects. Where Bowes has been feted and spoon fed the whole year and he has underperformed, in my book Scheer has quietly brought his lunch pale and gave his best every game. Bowes looked lazy and took a lot of games off. Scheer did the hard things and worked his butt off each game. People have been prepared to overlook Bowes' many lacklustre games and have for the most part overlooked Scheer. Bowes has the higher ceiling of the two but I am not sure he has the will to succeed. Scheer lacks the same talent but he will leave nothing in the tank and will get the absolute most out of himself. I think you can build a willing culture around what Scheer can give you. I am not sure you can say the same about Bowes.

Scheer is an inside mid who is fairly decent as an option resting up forward. He is a good all-round player but he does not have any stand out traits. You are going to hear a lot of the word "good" in this description and none of "elite". In the middle of the ground Scheer is a good ball winner. He reads the ball off hands well and positions himself well to receive. He attacks the ball when it is in dispute and wins more than his fair share. His hands are solid but nothing more than that. He bobbles the ball a bit when collecting and takes a fraction of a second more than the top guys to control the ball. He does win a lot of clearances though and does well getting his team first use of the ball. His hands are also not super quick although they are above average.

He is an enforcer in tight and will be a guy teams will want having the back of their star players. He throws himself around and will go head to head with the opposition hard nut. I really did enjoy his clashes with Sam Powell-Pepper at the champs where both of the big bucks clashed. He is not dirty but his attack on the ball is hard, he has a solid body and when he tackles, he tackles hard.

In addition to his work inside Scheer also works hard to spread. He is not a big runner with the ball but he gets involved in disposal chains and keeps the ball moving for his team. His disposal skills are only average. He can at times throw the ball in the air a bit when he kicks and when he does he will often miss his target but at others time he can make some nice kicks. By hand he is okay but lacks a little penetration.

Up forward Scheer uses his strong body to good effect. He protects the drop zone well in marking situations and will bustle guys out of the way. His set shot technique is not really natural but technically he seems fine and he can slot his set shots pretty well. From open play I think his finishing around goal leaves a bit to be desired.

Athletically Scheer probably has decent endurance and below average pace. He does not have great explosiveness but he makes good use of the pace he does have through work rate.

Overall I like Scheer and the attitude that he brings to the game. There are more talented players in this draft but there are few who work harder and who do more to put his teams in a position to win games. Give me that over a lot of those talented guys who work only for themselves and not for their teammates.

18. Josh Rotham

Rotham is another who probably did not live up to expectations this year but I think showed enough to tempt many teams with his talent. The question I think is not if he is going to be taken it is going to be when. He is such an enticing package I could see a team jumping early-ish on him even if his production this year did not match his talent.

Rotham is a long striding player with an elite burst. He ran a 2.92 over the 20m at the Combine and I think I read that he had gone under 2.9 previously. He loves to get out and run although he does tend to go east - west too much and not north – south enough. He tested pretty mid range for agility but he seems pretty nimble for a guy of his size. On his other testing, he was in the top 20% to 30% in the jumps and won the kicking efficiency. The one real weakness that was evident at the Combine was Rotham's endurance. He only managed a 12.75 which puts him right in Scrimshaw territory and it is a concern for me. Unlike Scrimshaw though, Rotham should play at the back and not the midfield which make endurance a bit less important and his result a bit more palatable.

One of the strengths of Rotham is his kicking. He regularly took the kickins for the teams he played with including for the All Stars. I would not say he is an elite kick but he is certainly above average and his option taking is pretty good by foot. The same could probably not be said when he goes by hand. He loves to go long by hand and often deep in defence. In my opinion he does it too much and I think the forwards at AFL level are going to sweat on his handballs and initially he is going to concede goals. Too often he handballs to a flatfooted option or to a recipient who is likely to be nailed by opponents who are a step or two quicker than he is used to playing against. He loves to handball to a teammate and wrap around to get it back. That is nice and he does have the pace to make it work often but I would like to see him moving it forward by foot earlier than he does at the moment. He currently plays a bit too risky for my liking in defence and his strategy will allow AFL defensive zones to recover and set and make it all the more difficult to exit.

Rotham is also a keen flyer for a mark even in defence. He has nice height and a good jump and stretch. He judges it pretty well and has good body control in the air. His hands are only probably average but they are good enough for him to come down with spectacular marks from time to time. In fairness to him, although he loves a flashy play he is quite disciplined defensively and he will spoil when he has to and when he flys he usually controls where the ball goes even if he doesn't bring it down. He uses his pace and height to control his opponent on the lead and he is not often beaten by medium types. I think AFL small forwards who have sharp change of directions could give him trouble but he does have good closing speed which allows him compensate for a little bit of slowness in his change of direction.

The player I would compare him to at AFL level is Andrew Mackie. I see him as that kind of medium defender who can play as a third tall if needed. Rotham does need to build his engine and get involved more going forward but the potential is there for him to be a major influence offensively if he can get his endurance up. If a coach gets him running the right lines he can break open a defence very quickly and once behind the zone he has the kicking ability to hit a dangerous target by foot.

 

[Quigley]

19. Dylan Clarke

To most Clarke is a very unexciting pick. He is a very blue collar, lunch pail type who turns up and does his job with no frills. What he does though is give his team first use of the ball a lot and that is a skill which helps teams win. He is a hard working type without any elite skills or traits but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Clarke is an inside ball winner who does not have any stand-out abilities he just gets to the ball regularly and gets it out. He reads the taps well and moves to the ball. Below the knees his hands are good but not elite and it is the same when he is getting it out. He is quick enough but his hands are not super slippery. He gets scragged a fair bit in close but has very good strength and retains his feet well and keeps his arms free which allows him to get the ball out. He is very composed with the ball in hand and usually does pretty well in tight.

Whilst Clarke lead the Champs in contested possessions and clearances he is more than a just an inside mid. Whilst his inside game is likely to remain his strength he has worked hard on his outside game and his spread is now very good. He averaged 25 disposals a game at the Champs and 29.4 in the TAC. He has very good endurance and he uses it effectively in game situations working hard both offensively and defensively. He is a decent tackler although there are better ones in the draft. Clarke is a strong mark of the ball and plays above his height.

There are two big weaknesses in his game. Firstly and most hard fix is his lack of pace. He really lacks explosiveness and takes an age to get going. This often results in him being tackled when he is working in tight. When he is up and going he is fairly midrange as far as pace goes. So still not quick but not the treacle slowness that he is over the first 5m. At the Combine he managed a 3.11 which is on the slow side but still quite a bit quicker than the likes of Sidebottom, Rockliff and Mathieson ran in their draft years. His 26.04 in the repeat sprint came in the 42nd percentile which gives a fair indication of where he sits pace wise when he gets up and going. He was in the bottom 10% of those tested over the first 5m of his 20m and firmly down amongst the rucks.

The other big concern with his game at the moment is probably his kicking. This one is not the same level of concern as his pace and there is an indication that he is getting better. He is a left footer and at times can look fairly neat whilst at others, his skills can look pretty ordinary and unpolished. Clarke is a guy who is prepared to work hard on his game and there has been signs of improvement with his kicking and when he gets into an AFL environment, with specialist coaches to help him, I can see him improving quite a bit.

As already evident, the Combine was a bit of a mixed bag for Clarke. His endurance testing was right up with the top few but his speed, agility and jumps were all well below average. Someone contrary to what you would expect his kicking efficiency was also good being in the top 20% but he finished in the bottom third for the clean hands.

There is a fairly big risk of failure with Clarke but if he succeeds I could, best case, see him having a career like Luke Parker, a player he reminds me a lot of.

20. Zac Fisher

Yep he is short. That makes things more difficult for him but I am glad we have moved into a stage where that is no longer terminal for his AFL career. We operate in a copycat league and with Caleb Daniel succeeding as he did last year teams are going to be more willing than ever to take a punt on shorter guys. Fisher is shorter than ideal but at 175cm he is only 2cm shorter than McGrath and Ainsworth who are likely to be taken in the top 3 or 4. Fisher played WAFL seniors all year and has shown he can adapt to playing against senior bodies. In the WAFL, Fisher averaged a very nice 19.2 disposals a game.

Fisher was selected in the All Australian side and won the award for WA's player of the Champs, averaging 21.5 disposals a game through the midfield. He consistently gave his team first use of the ball and provided great run forward. Fisher is one of those players who gets the ball and flows forward. He keeps his head up when running forward and assesses options nicely across all three levels. Execution-wise he could be better at hitting those targets but technically I am not seeing much wrong with his kicking that some time in a fully professional program will not fix. He is a left footer and looks stylish, like a lot of lefties do, and whilst he can have ordinary results at times he is certainly trending in the right direction after coming from the clouds a bit this season.

Fisher has a one for one handball to kick ratio which is pretty normal for a mid who wins as many balls inside as he does. I rate his handball skills highly and he often delivers his handballs with the zip that other mids lack. I am not sure Fisher is an elite read of the ball off hands but he moves through traffic very nicely and is excellent at positioning himself in the right spots. This positioning intelligence applies not only when he is on the inside but also when he is moving forwards. He will position himself to receive, run and deliver. He is not one of those guys who is always flatfooted facing away from goals.

I am not sure I have described this before but Fisher is a player who has really good fingertip control. He is not one of those inside mids who has big mitts that swallow up the ball, instead he controls the ball with his fingertips and he is very effective in gathering and directing the ball like that. I would classify him as a clean player who has excellent feel for the ball. Fisher plays the game with speed and makes good use of the pace that he has. He is very good at putting on a burst of pace to get into the right position to receive and he does it early so his teammate gets time to realise that he is there and in a position to receive. The player I think he plays most like is Jack Steven of the Saints. If he keeps developing as he has, he could give a team the kind of things that Steven brings to the Saints.

A wrist injury late in the year impinged on his ability to finish off the year with a flourish but as far as I am aware there is nothing in the injury which should affect his offseason. He did some of the tests at the Combine and I am not sure how much the injury affected his preparation. Hopefully it affected his beep test preparation as he only managed a 12.5 which is very poor for anyone but particularly a mid. His 10.58 in the 3km was better and would reassure teams that perhaps there is a bit of endurance there to work with. His 3.03 in the 20m was a bit slower than I expected given the way he plays but was acceptable and his 25.31 repeat sprint time was good, being in the top 20%. The beep test is a little bit of a concern but overall I thought the testing pretty much reflected a kid who has not really done this type of thing before and although it didn't do any favours I would have not thought it hurt him too much especially given the injury uncertainty.

21. Todd Marshall

This draft is probably the strongest in the last 10 years with fantastic depth across the board in virtually all areas. The one exception is in the KPFs where it is probably the weakest in the last 10 years. In most years Marshall is probably the 3rd or 4th forward off the board but this year he is probably 1st albeit at the end of the first round or early second. Marshall got a lot of early fanfare and he was being talked up as a top 3 prospect. I am glad it looks like things are returning to a more realistic level as there is no way Marshall should be being looked at in the top 5 and I would have major issues if my team took him in the top 10.

Everyone probably knows that Marshall was an elite cricketer before giving that up this year to focus on football. The way this has been sold has implied that Marshall is completely new to the game and has hardly picked up a football before this year. That idea is completely false and Marshall has played football most of his life. Sure he has split time and a significant focus was on his cricket but Marshall has played plenty of AFL.

When you see him kick the ball it is pretty clear that he has played the game a fair bit before. He does miss his fair share of targets but he is confident trying things by hand and foot whether on the right or left foot. He might in fact be the best non-preferred KPF kick that I can remember. He plays on quickly, assesses nicely and takes good options. Execution can sometimes let him down a bit but there is a great base for him to develop into a very skilled KPF. His set shot has been talked up and I do not see anything fundamentally wrong with it but overall I would consider it to be pretty average. He misses some he should get but makes enough kicks for goal for me to classify him as a good average kick for goal. His technique reminds me a bit of Tom Hawkins from the gather onwards.

Marshall is a strong, straight up the ground lead for the ball. He has reasonable pace and is often able to get a step or two of separation. He has a confident approach to flying for the ball and it doesn't seem to worry him if there is someone on his back or if someone drops into the space in front. He has good balance in the air and from looking at him you expect him to take more contested marks than he does. Above his head his hands are only average. He takes a reasonable number of marks but he is nothing extraordinary. Where he is very good for a big guy is when the ball hits the ground. He recovers quicker than other talls and is very clean below the knees. He is a quick decision maker and will feed or snap very quickly. When the ball hits the ground he becomes another dangerous medium forward.

Marshall wore down over the course of the season and generally didn't develop as a lot of people expected he would. He was a regular goal kicker but was not someone who really took over games. He didn't test at the Combine, sitting out with soreness. Marshall has a reasonably solid bottom half but his upper body needs plenty of work. Similarly with his tank. His repeat efforts are not what they could be and I think he will become a much more dangerous proposition once his endurance and strength get up to a satisfactory level. At the moment he is still very raw and is probably a couple of years away from making any significant impact at AFL level.

22. Kobe Mutch

Players like Mutch are often underestimated by the recruiting community. Mathieson is a similar type of player last year who fell down to the late 30s on the basis of poor athleticism and average skills. Mutch is in the same boat and like Mathieson what he does have are a couple of things which are very important for winning games - he gives his team first use of the ball and will work his butt off to accumulate the ball and be an option that teammates can use. He is a GWS Academy player but I think that he is gettable by other teams. GWS have a lot of Academy kids that are worth picking and Mutch is one I struggle to see breaking into the GWS side any time soon. In teams not as chock full of talent though he could be a very nice role player with upside to develop into more than that in time.

Like Perryman, Mutch is challenged for speed and agility. I would have actually thought he had more speed than Perryman but he actually had a worse 20m time (3.19) and his agility test was also worse (8.98). He is a guy though who reads the ball well and will work to get in front which minimises the speed deficiencies. With that said, take it as a given that he is not going to break away from packs at AFL level. Mutch does have good endurance (10.15 in the 3km) and he uses this to good effect in games. He finds space well with hard work and he covers a lot of ground both offensively and defensively during games. You will regularly see him appear in the defensive 50 helping out the defenders and the next minute on the forward 50 delivering to his forwards.

Mutch is a good inside player. As mentioned above he often forces his way to the front of the packs and will be in prime position to get the taps. He is not as instinctive as some of the top inside players but he puts himself in position to win the ball. His hands are clean and he has good awareness of where everyone is around him. There are occasions when he gets a handball away and you wonder how he knew the player was there. He does need to work on his handballing skills. Currently they lack zip and he is often unbalanced or has his balance going in the wrong direction when he delivers his handballs. I think his issues are very fixable with some intense work and his handballs go to the right targets they just do not get there as quickly and cleanly as they should.

Mutch is often criticised for his kicking but I probably have less of an issue with his kicks than his handballs. Mutch is proficient off either foot, has good penetration and usually operates at a good percentage for an inside mid. His hurt factor is not particularly high but by the same token he generally keeps things moving in the right direction. One thing I have noticed is that he tends to be a better kick when he is on the run rather than when he goes back over the mark. When he has been held up he tends to hold the ball quite high and pulls it up further before releasing it. The results from this kicking style are very variable for him and I am sure will be worked on.

Mutch is a good natural footballer who has a good understanding of the game and he works the angles and gets to the right spots. He is good at most things without dominating at any one particular thing apart from perhaps being able to find the ball. It is not out of the question that he could become a Tom Rockliff type inside out accumulator. He is apparently an outstanding leader and really works hard on his game.

23. Harry Perryman

I find it interesting that everyone is so high on Perryman and so low on Mutch. There is a lot of overrating of Perryman's attributes I think and undervaluing of Mutch's. Personally I think they are very similar players and give a choice I probably prefer Mutch.

Perryman is about as unathletic a midfield prospect as you will get these days. He played most of his football behind the ball but at AFL level I think his athletic deficiencies get taken advantage of and so he probably is a midfielder or bust at the next level. In defence, AFL level forwards are going to be jumping over him or running away from him if they are matched up on him. Perryman finished last in the left foot running jump at the Combine and in the bottom 10 in the other two jumps. His 20m sprint (3.13) and repeat sprint were both in the bottom 20%. Perryman did better in the beep test with a good 14.1 but his 11.05 in the 3km was in the bottom quarter of those tested.

Whilst Perryman is not a natural athlete he is a natural footballer and he compensates for his athletic deficiencies by reading the ball quicker and moving before others. He is a step ahead of others and getting between his opponent and the ball means those players have to go through him to get the ball and that is hard whether you are a superior athlete or not. In clearance situations he gets on the move early and reads it reasonably well off hands although he is not at an elite level. Below the knees his hands are clean and he often shows good speed to assess and get it out. It is worth noting though that that is not always the case and he can get caught with the ball reasonably often. He needs to work on keeping his arms free as they are pinned a bit by tacklers.

Above his head Perryman's hands are really strong and he watches the ball into his hands really nicely. He will often read the flight of the ball just that bit better than others around him and despite not being tall or able to jump, he is an excellent mark of the ball. Even when he is playing in the midfield he works back into defence a lot and he takes a lot of intercept marks.

One area where Perryman is rated by many as elite, but I just do not see it, is with his kicking. This is one area where Perryman is lauded and Mutch is criticised and I really see very little difference between the two. Credit where it is due, Perryman is one of the better kicks off his non-preferred in this draft. He is confident on his left, uses it quickly to create opportunities and usually hits his targets. Generally though, Perryman takes a lot of short options and lacks hurt factor on his disposals. When he goes longer he probably misses as many targets as he hits. He takes a lot of kick-ins and I challenge people to watch him do this and conclude he is an elite kick. His option taking is poor and it is rare that something positive for his team comes out of his kick ins. His kicking efficiency at the Champs was only 56% across his 7 games and at the Combine it is worth noting he finished in the bottom 17% in the kicking test. I think people are looking at his highlights and his ability to kick off either foot and assuming he is a great kick when the truth is something quite different.

Perryman might develop like other athletically challenged mids such as Sidebottom has but he has a fair few hurdles to get over. He has shown an ability to accumulate a lot of the ball at TAC level (30.5 disposals per game) but his stats at the Champs (17.9 across both Div 1 and Div 2 games) and in the NEAFL (11) are nothing to write home about. Personally I have Perryman as a solid second round prospect but I would not be wanting to bid a first rounder on him.

24. Declan Watson

Watson seems to be falling down the draft lists and the way things are heading someone could end up with a very big bargain. He is a Lions academy player but with the Lions having a large gap after their fourth pick at 22 there might be a real chance of another team grabbing him. I like Watson and think he looks like a prototypical modern defender who will work very well in an AFL zone defence. He is capable in a shut-down role but I do not think this is his strength.

Watson is a very good judge of the ball in the air for a key defender and is at his best when he has the flexibility to play in space and back himself to get to the ball. When he has that space it is noticeable how frequently he is the guy in the best position to mark the ball. He is not put off when others in the contest gets out of position and he will back himself in. His hands are very good for a KPD and he can clunk his marks. He shows good awareness for when to mark and when to spoil. Personally I would rate Watson as the best intercept marking tall defender in this draft.

The Combine results would have been a disappointment for Watson and, for me, things didn't really align with what I have seen of him on the field. Like quite a few he measured short and I think the 194cm he was listed as at the Champs is more likely to be accurate. He looks to have decent size. I note that his arms measured long and his reach was in at the 87th percentile which seems right. I think he has enough height to play KPD at AFL level. Pace was another area where watching him play he seems to have more than enough. Perhaps it is just that he reacts quicker than others but in game situations he looks pretty quick. The sprint results at the Combine were a bit confusing. He managed only a 3.11 for the 20m (disappointing but not disastrous) which was in the bottom 15% of those tested. In the 30m repeat sprint though he was in the top 30% which is where I had been hoping to see him in the 20m as well.

His agility test was also poor which you do not want to see from a KPD. A lot of guys who do not train for the agility test do poorly in it and I would hope this was the case for Watson. He is not a guy who seems to have trouble recovering in game situations. His endurance testing was pretty middle of the pack and that seems pretty reflective in his game tape.

I think Watson has suffered in many eye's because of he had his worst game of the year in the televised game against WA. So there are all the highlights out there of him missing targets time and again. I have seen him 7 or 8 times over the year and I think that game really misrepresented the quality of his disposal skills. Watson is an excellent kick for a KP and has been the designated kick in taker for most of the teams he has played with. He is good in that role and you can see the quality of his kicks. By way of comparison, Perryman took a lot of kick ins as well and I would say that Watson was far superior in this role. In general play he reads the play well and is not afraid to take the tight options. This can sometimes result in turnovers but I do like his confidence and in most games the results are good and he can put his teammates away. The feel on his kicks is usually very good although it can go missing sometimes.

Watson has good penetration on his handballs but he can miss targets sometimes. Under pressure Watson is composed and is not one of the KPDs who gets flustered and gives the ball away whenever someone gets close to him. He can sometimes handball to a close target under pressure but I think this has often been as much the fault of the receiver as of Watson.

Overall I really like Watson and hope the Lions pick him up. I see him developing into a very skilled, intercept marking defender who can contribute effectively both ways.

 

[Quigley]

25. Harrison Macreadie

At the beginning of the year Macreadie was being talked about as a possible number 1 pick after making the All Australian team last year. I always thought that was a bit fanciful and I had him more in the 10-20 range rather than right at the pointy end of the draft. He has slipped a bit since that time but I still think he is a good prospect for what he is and I am sure GWS are not worried about picking him up cheaper. He never had the skillset of someone like Weitering to be a defender who was in consideration to be taken at number 1.

Macreadie should end up a very solid AFL defender and possibly better than that. I would perhaps compare him to his captain at GWS, Phil Davis. Davis is a good player who is a very valuable member of his team but he is never going to be one of the stars of the competition or even of his own side. He will bring his lunch pail, do a job and involve himself a bit going the other way.

The one thing which Macreadie needs to do is play within his capabilities more. I think he read his press clippings a bit this year and often tried to do more than he should with the ball in his hands. He has solid skills but he is not an elite user of the ball and often went for too much with his kicks. I saw the Qld v NSW game live this year with Watson at one end and Macreadie at the other. It was very clear to me that Watson was a much better user of the ball notwithstanding Macreadie did not seem to realise that and was going for the same type of kicks. Those kicks were coming off for Watson but not for Macreadie but he kept going for them. That is not to say that Macreadie has poor skills, in fact he is pretty decent by foot and I think once he starts just using the open targets he should operate at a very high percentage. He did take a fair few kick ins this year and coaches do not let players who can't kick do that. Under pressure Macreadie seems composed but he does cough it up a bit, especially by hand.

Macreadie did not test at the Combine but he did measure well at 195.5 and if the heights can be believed he is one of the few KPDs this year who have good height in the new supersized AFL. Macreadie plays as a CHB and should do that at AFL level as well. He gets around the park really nicely and from watching him play I would suggest his endurance and speed testing are good for a KP without being elite. The big strength athletically I notice when I watch him is his agility. For a big guy he stops and goes very nicely and he is fluid and sharp with his changes of direction.

He is already over 90kgs and plays with strength. He is not often overpowered. When he is beaten it is often because he has given his opponent too much space and has been caught out of position. He seems a confident player who backs himself but occasionally that will lead him to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and he will find himself looking silly. That is not that common though and he benefited from playing with Garthwaite who took the close checking jobs that allowed Macreadie scope to play a looser role. He takes quite a few intercept marks but I would not say he is elite overhead either in regards to his hands or his reading of the play. He is good enough at both those but there are a few better marking defenders available this year. I like the chase that Macreadie can sometimes bring out. He will work hard and he will make sure the guy he is chasing has to operate under pressure.

I see Macreadie as a bit of a conundrum at the moment. I rate his football IQ and he does a lot of smart things on the football field. By the same token he also does quite a few things which a guy of his smarts should not. I think a bit of coaching and settling into a clearly defined role will help him a lot and GWS should end up with a very nice player if they match the bids on him.

26. Jordan Gallucci

Gallucci is a hard one to peg. He flashed some elite talent at times and at other times will do things which would have his coach tearing his hair out. This is very much a player who could end up an elite player in the competition, out of the game in 3 years time or anywhere in between.

Gallucci is a superior athlete and that is going to get him chances in this league. He broke the Combine record for the two foot jump and his running jumps were elite off either foot as well. He also won the repeat sprint with a 24.36 time and his 20m time of 2.96 was pretty good. He did not run the 3km but his beep test of 14.4 was good and showed he has enough endurance to play midfield at the next level. For someone who I had down as having good lateral movement his agility test of 8.89 was the disappointment of the athletic testing. I am not sure what to make of that. The big concern for Gallucci at the Combine was his skills testing. He did nothing to allay the concerns with his skills, finishing in the bottom third of all three tests.

I think Gallucci may have been trying to flatten out his kicks this year but it is still very much a work in progress. Currently he is too inconsistent with his kicks. His go-to kick is a little punch which he often uses to try and thread the needle. Sometimes it works and looks very good but too often he turns it over and it costs his team. When he is good with his kicks he looks like a million bucks, he will lead his targets well and weight the pass nicely. When he is bad it will miss the target badly in dangerous spots and the opposition will stream forward with his teammates out of position. I would like to see him continue to work on his punching kick but also go back to the more traditional kicking style for his standard kick. It is easier to control a kick when you kick through it properly.

The glimpses that suggest that Gallucci might turn into something special come when you see him operating at speed. When he hits a pack or clearance at speed, collects the ball cleanly and comes away with it you think of Judd or Dangerfield. He is not as big as though two but he is the same kind of strong, explosive athlete. He works through traffic nicely and is very difficult to contain. He is not a big outside runner at this stage but when he gets it he can explode away and create at pace. Gallucci's skills are better in space and do drop away significantly when under pressure.

Gallucci was played in the forward half a fair bit this year in the representative games. Of all the areas I think the forward line probably suits him least. I am hoping he is played in the middle or the back half when he gets the chance at AFL level. He works hard defensively and when in the midfield is one of the guys who will pop up deep in defence to help out the backs. His pace, endurance and jumping ability give him the tools to do a job in defence and when he gets it going the other way he can get on his bike and break open the opposition very quickly. Whilst we are talking defence it is worth noting that Gallucci is an aggressive tackler and averaged 6 per game at TAC level.

Where he played obviously influenced his disposal numbers but I would have liked to have seen him average more than 14.8 disposals at the Champs and 20 in the TAC. The lines he runs and his spread needs some work and he does not get the ball in space as much as he should for someone with his athletic gifts. He will need to work on improving this with his new team. Overall he is likely to be a second rounder and with his upside I think he should be a risk worth taking at that price.

27. Tim English

Call me old fashioned but I actually like my rucks to actually be able to ruck. Its great if they might qualify to be a C grade midfielder like English does but ultimately you want to the win the taps and English is poor in that aspect of the game. He is overaged and weak in the body and often does not even compete in the ruck contest. I usually rate rucks ahead of most people, including the AFL recruitment community, but I just am not onboard with English.

As mentioned English is overaged and still very thin, particularly in the upper body. His lower body is showing signs that he might be able to put on some bulk but I do not see him ever being an overpowering ruck. Given his late growth spurt it is possible he fills out more than I expect but I am expecting him to always be on the thin side. At 205cm though he has very good height and given one of his strengths is his fluid movement around the contest and the ground more generally I think the team who drafts him might not want him to bulk up too much and risk losing some of that lateral movement.

What gets talked up more than anything else with English is his skills and they are certainly a lot better than most rucks his age. His handballing is quite good and he is a ruck who is not afraid to kick the ball. He makes good decisions and his execution is usually good. He will miss a target from time to time but by the same token he can at times make a kick a ruck has no place making. His hands are also often talked up for being exceptionally clean but I think that aspect of his game is overrated. He finished very close to the bottom in the clean hands test and whilst I don't think he is that bad I would rate him somewhere in the middle of the pack with his hands.

Athletically English is below average even for a ruck. He struggles to get off the ground and he is quite glacial over the first 5m. He finished last in the agility test and his repeat sprint was in the bottom 13th percentile. In the endurance tests he was okay. His 13.3 in the beep test was not great but his 10.55 in the 3km was decent for a ruck.

English works back into the defensive hole pretty well in traditional ruck style and reads it pretty competently coming in. Where he is at his best though is working into space on the wing. I do not think he is a good mark of the ball but he gets to space better than most rucks and he makes himself available to be used. In a contested marking situation his lack of body strength is really telling. He is moved around very easily even by smaller opponents and I would consider his hands poor in contested marking situations. When they throw him forward he looks lost and is really ineffective. He just seems to have no idea where he should be, where he should run and how to make best use of his height. He might well improve with coaching but he is a very long way from being someone who a team can throw forward to give them goals.

Overall English has some nice abilities but people seem to be overlooking some very material holes in his game. Grundy was a much more complete prospect and he went at 18 from memory. For me English is a second round prospect.

28. Luke Ryan

If you were betting on the first mature aged prospect off the Board, Ryan would be very short odds to be him. Ryan was cut by the Essendon VFL side and was playing in the development league at the beginning of the year before breaking into the VFL for Coburg on the back of some excellent form. Over the year he had ankle and then shoulder problems which restricted him to only 10 VFL games for the year but despite that the 20 year old had done enough to win the Fothergill Medal for the best under 23 player in the VFL. This from a guy who no-one who had heard of at the beginning of the year.

Ryan is a medium defender who plays above his 186cm height. I had actually thought he would measure 190cm after I saw him play. He is a long limbed type who I don't think is a big jumper but he is good on the stretch and he plays like a third tall. He was given quite a lot of freedom in his role for Coburg and this played into his strengths allowing him to take a lot of intercept marks. He backs himself to mark the ball against opponents and he comes away with the mark most often. He is a good read of the ball in the air and sometimes he looks excellent. At others he looks only okay with an ability to adjust well late. He protects the drop zone well when he is marking the ball.

The other real strength of Ryan is his kicking. In his VFL games this year he had a kicking efficiency percentage of 86.4 which is elite by any standard. When he gets the ball he does a good job at keeping his head up and scanning the field. He tends to play within his capabilities a lot and goes short more often than not. He is a safe user of the ball who does not take a lot of risks.

Ryan is not a running defender. He is one of those types who will receive the ball and stop and assess and then look to set up play with his kicking. He does a good job of that but I am not seeing him as a zone breaker at AFL level. He is a good kick and will help a team pick their way through a zone rather than run or kick over it.

With his shoulder surgery, Ryan did not test at the Combine and I am not sure how many teams would actually have a lot of data on his athletic capabilities given his lack exposure at the top level. To me he looks to only be a moderate athlete and I am not expecting him to be an under 3 or over 14 beep test runner.

Ryan has come a long way in a short period and it is fair to assume there is a fair bit more development in him. I don’t see him as a can’t miss prospect or a real difference maker at the next level but I can see him being a valuable piece of an effective defensive unit.

29. Elliott Himmelberg

Elliott is the brother of Harrison who was drafted as an academy player for GWS last year. His parents moved last year though and so he has been with the Lions academy this year. Given that he has only been in Qld for one year and he moved away from NSW he is not actually eligible for either Brisbane or GWS and so he is available to anyone and there is no matching rights for either team.

Himmelberg has been out with injury since the middle of the year (ankle I think) and I think as a consequence he has been overlooked by many amateur draft watchers. I expect though that the professionals will not have missed him and he might appear higher than a lot of people expect. There is a lot of potential in Himmelberg and I think a lot of teams are going to be hoping he slips through to them at a particular point in the draft. It is going to be interesting to see who jumps first and, as mentioned I think it will be sooner than many expect.

Himmelberg is still a little rough around the edges but he is very capable at either end of the ground. Like his brother I expect him to end up as a defender but I have to concede others, who have seen more of him, see him as a forward long term. Suffice it to say he is a legitimate KP who has the potential to play at either end.

Whilst others at the Combine were measuring short, Himmelberg came in and measured above his listed 196cm. He is still very light but he has excellent height for his position. With his injury he did not do any testing which is a shame as I would have liked to see how he went. On the field he looks like he lacks a little pace off the mark but once he is up and going his top end speed looks pretty good. When in defence he is a good close checking player and seemed to have enough pace to go step for step with his opponent. Up forward he also looked like he had enough pace to get and maintain separation. For a tall player he has really nice agility and he uses that to create opportunities for himself. He recovers quickly when the ball is on the ground and he just seems to be a step or two ahead of his opponent in tight situations. He does not look particularly fluid but he is effective all the same.

As mentioned down back, Himmelberg is a close checking player who gets his fist in really nicely to effect a lot of spoils. I really liked his combination with Watson for Qld. Himmelberg was able to do a job that allowed Watson more space to play the intercept marking game that he does so well. Having a tall that can come in and shut down the number 1 opposition KPF is huge and I think many teams need that. At the defensive end, Himmelberg is not a big offensive contributor but he is not a liability either. He needs to work getting off his man more but he can get involved in chains going forward and when he does he is very competent. His handballing is solid and he has decent penetration on his kicking. He needs to flatten his kicks out a bit but he usually gets the ball to where it needs to go. Work needs to be done but I am expecting his skills to be solid at the next level.

Up forward there is a lot to like with Himmelberg as well. At his height he is difficult to handle and he is smart with where he leads to and when. His hands are good without being elite but he will clunk them. He marks in front of his eyes but doesn’t always use his height to its fullest effect. His set shot technique is solid. He has a low hold on the ball and a balanced approach. He pulls the ball up a little when he kicks it but not really enough to have a material effect on his set shot and overall I would say he is a good shot for goal. He seems to have good awareness of where to go when the ball hits the ground and he will either chase it or position himself to receive in space. For a big guy I like Himmelberg's positioning. He is not one of those guys who seems to always have his back to goal when he gets it. Himmelberg moves himself into a position where he can take a shot and more often than not on the fat side.

Himmelberg did some rucking at the Champs but I do not see him doing that at the next level. Still he showed some very decent jumping ability and an ability to land and recover quickly. He will contest the ruck and then bustle in to influence the play as another midfielder.

If your team ends up with Himmelberg be glad as I think he could end up a real bargain.

30. Patrick Kerr

If you categorise Himmelberg as a KPD, I would probably have Kerr as the second KPF off the board after Marshall. Some would have Battle next but the weaknesses of Kerr I think are less career limiting than Battle's are. Kerr is probably ahead of Marshall on production this year and current state but it’s hard not to take Marshall ahead of Kerr on potential. I see Kerr potentially developing into a nice second or third banana but I find it hard to see him being the primary focus of a forward line. Marshall I could see leading an offence.

Kerr is a bit of a straight line player who leads hard out from goal. He does his best work in the forward 50 out to about a kick and a half from goal. He is not going to be a wide-ranging type. He can sustain a lead but I am just not seeing him having the tank to run an opponent into the ground. He has been criticised for not having enough strings to his bow but I am not as worried as some. Kerr has a nice burst to get separation and as mentioned he can sustain a lead. He is not going to use sharp cuts or multiple leads but as a second forward he is going to give you a target and create space for his fellow forwards to lead into. He is not going to clutter up the forward 50 mucking around with repeat leads in the other forward’s lanes. Kerr is already a big body and he is only going to get stronger. There are not a lot of wrestling forwards at the moment but the ones that are good at it are effective and I think that could become his second fiddle. If nothing he will give his team a physical presence up forward and he is not afraid to crash a pack and get the ball to the ground for his small brigade. For those going back a few years I would compare Kerr to Daniel Bradshaw who was very effective playing opposite Jonathan Brown. If Kerr can play off a similarly talented primary target I expect him to have a similarly successful career.

Kerr managed a very respectable 9 goals at the Champs and showed some really nice hands above his head. Somewhat surprisingly for me he also managed a couple of very good crumbing goals with snaps from spillages. Overall I would consider his work when the ball hits the ground to be a weakness. Below his knees he is not very clean and too often is standing around and not moving to position himself to be an option or to win the ball himself. When he is not the focus of a play he is too often stagnant, offering his team mates nothing. He gets a large percentage of his possessions from marks and he needs to work harder to position himself to receive from handballs and to win the ball when it is in dispute.

It is similar defensively where Kerr seems to think he is above the defensive side of the game. I can tell you he is going to be quickly disabused of that notion when he hits the AFL. He is going to get a swift kick up the arse every time he slacks off and I am expecting him to have trouble sitting down for the first half season or so. He had only one tackle in all his TAC and Championship games. That is quite simply not good enough even for a KPF. He has the pace to close down opponents he just lacks the inclination at the moment.

I was very interested in his endurance results coming into the Combine but unfortunately he didn’t test. If I was to guess I think he would have returned a beep test in the low 13s or perhaps even in the 12s. Agility is often quoted as another weakness of Kerr's and for good reason. He does not do well when he has to stop and go or change direction violently. His pace seems good for a power forward type and I think if he can use a block or push off he should be able to get and sustain separation.

There are differing opinions on Kerr's kicking ability. Some really rate it whilst others consider it a weakness. Personally I am somewhere in the middle. I think he is a very capable kick but he has a bit of a variable style which can results in misses of targets and shots on goal. Sometimes he closes his body too much whilst at others he leaves himself too open. Work needs to be done to ensure that he does the same thing every time he kicks the ball. He has a good punching handball that is delivered with power.

Overall Kerr is a fair prospect but I would not want to overpay for him. Next year has a really good crop of KPFs, a significant number of whom I would have well ahead of Kerr as a prospect. If you get him for bargain all's good, but I would not be overpaying for him.

 

[Quigley]

31. Jack Scrimshaw

Some people are talking up Scrimshaw as the second coming of the Bont and the way things are looking is seems a bit chance to go somewhere between 5 and 10. Personally I see a guy without an AFL position who has significant obstacles to overcome to be able to play effectively at all at AFL level. I was one of the first to jump onboard the Bont hype train but I am passing on the Scrimshaw bandwagon. Where Scrimshaw and Bont are similar I think is in their size and agility in traffic. Both are over 193cm and both dance in traffic so well that opponents struggle to lay a glove on them. Apart from that they are not all that similar at all.

Scrimshaw looks pretty but is a classic case of style over substance. He has a loose kicking style which looks very pretty but is erratic and he misses entirely too many targets. This is particularly the case when Scrimshaw is under pressure. Despite his agility giving him time, Scrimshaw lacks composure under pressure and is quite frantic and bad things often result. He regularly makes bad mistakes when under pressure in defence and gives away too many goals as a result. He also has a tendency to overestimate his capabilities by foot and again turnovers can result. His confidence definitely outweighs his competence.

Scrimshaw is a willing tackler and will attack an opponent but apart from that I have not been overly impressed with his defensive work. He has good height for a medium defender but lacks body strength, pace and endurance and a clever forward can give him a bath. When you combine all that with his tendency to make bad decisions and execute poorly and you have a guy I would have no interest in having in my defence.

If I was going to play him anywhere it would be on the wing. Out there he can mark the ball and the wing allows him more space and time to consider his options and execute effectively. He can look quite classy and make good things happen when he has time. The big inhibitor to him playing through the middle of the ground though is his endurance. Quite simply he does not have the tank to play extended minutes in the midfield. His beep test was an abysmal 12.75 and his 3km was in the bottom 10 of those tested. Sure he has had injury issues which have affected his preparation early in the year but he needed to do better than that after a whole season under his belt. I have seen players with better tests have a line ruled through them as not having a good enough tank to play their natural position. That is not going to happen with Scrimshaw but it certainly makes me leery about taking him high in this draft. His injuries also concern me. He has had feet and hips issues and injuries of those types can be difficult to get right. I am sure teams are carefully pouring over his medical test.

The other testing at Combine was also nothing to write home about. He ran a respectable 3.04 in the 20m although he was quite slow off the mark. He tested well for agility as expected and his right foot jump was in the top 20% (although his left foot jump was quite poor). I usually don't pay any attention to hand size measures at the Combine apart from the outliers and Scrimshaw was an outlier with his very small hands. Attributing causation to that factor, I note that Scrimshaw was in the bottom 14% of the clean hands test and if you watch him in games you can see that he is not the cleanest player out there and is prone to fumble or double clutch it.

This is a very strong draft and this is not one where teams need to reach for good first round prospects. Scrimshaw I see as having a very high risk of failure and if I was a team I would be letting another team take that risk this year.

32 Jacob Allison

Allison would have to be one of the disappointments of this draft class. He was an All-Australian last year as a bottom ager but he failed to deliver this year, in fact he looked to go backwards. He still gets drafted but where he was widely tipped to be in the top 10 coming into the year he is probably looking at being taken in the 30s now as a best case scenario and potentially significantly lower than that. That is not to say there is not talent there but his performances this year have highlighted major holes in his game.

The two big issues that with his game this year were:

1. He just could not find the ball. He was done no favours by the Allies coaching staff but even still he just could not seem to find the ball. When he was around the ball he seemed to read the play reasonably well but he seemed a mile away from the play too often. I am not sure if he was playing to instructions but whatever, he did not find enough of it this year. Last year he was a lot better when playing on the wing and at half back. I think that is where he has to play at AFL level but even still he needs to work harder spreading and getting to space. This year he played deep forward and some time onball and I just do not think those positions showed his skillset off to best advantage.

2. His hands are nowhere near clean enough to be an inside player. Allison has the size that teams are all trying to introduce into their onball unit and he was given a chance in that role this year. Whilst he did show some decent ability to read the taps his hands were just not clean enough for him to be considered in that role at AFL level any time soon. He fumbled pretty constantly and unless there was a coachable reason for it (eg keeping his head down for a heartbeat longer) you probably have to write off him as an inside option.

The other area which has gone from a strength to a weakness is probably his kicking. Make no mistake the kid still has a cannon of a leg but he just did not hit targets often enough this year. He is still capable of kicking it 60m with ease and I have seen him deliver little round the corner chips from 50 which have gone over the fence. What he has not shown this year is any touch with his long kicks. To make things worse I think his kicks are very difficult to judge in the air. Players seem to constantly run under Allison's long kicks. Players seem to play for a normal player's kick and move forward only to have the ball keep going and floating over their heads. Early in the year he also bought into his own hype by going long with virtually every kick and he was quite indiscriminate in doing so. He did start to look for shorter targets as the season developed. On his shorter targets he occasionally pulled out a bullet that nailed his target but he did too often leave it short and bounce it to his target.

So that is a lot of negativity, why should a team pick him? In short because he is a 194cm, lightning quick player, with a cannon of a leg who can regularly kick goals from outside 50. Getting forward from defence or on the wing, he is a player who can distort zones and create space for his team's forwards. He has conceded that he rested on his laurels a bit over the offseason and leading into the year but personally I still see the upside that was there last year. He finished school last year and the freedom he had for the first time resulted him taking his eye off the ball. Get him into an AFL program and get him focused on what he needs to work on and you could end up with a very good player. He has a very high ceiling.

Allison was the fastest player tested at the Combine running a 2.87 over the 20m. He also showed very good agility for a 194cm player and was in the top 20% for the vertical jump. His repeat sprint was good and endurance testing above average but with attention needed. Combined with his height and leg, his athleticism makes him an enticing prospect which I am sure a lot of coaches would welcome trying to work out how use those very valuable traits to their team’s advantage.

One of the things which could count against him a bit is that he has not settled into a position and made it his own. He has always been a bit of a utility and whilst that can be good it does lend itself to being played in some less valuable roles. This year he played a lot as a deep forward and inside mid in the rep games and I do not think that really suits him. For me he is an outside player you want coming from behind the ball. In addition to his pace and leg, he is also a good mark of the ball on the outside. Allison is also most dangerous, from a goal scoring perspective, when he is running toward goal rather than leading away from it.

When he gets a run at the ball he is strong in the air and given his height and jumping ability he can outmark the small or medium types he is likely to be matched up on. There is some chance that he develops into a key position or third tall but at the moment I think he is most valuable as an outside runner where he is likely to enjoy significant advantages over his opponent. It is worth noting that the one time he was switched into defence at the Div 1 Champs was in the last quarter against Vic Country. Going into that quarter the Allies were behind but they managed to shut down VC and come back to win the game. Allison was quietly influential in that result. If you go back and look at that quarter have a look at his positioning when VC were trying to enter the ball into 50. He was regularly in the right spot and either deterred the entry or influenced the contest. His spoiling and marking were good and his tackling influential. I really like the aggression that he brings to his tackling. He attacks the man and can make things happen with his defensive work.

The floor for Allison looks a lot lower than it did at this time last year. Still, with his upside, I think there will be quite a few teams interested in taking a punt on him if the Lions decide not to match. Given how they traded out of the middle rounds of the draft it is no certainty that the Lions will match a bid on Allison.

33. Will Hayward

Okay first an admission, until I saw him recently getting press I had not considered Hayward to be draftable. He kicked 8 goals at the Champs but he was otherwise very quiet and the 7.3 disposals a game he returned was quite simply not good enough for a medium forward. He grabbed attention in the SANFL U18 finals where he starred including one game with 22 disposals and 9 goals. Overall he returned 33 goals in 9 SANFL games playing mostly inside the forward 50.

If I am honest I still have difficulty seeing Hayward as a first round pick let alone a top 10 pick as some have been suggesting of late. If he was moving into that range I would want to see significant potential as a midfielder and I am just not seeing that at the moment. What Hayward is, is a sub-185cm leading forward. He plays that role well in a similar vein to Gunston does for Hawthorn but he is not going to enjoy the advantage of being a 193cm medium forward like Gunston. Against the better athletes that he faced at the Champs, Hayward struggled to impose himself and the AFL is several levels up again. He will not enjoy the physical advantages he had over the SANFL U18 defenders and he has not shown me enough other tricks.

Hayward is a good contested mark but for the most part he relies on his pace to get him separation from bigger slower opponents and his jumping ability to beat smaller quicker opponents. In the AFL he is going to very often be matched up on guys who are taller and more athletic than he is and at the moment he is a bit of a straight line leader. He does get up the ground but he does not have the change of direction that many AFL small medium forwards use to create an advantage for themselves.

Hayward ran a 2.94 over the 20m which was good but not elite but might also have undersold his pace somewhat. Hayward was quite ordinary over the first 5m but really picked up the field in the back 15m. In game situations if he is on the move he quite simply is going to have a higher top end than most defenders he is going to face. With that said if they can block and force him to lead from a standing start he is going to have trouble getting the separation he relies on. Hayward's jumps were good and he plays significantly taller than his measured height. When I watched him play I was expecting him to measure in at 190cm or more. He is a lanky athletic type who has long arms and is not afraid to fly for the ball. He judges the ball pretty well in the air but what I think he does best is actually watch the ball closely. He follows the ball closely and adjusts to it well at the last minute. It is the same when the ball comes off hands and to a little lesser extent when the ball is on the ground. He does have good strength and often wins wrestling matches with his opponent to get and maintain position in the drop zone.

I like his work without the ball and he does a good job at positioning himself to receive or grab the ball if it pops free. He is regularly in a good spot to throw it on the boot and have a ping and that is not accident. His goal sense is often given as a strength of his but I do not really see it. He gets in position and has a good idea where the goals are but he can be a bit wasteful. With his set shots it is much the same. I do not love his set shot technique and at times he can get under it or swing across the ball a bit but he does finish pretty well so on that basis you have to say it is okay. Around goal, Hayward is not your typical greedy forward and he will look to bring others into it. He does some nice things to give goal opportunities to his teammates and I am sure his fellow forwards like playing with him.

I am not sure there is consistent effort but Hayward very often impacts games with his defensive work. He is always aware of opportunities when backs are dawdling out of defence and he specialises in coming up from behind and mowing down the defender with his pace. If he can consistently bring that kind of effort in the AFL he is going to be one who opposition teams are going to worry about and that bit of worry is underrated on the effect it can have. Defenders rush a bit and do not take that second or two more to pinpoint their passes and the ball goes to contests more often.

To take him in the first round I would want to have seen him show the potential to play through the midfield and I have yet to see that. He does play the game a lot like Fyfe when he was drafted but it is a long bow to draw that just because that is the case he is suddenly going to turn into the midfield beast that Fyfe did. As it is at the moment Hayward is much more likely to end up as a James Sicily clone and he should be drafted on that basis. That is he is a quick, hard leading small medium forward and as it is he has not even really proved a lot against quality opposition. Combined with his inability to consistently find the ball I think he presents a very big risk for teams looking to take him high notwithstanding that he has some high level traits that intrigue and hint that he could be an elite player.

34. Alex Witherden

Like Simpkin, Witherden broke his leg early in the year and has not played since. That makes it hard to get a good read on him and how he fits into this draft. Simpkin was in pretty much the same boat but personally I found it easier to slot Simpkin in than Witherden. I have a few concerns with Witherden and would have liked to see more of him this year to see if there was anything to actually worry about. Athletically I am also not enthralled with him either and some testing results would have been handy to get an accurate picture of where he sits empirically rather than just guessing like I am going to be doing here.

Even before he broke his leg very badly I had concerns about Witherden's pace and endurance. There are quite a few athletically challenged outside types with good kicks who come through every year and the success rate for them is not all that high. Witherden could easily be one of those. He is pretty one paced and I doubted he had the endurance to play significant minutes through the midfield even before he had 8 months on the sidelines. He needed to build his tank this year to solidify his draft position and he has obviously has not been able to do that. Will the AFL teams be forgiving or will they let someone else take the risk?

Witherden did not show much in the AFL Academy games managing only 12 disposals a game. For a guy whose one of his big selling features is his ability to accumulate the ball behind centre that was disappointing and a little concerning. In fairness, quite a few of the Academy kids struggled in those games playing unfamiliar systems with unfamiliar teammates but given his limited exposed form this year we have to take what we can get. He did manage to average 23 disposals a game in his 2 TAC games before the injury and the 18 disposals and 7 intercept disposals he averaged as a bottom ager last was impressive and I would think would allay most concerns on this issue.

What Witherden does best is kick the ball. He takes good, attacking options when he is coming from behind the ball and is a long and accurate kick. He is composed when he has the ball and is not one of those defensive players who gets flustered when opponents close in on him. That will be tested at the next level because I don't think he is the quickest to get the ball away but he has managed so far and it is likely that he will adapt. It is possible that he turns into a Hurn type defender and I am sure most teams would take that. Brad McKenzie was also a similar type coming out and he had taken a long time to do not much (although admittedly he was much better this year).

Another selling point for Witherden is his intercept marking. He has decent height for a small medium and judges the ball very nicely in the air. He is not afraid to back himself in the air and is not often beaten. Defensively I worry about his ability to stay with a sharp small forward but if a team could play him as a loose defender or give him space and freedom to attack the ball in a defensive zone, he could be very effective. At the moment I am not seeing him as anything other than a small defender / flanker.

Witherden's break sounds like a bad one albeit clean by the sounds of it. He broke his fibula in 4 places and cracked his tibia as well. That sounds nasty to me but a recent article seems to indicate that he is tracking well to a full recovery. I say he will be managed into the new year but they are hoping there will be no ongoing issues. Whilst he has been hobbled he has used the opportunity to get an early start on the gym work that comes all new draftees way and he is up to 80kgs and pretty cut. He turned up to the Combine in very nice shape for someone who has been restricted in what he can do and that speaks highly of his professionalism.

35. Tony Olango

Olango has been a featured player all year and been blessed by getting all the ruck time in the games he played this year even when he probably didn't deserve it. There were other draftable rucks available to the Allies this year but Olango was the only one that really got a chance to show what he can do. He was decent in the Div 2 Champs but he was not dominant and he was probably beaten by Dennis in the Qld game which I watched live. He was lucky to get all the exposure he did but credit to him he made good use of his chance.

I was a bit meh on Olango at the beginning of the year but he has kept getting better and better over the year and he finished year as clearly the best ruck on the field in the All Star game. This improvement was all the more notable given he has missed time over the year with stress fractures, groin and knee issues. Those injuries do worry me a little given he is someone who relies on his athleticism a fair bit. Olango specialises in jumping over his opposition ruckman and he has gotten better at directing the ball to his mids as the year has progressed.

At the Combine Olango showed his excellent jumping ability and was almost 20cm above the other rucks for absolute running jumps. The other really impressive athletic test was his 20m. His 2.94 was very good but only half the story. Olango was consistently very slow over the first 5m but then lightning over the next 5m. Between 5 and 10m he might have been the quickest player there. It obviously takes a bit to get him going but he has a great burst once he has momentum going in the right direction. Olango measured about 4cm shorter than he was listed which does concern me. I much prefer him as a prospect at 201cm rather than 197cm. He did measure as having the longest arms at the Combine and his reach was equal most with English. His agility test was below average but pretty reasonable for a ruck. Olango did not do the beep test but ran an 11.36 in the 3km.

As Olango has gotten more confident over the year he has started to become more involved around the ground and to try more things. Olango was a very good soccer player and as you might expect his footwork is good. In the All Star game he showed two big sidesteps with the ball in hand which left the opponent in each case grasping for air. He also flew on shoulders a couple of times which I have not seen from him before. Game wise, Olango is still very raw and learning where to go and when. He needs to make himself available more often around the ground but I expect that to come. He has the soccer mentality that he wants the ball to come to him and once he works out the positioning a bit better and improves his tank I think he will find more of it.

He gets most of his disposals in tight and his hands are reasonably quick although handballing still looks a bit unnatural for him. He is confident kicking the ball but his kicking skills are not as good as he thinks they are. Generally his skills are pretty rough but he has come a long way in a short time and with work I expect him to end up being a reasonably skilled ruckman. He has a decent ball skills base to build on from his time in soccer.

36. Luke Bunker

There were a few guys who did not get invited to the Combine who surprised me and Bunker was certainly one of those. I rate Bunker pretty highly and certainly more than a few who got the invite. Bunker is pretty much only going to be a midfielder which does restrict his appeal a little but he is a guy who is going to give his teammates first use of the ball and that certainly has value.

Bunker is an inside mid who has needed to work on his outside game but showed significant improvement as the season developed. What I like most about Bunker is a little hard to describe. He is one of those players who often seems to take over and control a game for periods of time. Play flows through him and he gets things moving in the right direction. He was quiet at times at the Champs but when he was up and about his team was usually performing at its best. He is an onfield leader that takes good options. He has high football IQ and he knows where to position himself around the ground and particularly around contests.

At ruck contests Bunker shows really nice anticipation and he moves early and is often a half step ahead of his opponent as a result. He keeps low in the contests and will often burrow through the contest. His hands are some of the quickest in this draft and generally he is clean. He is not hugely strong over the ball but with his low centre of gravity he is not easy to knock over. When an opponent gets the ball he is an aggressive tackler and his technique is good and often results in frees going his way.

Bunker has some nice zip in his handballs and with his quick hands he can get the ball moving nicely from the contest. One of the big criticisms of his game has to do with his kicking. Whilst he often makes some nice kicks he does have more than his fair share of very ordinary ones as well. To me his kicking issues are technique related. He has a very deliberate nod of the head over the ball and he keeps his head and eyes down too long. Sure he watches the ball onto his boot but he loses sight of his target for too long. This is not an uncommon issue (Paparone was worse when he came into the AFL) and I am sure his coaches will put a lot of time into correcting his technique. I do think the options he takes are very good and if he can sort out the issue with the kicking technique itself he could be a dangerous user of the ball.

The other issue most commonly raised with Bunker relates to his pace. I accept that he is not quick but I had not really noticed him being that much slower than those around him. I would have thought he was going to run around 3.1 which is not great but not a huge liability either. I have seen him compared to Matt Priddis but I do not see him as being that slow. Instead I would go with Andrew Swallow as a best case scenario for Bunker. Bunker averaged 22 disposals a game at the Champs and had a really nice last televised game against WA where he had 25 disposals and 6 clearances. He played a fair bit of school football this year but did manage 7 TAC games and returned a very decent 28 disposals a game.

Overall I like Bunker and as a guy who is likely to be taken late in the draft or as a rookie he could turn out to be an excellent value pick.

 

[Quigley]

37. Ben Long

Ben is the nephew of Essendon legend Michael and he does have a bit of the Long body shape. He has the same kind of long legged athletic build that Michael had. Ben is a 19 year old and still very light but I expect him to put on enough bulk to compete at AFL level. Despite his current lack of bulk and long legged build he is surprisingly strong and he is certainly capable of fighting above his weight division.

Long played seniors in the NT at the end of last season before coming down to board at Melbourne Grammar for the year. He played for the NT and Allies at the Champs before finishing the season playing seniors for Footscray in the VFL. He has also played significant minutes in the backline, midfield and forward line at different times of the year. So he has had to adjust a lot over the year to different team structures, teammates and positions. By all reports he has been very professional about it and he has performed very nicely at all levels. With that said I am sure he is looking forward to settling into a stable environment where he has only one position to learn and one set of teammates to get to know.

When I saw him at the Champs I thought he showed real potential as a lock down small defender who could give some nice offensive run. Footscray though had other ideas in their use of him in the VFL and now I have to consider that he might be better at the other end of the ground. In the VFL preliminary final against Collingwood, Long kicked 6 goals and showed some nice dynamism as a forward. Personally I still like him as a defender but having the flexibility to play up forward certainly helps his chances of being drafted.

Up forward Long tends to get most of his goals from crumbing the fall of the ball or as a result of his running ability. He is not a real leading target although he is a reasonable mark of the ball when he has to fly. He is clean below the knees and has pretty good finishing ability around goal from any angle. In space he is seems to be elusive although you do wonder a little why he is not tackled more than he is. He does not have a particular big or violent change of direction but he does sell it well and opponents regularly do not lay a glove on him. Wherever he is on the ground he will attack the ball on the ground and has the ability to collect at pace, balance and then use it well. This skill is particularly handy up forward where he can finish those type of plays with a goal. Another thing he offers up forward is very good defensive pressure. He has a very good burst of pace that he uses to run down unaware opponents and when he is in the area perceived pressure will be higher for opposition defenders.

In the Div 1 Champs he was a little quiet for the Allies playing mostly as a lock down defender. As a consequence he went unnoticed by most until the last game against Vic Country. In that game he was matched up on Ainsworth and basically shut him out of the game which was a significant factor in the Allies winning that game. Long was quick and smart enough to cover Ainsworth on his leads and strong enough to hold his own in body on body contests. He outmarked Ainsworth a few times and generally showed himself to be a very disciplined defender who has the tools to match up on the best. One of the other plays involving Long I noted at the Champs was against Vic Metro when Bunker tried a big don't argue on Long. Long just went straight through it and made a very good tackle. I think people seriously underestimate how strong he is. Long has good running ability but this wa not really showcased in the Div 1 Champs. It was on show however in his games for NT when he averaged 20 disposals per game. For the NT he showed some really nice dash coming from defence and on the wing and his skills were very decent at speed.

As is common from those who come from outside elite programs, Long did not test particularly strongly at the Combine and the results probably undersold his athleticism. He ran a 3.01 in the 20m, 25.9 in the repeat sprint, 13.4 in the beep test, 10.52 in the 3km and 8.54 in the agility test. Those were all lower than expected but within the margin of what you would have expected. I was a bit disappointed in his jumping results which were below average but I was encouraged by his kicking test which was in the top 10.

Overall I like Long and think he could well end up a very nice player. As far as a player comparison I would probably go with Zac Williams.

38. Joe Atley

Atley is a big bodied type who likes to get in and mix it up inside. With a lot of teams looking for guys who can protect their stars mids from undue attention he is one that they could look at to play a role. He is the kind of guy who will subordinate his game to aid the team and he already does this at junior level. He will shepherd and block and do all the little things that help teammates. That is not to say there are not things to like about his game but I do think it is important to acknowledge that he is one who will help the team in ways that others do not and he definitely buys into the team first ethos. Atley is widely regarded for his attitude and professionalism and was the Bendigo captain this year. Those kind of things help quite a bit when teams are tossing up between two players of similar ability on the field.

Whilst he is a solid player I would not classify Atley as a likely star at the next level. He is probably likely to end up a blue collar inside mid who will give his team first use of the ball a fair bit but not otherwise be terrible influential off his own bat. His inside game is his selling feature and there is a bit to like about it. He is very strong through the hips and is very hard to move or get off his feet when he has the ball or the ball is in the contest. He is not an elite read of the rucks' taps but he is solid enough to get his fair share and his hands are clean and quick enough to allow him to work inside at the next level. Whilst he doesn't panic he is not the kind of player who seems to have a lot of time when he has the ball in hand and can at times look a little frantic. His handballing from the clearance is pretty decent but he too often just throws the ball on the boot indiscriminately when kicking.

In space Atley is a better kick and tends to assess the options pretty well and hit his targets. He is effective off either hand with his handballing but can at times be a bit lazy and untidy and this is something he needs to work on at the next level. I do not see anything with his handballing that cannot be fixed with a little work and concentration. Atley is a capable mark of the ball and can be dangerous when he gets forward. His goal kicking is reasonable. I do however think he starts his career in the back half where he played most of last year. Atley is a disciplined player who will do a job and can physically handle most small forwards he is likely to be matched up on even at this stage of his career. He has a big body already and should be physically ready to play AFL football from day 1.

Atley suffers a bit from having a brother who has elite speed and people being disappointed when they realise that he does not. He ran a 3.06 at the Combine over the 20m which is pretty midrange. I do think it is worth noting that he seems to get the most out of the pace he has. He is a guy who will give his all in a chase or to get to a spot and that often makes him look quicker than he is and in fact quicker than guys who time faster than he does. Conversely Atley actually tested pretty well in the agility test with an 8.44 but I think that is a little deceiving. I do not think he moves through traffic that well and I would not consider him evasive. Endurance wise he returned a very respectable 14.1 in the beep test which demonstrates he has the engine to play in the middle if there were any doubts. Somewhat predictably he was pretty midrange in the jumps and the other tests. Overall Atley was solid all around without really standing out or showing any particular weakness. Probably the most notable measure for him over the three days was his hand size which came in at a massive 25.5cm to be the biggest of anyone tested. Big hands are not something which I would classify as particularly important when assessing a player but for an inside mid I would rather him have big hands than small.

Atley is a consistent player who gets a reasonable amount of ball but if I am honest I would have liked to have seen him accumulate more ball particularly at TAC level. He only averaged 22 disposals a game playing most of his time in the middle of the ground. I would like to see Atley work harder on his spread and be a bit smarter about where to run to to receive the ball. I do think he is a smarter player than his brother although I would not have his football IQ up with the top guys in this draft. If I had to make a player comparison I would say he reminds me of Reece Conca of Richmond.

39. Taylin Duman

There are a few rangy outside types that are getting talked up in this draft and for the most part I would have Duman up with virtually any of them. He is still raw and has a long way to go but he is 192cm tall and has shown good development over the year. He has worked hard on things which needed work on and although he is still pretty raw there looks to be a lot to work with.

On the outside Duman moves nicely. He is a balanced, loose limbed runner who flows well. In stop and go situations he is not great with his change of directions but overall I thought his lateral movement looked good when he was in space on the wing. He did not test well in the agility test but I do think his functional positional agility is good and he is not a guy who I have noticed being tackled a lot. It is observable in the Combine results that Duman tested better in the straight line testing. Like Battle, Duman had noticeable better endurance testing in the 3km rather than the beep test. 10.48 in the 3km was solid but 13.3 in the beep test was on the poor side. The constant stopping and changing of direction I think caught up with Duman there. He needs to work on this and his endurance generally given that if he plays on a wing at AFL level he is going to need to cover a lot of ground and do so quickly.

One of the things Duman has worked on a lot this year has been his pace and all his work was rewarded with a very nice time at the Combine in the 20m. He ran a very nice 2.93 which put him in the top 10 of those tested. Where he has come from though I think was evident in his repeat sprint time. 26 for the repeat sprint put him in the 45th percentile which is lower than you would want to see, especially for someone capable of running a 2.93 and wants to play on a wing.

Skills wise, Duman lacks a bit zip in both his handballs and kicks at this stage and does need to work on improving his hurt factor. He almost invariably goes with little chip passes with his kicks and he needs to lift his eyes a bit and assess the whole field a bit more. He tends to concentrate on getting the ball to a target quickly rather than moving the ball in a way that furthers the aim of actually kicking goals. That is not to say that Duman does not bring out a very nice kick every now and then and those low drilled kicks do entice you with thoughts of what he could become if they became the norm rather than the exception.

Duman is a good mark on the wing. His vertical leaping is not great but with his height it doesn't really need to be. He watches the ball into his hands well and for a guy who is still very thin he is quite strong in the air. He will jump strongly at the ball although he is not a big flyer and if he cannot mark the ball he often does a good job of controlling the fall of the ball to allow himself or his teammates to have the best chance of recovering the spillage. His balance in the air is good and he keeps his feet well on landing.

Whilst he is pretty much only an outside player at this stage, Duman does on occasions do some nice work inside and has good awareness of where others are around him. He is prone to fumbling a bit in tight but I think this could be improved with work. I do like the way he works for others inside. He shepherds and generally creates space nicely for teammates to clear the ball. Bontempelli does a fair bit of this and whilst I am not seeing an inside game like Bont has it is encouraging to see him having this kind of awareness.

I am seeing a lot of upside with Duman and would be picking him a lot on size and potential at the moment. Teams will be looking at what he could become rather than what he is now and with the love affair of tall mids going on he is well positioned to get taken higher than his production strictly warrants.

40. Cedric Cox

Cox is an overaged player who finished school in Perth two years ago and bounced around last year before deciding to give football a real go this year. He moved from Halls Creek down to Camperdown in Vic this year to see if he could make it in the AFL and credit to him he has done very well and is very likely to get picked by someone. He has moved around a fair bit over the last few years and has had trouble adjusting at some of his stops. For his sake it would be good to see him go to a team with strong player welfare and indigenous programs.

After not playing football basically at all last year, Cox hit the ground running this year and was selected for Vic Country. He has played mostly off the half back flank or wing and occasionally sneaks forward. At the moment he is more of an impact player rather than an accumulator. He has more than his fair share of wow moments but I would like him to get more possessions than he does. He is a good offensive player but he only managed 15 disposals a game in the TAC and less at the Champs. He disappears for long periods and he does need to work harder at keeping in games.

When he does get the ball, Cox usually does something good with it. He is a run and carry type who has a lovely stab pass. He is good off either foot and takes good options. The hurt factor is high with Cox. By hand Cox is okay but I have noticed him missing targets a bit on occasions. I really do like the way Cox moves around the ground. He is a balanced mover who covers ground nicely and is difficult to tackle. His speed and elusiveness are weapons that he uses well and if he gets going he can turn defence into attack quickly and get in behind zones. He executes at speed well.

Cox likes to jump at the ball even when he doesn't have to. He gets up nicely, is balanced in the air and watches it into his hands. In short he is a very good mark of the ball. He judges the ball in the air and backs himself in even when he is in defence. I do not have the numbers but I would suggest he had quite a few intercept marks in the TAC when he was playing in defence. Cox has good size and is not your typical indigenous waif. He has a bit of bulk about him and, combined with his nice balance, he is quite strong over the ball. Cox is an aggressive tackler who makes his tackles felt although he might have to adjust his style at AFL level as he often tends to sling the tackled player and AFL umpires are likely to penalise him for it.

As is pretty common for country kids who have not been in elite programs much, Cox tested below expectations at the Combine. Generally he was okay but he did not show the kind of pace and agility that he shows in game situations. I would expect that Cox has not really trained for these tests and that showed in the results and as a consequence they should be taken with a grain of salt. For instance you can safely assume that he has more speed than his 3.05 time suggests. Further I would be using his 10.47 3km time to assess where his endurance is at rather than his 13.1 beep test. Overall I though Cox's testing was okay and did not really do him any harm.

Cox is a guy with a lot of upside. He will need to work on his tank and being more consistently engaged in the game and if he can do that his upside is very high. I think he could be a Neville Jetta type of player with more offensive upside.

41. Jack Maibaum

Maibaum was the All Australian Full Back this year but personally, in a year where there are quite a few good KPD options, there are a fair number of guys I would prefer ahead of him. Maibaum is a good solid player with a fair bit going for him but I just think others offer more.

Let’s not beat around the bush, Maibaum is an old school stopper pure and simple. Nothing more and nothing less. He is not going to give you anything when the ball is rebounding out of defence. He doesn't have bad skills but he just does not look to get involved. He is disciplined and in doing that he looks to not stray too far from his man no matter which side has the ball. When his team gets the ball he is happy to leave the go forward to others.

If I am honest his skills are pretty reasonable and his kicking from stoppages is actually fairly good. His technique is neat and he plays within his limitations. On the run he is not quite as good but he is still pretty decent and again he looks to play it safe with his kicks most often. Disposal-wise I probably have a lot more issue with his handballs. When he goes by hand he starts to look like an old school, poorly skilled key defender. He lacks penetration and direction by hand and his decision making is poor. He will often only look to use a handball when he is under pressure and he will panic in those situations and get a weak handball out to the first player he sees whether that player is in a position to receive it or not. Turnovers often result and given where he plays goals can flow. At the next level he really is going to need to work on his handball skills although that inherent panic reflex worries me.

The other thing of concern is the fact that he measured short at the Combine. Although I am sceptical of the measures it is worth noting that there are not a lot of sub-192 key positions in the current AFL. Forwards are getting bigger and bigger and most guys are going to struggle if they are giving away 8cm to guys who are as strong and athletic as you are. Maibaum does have good strength and I think he will end up a bit a very solid unit before he is finished and he uses that strength effectively in game situations. He also has nice closing speed and change of direction which gives him some margin to paper over errors that he makes. He ran a 3.01 at the Combine in the 20m and his 8.19 in the agility test which is elite for a key position.

Maibaum does not have a particularly strong tank and I would suggest he is going to be playing as the last defender for virtually all of his career rather than as a wide ranging CHB. He ran a 12.7 in the beep and that might encourage a few KPFs to be tempted to try and work him over with repeat efforts. With all of that said and the reasons I have given to be concerned, it is hard to go past the fact that he has played on all the best forwards the last two years and he has rarely been beaten. The kid does a job and does it well and I expect him to find a home, probably before this pick in the real thing.

42. Jonty Scharenberg

Jonty is the younger brother of Matthew, the often injured but immensely talented Pie. Matthew dominated the Champs a few years ago off the half back line. Jonty is a different beast and is predominantly an inside mid. Jonty is not as talented as Matthew but he has the chance to be a good AFL player although maybe not the star that he brother had looked destined to be before the injuries.

I was quite high on Scharenberg during the Champs but the All Star game really caused me to re-evaluate him. In that game he seriously struggled and looked like he was just not up to the step up in class. He looked slow, unskilled and lacking in awareness. It has to be accepted though that sometimes a player can have a bad day and this might just have been Scharenberg's day off but given the limited chances I get to look at kids that kind of performance often concerns me.

The one weakness that usually raised in discussions about Scharenberg is his pace. Honestly I never thought he was particularly slow and that was borne out in his testing at the combine. He might well have been working on his 20m times and if so it worked out as he managed to run a very respectable 3.04. If I was him though I would also have put time into his endurance as he could only manage a 12.4 which was bottom 10 overall and showed a serious inhibiter to a career in the midfield. Unless there is a valid reason for such a poor result you have to question his ability to adapt to the running required of AFL mids.

Scharenberg has solid to good foot skills. He tends to work within his abilities and does not try and bite off more than he can chew and generally he has pretty good touch on his kicks. I note that he went below 50% at the Champs which I did find a little odd as I thought generally he was okay by foot. He does have a little unorthodox hold of the ball which could cause issues from time to time. Some of his handballing is a little ordinary especially for a guy who is renowned for being composed under pressure.

Scharenberg works pretty well inside and moves through a contest nicely. He is clean and generally fairly composed when he gets the ball. He feeds the ball out well and once he does he will move to present as an option going forwarded if needed. For an inside midfielder he gets a fairly high number of uncontested possessions. He is a solid guy and is quite strong over the ball, and in clearance situations he likes to work to front position early. He usually does a good job of keeping his arms free but is scragged a bit when he gets the ball in the contest.

Overall I am a bit conflicted about where I stand with Scharenberg given that I had been quite high on him for a fair while. I think now I really want to succeed but suspect he might not. I sincerely hope I am wrong.

 

[Quigley]

43. Josh Williams

GC are likely to take three of their academy kids in the draft and there is a fair bit of uncertainty about whether Williams or Scheer goes after Bowes. I like Scheer quite a bit more but others prefer Williams. Williams is originally from Townsville which is not exactly a hotbed of AFL talent and it is a credit to him to have gotten this far. He is pretty certain to be drafted and has a decent chance of making it as an AFL player.

Williams is a wingman and the player I would compare Williams to is Andrew Gaff from West Coast. He is a long striding wingman who covers the ground very quickly and can break zones down. He loves a bounce and he moves through traffic really well. He has a nice step and swerve at pace and is difficult to tackle. He does a great job of passing off and flowing on to link up. This is one of the best parts of his game and he is very dangerous when he connects up and works at speed.

Like Gaff, Williams has a lot of hurt factor on his kicks and he does a good job keeping the ball moving toward goal. He plays on quickly and assesses his options well. One of the things which makes Gaff elite and which Williams does not have is penetration on his kicks. It is interesting how variable his penetration is. Sometimes he is decent whilst at others he struggles to kick over the proverbial jam tin. At the Champs he left a set shot from 35 short. This was not the only time he struggled to hit even a medium distance target. With that said he does have a nice low short kick that gets to the man quickly and on target. This is particularly effective when delivering into 50 and he has the ability to execute it effectively at speed. He was in the top 12 in the kicking tests at the Combine.

Williams has nice height at 189cm but he needs to put on some more weight given he weighed in at just 73kgs. At the Combine he had a seriously mixed results. He had some very good results and some really ordinary ones as well. 2.93 in the 20m was a very good result but the 9.06 in the agility test was very poor. His 13.1 beep test and 11.22 in the 3km were disappointing and do raise questions about his ability to play his natural position early. Unlike Gaff, Williams does not have an elite tank and he is going to need to work hard to improve his endurance if he wants to be more than a bit player at AFL level. His 30m repeat spring was in the top quartile which was quite good and his jumps were all around the median.

Williams plays pretty exclusively on the outside but when he finds himself onball, like Gaff, he can have an impact. He is good at hitting the contest with speed and collecting and going. He does not have the cleanest hands but they are not terrible and are something to work with. He is not very strong over the ball though and leaves his feet a bit too easily for my liking. As he puts on some bulk this may change but I expect that he might always be a bit prone to being buffeted around easily in body on body contests.

Williams has a lot of class about him and if he develops he could be the kind of player who tops off a good list. He has a very high ceiling and I will be very surprised if GC do not match on him.

44. Josh Daicos

As I am sure everyone already knows that Josh is the son of Collingwood champion Peter and so Collingwood get first crack at him as a father son. With Callum Brown also available as a father son as well, Collingwood have been very tight lipped about whether they are going to take Daicos or not. Although there are some issues with Daicos, his talent level is so high I just cannot see them passing on him. If they did pass and he lived up to the Daicos name it would be a PR disaster for the Pies and we all know how image conscious Everywhere Eddie is.

Despite what you might think, Daicos is behind most other guys in this draft as far as development goes. He was held out of elite programs until this year and even this year he has had a broken hand which has further cramped his development program. The coaching staff at Oakleigh have not been overly happy with the situation and think he could have been a lot further along if they had been given more time with him. I think attitude and desire are issues for Daicos. Is he prepared to put in the work and take the pain that goes along with being an elite footballer? Does he want it enough? Reading between the lines I think there are serious doubts about this.

The other big question concerning Daicos is around his athleticism. He is short (177cm) and lacks the kind of athletic talent you would like to see in your outside players and small forwards. He is quite slow and his endurance I would suggest is going to be somewhere in the 12s. As has become a trend those with a bit to hide, he didn't test at the Combine so I can't confirm just how unathletic he is. Agility-wise Daicos looks good and he has a nice ability to keep his distance and give himself some time to work. Daicos is a bit of a short strider but he has good balance and looks in a position to change direction or kick the ball at any time. Teams would have to assess whether with time in their programs they can get Daicos' running up to an acceptable level. He does have excellent football smarts and he knows where to run to and he reacts quicker than others. These traits compensate somewhat for his athletic shortcomings.

When the ball is in his area or in his hands Daicos is a difference maker. His football IQ is up there with the best when he has the ball in hand. He knows where to go, where the goals are and generally he does the little things that give his team an advantage. He gets his hands in when an opponent has it, positions himself to receive nicely and will shepherd. His tackling is good for an outside player although admittedly most of his tackles come from close work.

Daicos might have the best feel on his kicks of anyone in this draft. He has a loose, open bodied kicking style and he seems able to drop the ball onto his boot at any time. He has good vision across the levels although tends to work mostly in the short to intermediate zones. He kicks probably better on the move than from a stoppage and his weighting of his kicks on the run is excellent. With his set shots, and sometimes with his field kicks, he has a bit of an around the corner style much like Suckling has. He has the ability to do things other can’t by foot. By hand he has nice penetration and can make things happen with his handballing.

Daicos' effort was inconsistent and too often he did not turn up mentally for TAC games. Even during games he can disappear for long periods and he is not someone at the moment who spreads hard and flows forward and back with the play. This could be tank related but it looks a bit too much like poor effort for me. Daicos I see as a boom or bust type and the risk of failure being high. If he succeeds he has a ceiling to be a player like Alan Didak. If he fails he washes out in two years never to be seen again.

45. Jack Graham

Graham certainly deserved his win in the Larke Medal this year but despite being judged the best player at the Div 1 Champs it is hard to see him being taken particularly highly in the draft. There are significant holes in his game which I suggest will cause teams to question whether he can play his game effectively at the next level.

Like a few of the mid prospects in this draft Graham is not the athlete you would like him to be. He did not test at the Combine but from watching him play I suggest he would time very slowly over the first 10m of any sprint test and with the turning circle of a bus he is not going to do well in the agility test. Once he is up and going I think his speed is okay. Not top end but functionally okay. That is pretty close to how I would describe his endurance as well. He is primarily an inside mid and he is fit enough to get from one contest to the next but he is not going to do a lot of extra outside running.

I was surprised he weighed in at the Combine at 81.1kgs. That is a couple kgs lighter than he was listed at the Champs which in turn I thought was 4 or 5 kgs than he probably weighed. Graham is a mature bodied guy and at the Champs I thought he was carrying a few extra kgs. Dropping those kgs could well help his pace, agility and endurance, all of which would be significant concerns for those looking to pick him. If he turned up at the Combine having trimmed up a few kgs despite his injury I think that could have reassured teams.

Graham tore his quad off the bone at the end of last year and that did not help his preparation over the last preseason. This season he has had a series of niggles which has not helped his performances for his club and his season ended with another quad injury. The first quad injury was the first significant injury that he has had but he has certainly made up for that in the last year. The timing could certainly have been better than to happen in his draft year but I suppose if he had to pick a period to be injury free he would have picked the Champs period where he played his best football for the year.

What Graham does well is win the ball on the inside. At the Champs he averaged 25 disposals, 5 clearances and 5 tackles a game. He enjoyed a significant size and strength advantage over most of his opponents and he used that well. He relentlessly chases the ball in tight and he wins a lot of it as a result. His hands are very clean and once he gets his hands on the ball he is very good at getting it out of the clearance situations. People worry about whether Graham will be as effective when he plays against guys who are strong as he is and much more athletic. I think he will adapt and I would suggest that those people have a look at the SA v VC game. Graham went head to head with Will Brodie quite a bit in that game and I thought he definitely came out with the honours. Brodie is a big bodied, power type player and Graham managed him nicely.

When you watch Graham play he very much reminds you of a country league champion mid and he plays a bit like he is playing in a country league. Too often at the moment he indiscriminately just pumps it long at every opportunity. He really needs to take the time to pick out targets more than he currently does. His kicking is, to put it bluntly, not good enough currently. Technically there is not a lot wrong with his kicks, it’s more that he does not aim for anyone. When he does (mainly on short targets) he usually gets the ball there. Occasionally he does try and hit a specific target long and he seems to me to lack a bit of feel on his longer kicks. Practice over that medium distance would help though I’m sure.

Graham can sneak forward on occasions and can be a difficult match up. He holds his ground nicely and is a good mark for his size. He seems a good read of the ball in the air and where to go to position himself.

I could see Graham developing like Matt Crouch has done for Adelaide. Crouch has put a lot of time into his body over the last two years and to succeed Graham is going to need to do the same. With his attitude and attack on the ball he has a chance to make it though.

46. Josh Battle

If I had to pick a fairly highly rated player who could fall sharply and maybe not be taken at all it would be Battle. Battle has significant athletic deficiencies which cause me to seriously question whether he will be able to be effective at all at AFL level.

Lets look at those issues. First up there is his height. He is only 192cm which, unless you are athletically gifted, is very much on the short side for a KPF. His lack of height is not helped by the fact that he cannot jump over an anthill. He finished last in the 2 footed jump and was in the bottom 7% and 11% in the two running jump tests. With his height issues a lot of people expect him to be more of a third tall rather than a KP. The problem with that is that his agility is very, very poor. He tested over 9 seconds in the agility test at the Combine (3rd bottom) and plays that way too. Battle performed poorly in any of the testing that involved stop and goes or changes of direction.

When the AFL Academy went to the US earlier in the year and Battle impressively won the 3km. Whilst he didn't win the 3km at the Combine he still ran a very credible 10.07 so it is safe to assume that endurance is a strength of his. For those looking to consider how much his lack of agility is likely to affect his ability to use the strengths he has need to look at his beep test. Even though he is an elite 3km runner he was below average in the beep test with a 13.5. Battle ran a respectable 3.08 in the 20m (slightly below average) but finished last in the 30m repeat sprint with a really ordinary 27 second time. All this was already known to AFL teams but the lack of improvement hurts him. So safe to say Battle had a very ordinary Combine and to make matters worse he tested poorly in the skills as well.

If Battle is going to succeed he is going to need to play a game like Tom Lynch (the Adelaide version). He is going to need to roam far and wide and play a completely different way to the way he plays now. It is possible that he succeeds in that role given he has the straight line running ability to cover the necessary ground and he is a very good mark of the ball. Whilst he is not very good below his knees his hands over his head are good and he is a very capable contested mark. He finds the creases in zones very intelligently but he often has to work with a defender in his back pocket and he is likely to struggle when matched up on quicker and bigger AFL level opponents. Closer to goal he struggles to get separation on his leads and I think at AFL level he is going to need to work further up the ground and then beat his man leading back hard toward goal.

Despite his limitations it is worth noting that Battle was very effective this year and averaged 3 goals a game. He had a variety of ways of goaling and his goal sense is very good. He is a smart player who makes the most of what he has and is very professional from all reports. He is going to struggle to adapt but I am not writing him off just yet. A smart, strong footballer often finds a way to be effective. He just to find how to make best use of his strengths and minimise his weaknesses.

47. Bailey Banfield

Banfield was not overly noticeable at the Champs but was one of those guys who took what he learnt from the Champs and improved week on week in the second half of the year. He was always a big ball winner in the Colts but it was encouraging that he was able to bring similar ball winning ability to the Reserves when he got the chance. He played a couple of WAFL games at the end of the year and debuted with a 26 possession game at the top level. He went back to the Colts for the finals and was part of Claremont's premiership team. In the Grand Final he had a significant influence on the result with his hard running and his 32 disposals and 6 tackles.

From all reports Banfield is a very professional young guy who is meticulous in his approach to preparing for games and improving in general. His kicking remains something which needs work but he has shown improvement on the year and there is no reason to suggest that will not continue. It is interesting to look at his kicking efficiency percentages over the year. As he progressed through the WAFL levels he improved his kicking efficiency at each jump up in class. Usually with less time, a player’s kicking comes under more pressure and their efficiency goes down. It is the opposite with Banfield and a testament to the work he has put in. He is a left footer and most of his issues I think are to do with a tendency to just pump it long indiscriminantly rather than taking an extra second to look for a target. This is pretty common when a guy is used to playing with less skilled players and field position is important. I think drills in an elite environment will go a long way to getting that out of his game.

Banfield has the build most teams are looking for in a mid, standing 189cm tall and weighing a toned 84kgs. He was not invited to the National Combine instead tested at the State Combine where he had some very impressive results. His vertical jump would have placed him second in the Combine and his running left foot jump in the top 5. His 24.88 would also have put him in the top 5 in the repeat sprint and his 8.30 in the agility test would have put him just outside of the top 10. His 20m sprint time of 2.96 was also pretty good. With guys doing all of their testing on the one day the State Combine participants often suffer in the beep test and return lower scores than those at the Combine and so his 12.9 time was less of a concern for me than it would have been if he had done it at the Combine. I would equate that to about a 13.5 all things being equal. Overall Banfield tested very impressively and combined with his size he is a very interesting package.

Banfield is an inside out mid who wins a high percentage of contested ball. As he improves his tank I would like to see him work harder on the spread and get to space a bit more. Even when he is working on the outside he has guys in close proximity too much for my liking. On the inside Banfield moves through traffic well and he manages to get his hands on the ball a lot. He could be a bit quicker to get it away and he does tend to get scragged a bit. He keeps his arms free in tackles nicely but he is going to get done a lot for holding the ball early in his AFL career as he learns to adjust. It is much the same on the outside where he cruises a bit and moves east west looking for what to do with the ball rather than having the pedal to the floor and going north south whilst he assesses what is on offer. He has the pace he just needs to learn to work at a high cruising speed and attack a defence a bit more.

Defensively Banfield works pretty hard and gets up and down the park better than a lot of mids in this draft. He is also a willing tackler and even if he is not impacting the game in other ways he mucks in and tackles.

Overall I would have no trouble taking a punt on a big possession winning, good athlete who has a good attitude and shown really nice development over the year and I think there will be a couple of teams out there that would agree with me.

48. Ryan Garthwaite

Garthwaite has a lot of admirers and I don't mind him but the question for me is what you are picking him to be. Personally I do not see him as a key position. If you picking him as a key position I think it is a mistake. He is only 192cm and 83kgs and I think he is not likely to ever have the height or bulk you would want to see in a key position. If instead you are looking for a defensive minded third tall who can do a job on smalls or medium talls then I think he could be a good pick.

Of course first you have to get past GWS. Garthwaite is a GWS academy player and as a consequence they have matching rights on him but to be frank they cannot match on everyone and they have a lot of good options this year. There is a chance that they do match on him given he is a natural replacement for Joel Patfull who retired this offseason. Garthwaite is really very similar to Patfull, in size and the way he plays the game.

Garthwaite is rated as one of the best one-on-one defenders in the TAC and in an off year for key position forwards he was not found out too often. At the Champs I thought he was well beaten by Kerr and probably had a points loss to Battle. With Kerr in particular I thought Garthwaite struggled with the extra size he had to deal with. In addition to lacking a bit of size, Garthwaite has trouble getting off the ground. At the Combine he was in the bottom third in all the jumps and was very close to the bottom in the running left foot leap.

Garthwaite's other testing was reasonable. He ran a 3.04 in the 20m and a 25.72 in the repeat sprint to show he has decent functional speed. 13.2 was lower than is ideal in the beep test for a third tall but his 10.19 in the 3km showed that his endurance is pretty good although perhaps a little straight line at the moment. 8.63 in the agility is good enough but his goal kicking test pretty much shows why he is at the defensive end of the ground.

One thing that bears comment is Garthwaite's kicking style. It really is unusual the results can be a bit variable. He has a deliberate movement to put his eyes down and nod his head and he loses sight of his target for longer than is ideal. His hold on the ball is also a bit low and at times variable. At the Champs, Garthwaite played as a shutdown defender most often and did not get off his man too much going forward. It was a bit of a different story in the TAC where he averaged 16.6 disposals per game. In the TAC he went 70% by foot which is pretty good for a tallish defender notwithstanding that it could be better.

This year's big defenders have some very impressive marks of the ball and Garthwaite is in that group as well. There are others I rate more highly but that should not take away from that fact that, for a defender, he is a very good mark of the ball. He reads it well and has confidence in his own ability. Notwithstanding he is a pretty good mark, Garthwaite also shows good judgement about when to mark and when to spoil.

Garthwaite is very highly regarded by the Bushies hierarchy, finishing third in the Best and Fairest last year as a bottom ager and second this year. He is also considered very coachable and willing to listen and learn. He has things to learn and I see him ending up a no frills type but those type of guys can be important if underrated elements of successful teams.

 

[Quigley]

49. Jake Waterman

Waterman has been nominated by the Eagles as a father son and I would expect them to end up taking him. In my opinion, the Eagles have added some nice forward prospects over the last two years and Waterman will add further to that. He reminds a lot of Darling and I actually gave some credence to the thought that the Eagles might have cashed in on Darling in the offseason to free up some space for the next generation and to bring in a quality player in an area of need.

I really rate Waterman's approach to the game. He is an aggressive, confident type who just seems to want the ball to come to him. He backs himself and will go after the ball hard. The forwards who succeed in the league are most often the guys who are like that. They back themselves and take the game to the defenders rather than letting the defenders dictate play.

Waterman has played as a key position when I have seen him play but at 189.9 he is going to be a third tall at the next level. With that said I don't think he will need to change his game style too much apart from maybe putting a bit more effort into the defensive side of his game. He is not going to be a prima donna KPF in the AFL who can rely on others to do the defensive running. He is going to get a close look at the work that Darling and Kennedy do and see how far he needs to go to get up to that standard.

Offensively though I like the way Waterman goes about it. He is a hard, straight up the ground leading type of player. He didn't test like it, but in game situations he seems to have a nice little burst of pace that gives him a step or two of separation. He is not a big jumper but he is good on the stretch and he is a very good mark with fingertip control. He is a guy who does not need to slow down to time his arrival and mark the ball and so is not easily spoiled if he has separation. He is strong going for the ball and uses his body well to clear the way and to protect the drop zone. With ordinary lateral movement he does not really rely on any sharp cuts to get away from a defender. Instead it is a combination of smarts, some body work and hard and sustained leads. He regularly gets well up the ground and it is not uncommon to see him making the ball in the defensive half of the ground as his team moves the ball forward.

The confidence that Waterman has extends to his disposal skills. He expects that he can drop a kick or handball into a small target area and, to be fair to him, he is usually right. He has a bit of a scooping kicking style but he has great feel on his kicks. There are not many in this draft who I would prefer to have delivering the ball into 50. By hand he has good penetration and he is one of the more attacking handballers available this year. Around goal he has very good goal sense and has a bit of the Stevie Js to his finishing ability. At the Champs he had an uncharacteristic 4 goals and 8 behinds but I see that result as an anomaly rather than the rule. Usually I would consider him a very reliable set shot for goal. It is worth a mention that he finished in the top 10 in the goal kicking at the Combine.

Speaking of the Combine, Waterman was generally pretty average in his testing. His 13.8 in the beep and 25.91 in the repeat spring were pretty much midrange of those tested whilst he was at the lower third of those tested in the 20m and agility test. He was just outside the bottom 10 in the jumps. So it is safe to say when you take Waterman you are getting a footballer rather than an athlete.

Waterman is a bustling, physical player who attacks the play and is smart in the way he goes about things. He captained WA this year and has matured a lot over the last 12 months. In the AFL I think he can be a dangerous number 2 or 3 option playing opposite a true key target and if he ends up at the Eagles he gets that.

50. Jeremy Goddard

Okay an admission here. I am largely including Goddard because of my love of him from last year. Coming into the year he was clearly my number 1 and I am holding the faith that he will come good in the end. Goddard is a massive guy at 202cm and 101kgs who is going to take a few years to get everything together but he has the potential to be a dominating presence in the middle and if I was a team picking late-ish I take him and stash him away. There has been a dearth of ruck talent come through in the last few years. I think you grab a talent when you can get him cheap.

Goddard's big strength is his ruck work especially around the ground. He can tap with either hand and uses his body well to keep the opposing ruck clear of the ball. His control is pretty good and his hit outs to advantage would be high. In the televised AFL Academy game earlier in the year he was the starting ruck and I recall him dominating the ruck contest in that game against VFL opposition. His performance in the WAFL Colts grand final is also worth a mention. In that game he had 44 hit outs, 16 disposals, 7 marks and 5 tackles which was statistically his best game of the year (from my limited research). To turn up in a big game and dominate like he did speaks highly of him.

What Goddard needs to do is get involved like that around the ground more often. This year he has been too often been a non-factor around the ground. He needs to attack the contest more and throw his weight around and then work harder to find space. I would like to see him up his aggression and not be afraid to break an opponent in half. I would love to see him go all Mummy once in a while.

He is a typical ruck in that he looks to handball on virtually every occasion but he is decent with his handballing. By foot he is not terrible but not great either. There is enough to work with though for a ruck. Also like many rucks he lacks a bit of footy smarts on occasions but again he is not terrible and with a couple of years coaching in an AFL environment I think he will be fine.

Goddard did not get an invite to the national Combine instead had to go through the State version. Apart from his poor beep test of 11.7 the rest of the testing was really excellent. His two foot jump was better than any of the rucks tested at the Combine as was his agility test where he did an 8.42. This was hugely impressive for such a big, hefty guy and a lot better than any of the other rucks. 3.02 in the 20m was very good and second in the rucks to only Olango whilst his 25.40 was over a second ahead of any of the other rucks. All up Goddard tested as an excellent athlete for a ruckman and as someone with quite a bit to work with as he improves his endurance.

Goddard is a late pick now but, for me, I think there is too much potential to ignore. I value first use of the ball highly and Goddard is a guy who can give your team that. There is plenty to work on in his game but he has the size and athleticism to dominate and for a late pick I jump onboard.

51. Willem Drew

I am only revisited Drew because Knightmare is in love with him and had him at 10 last time I looked. I had written him off at the Champs. To quote my last comment on him - "does not get enough of it and when he does, does not use it well enough". Pretty damning but given the significant love for him I had another look and whilst I have not fallen in love with him I do think it is worth giving him a mention.

The problem for Drew at the Champs was that he was not able to play his best position. He is an inside player but was forced to the outside with the likes of Brodie, McCluggage, Atley and at times Ainsworth dominating the inside positions. Despite Knightmare's love I think Drew is clearly behind all of those players. With that said he is certainly a lot better inside player than he is an outside player and the role he played at the Champs did not show him to best advantage.

At 188cm, Drew has the size that teams like in their mids especially their inside players. On the inside I think Drew has close to the quickest of anyone's hands available this year. He collects and gets it away to a target very quickly and well. Despite having very small hands he collects off his toes really nicely and I would classify him as a clean player - not elite perhaps but still above average for his position. He showed nice ability to work in the space afforded to him at TAC level but when the pace went up at Champs level I did think he struggled a little which causes me a little concern about his ability to adapt to AFL level.

Drew takes quite a lot of marks but most are uncontested and it worries me a little that he does not take the ball at full extension. He often marks it with bent arms which I don't think he is going to get away with at AFL level as much as he has done at TAC level. There is usually things which juniors work out they can't do at AFL level and this will be one for Drew I think. There is no reason he cannot adjust but I do think it will need work from him. With his marking he is going to need to work on going hard, maintaining his run at the ball so as not to allow the opponent to close and then taking the ball at full stretch.

For some reason Drew picked and chose his tests at the Combine. He didn't do the sprints or the beep but he did do the jumps and agility test where he tested poorly and the 3km where he did really nicely with a 10.08. He did the skill tests and did well in the kicking test and poorly in the clean hands test (which is completely contrary to how I thought he would go in each) and the goal kicking test. Overall I do not like his kicking. I think he lacks velocity and regularly just puts it up in the air and allows the opposition a chance at it. That is going to be punished at AFL level.

Drew can get forward and have an impact and I do like his ability to rest forward and have a positive effect on the scoreboard. He is a good mark, strong, tall and his acceleration seems good all of which makes his difficult to deal with when up forward. I do not think he has enough tricks or natural forward instincts to play forward full time but in a part time capacity he can be dangerous.

52. Daniel Venables

Venables is a solid footballer who has the potential to be more than that but there are significant risks with him. He has been a match winner at times this year but too often disappears for extended periods. He has missed significant time with injuries this year including stress fractures in his foot (a significant concern of itself) and concussion (also worrying long term). Despite making the All Australian side it is worth noting that Venables only averaged 13 disposals a game and even less than that in the TAC (12.7). Admittedly he did play quite a bit of time up forward but he played enough midfield time that he should have accumulated more than that.

Venables needs to work harder to get to space and stay in games. At the moment he just does not work hard enough to get to space and get the easy possessions. People like Venables I think because he is an intriguing mix of power and speed and he seems like a smart footballer that’s on the verge of putting it all together. To date though that has not happened.

Venables has probably done his best work up forward. He gets around the ground nicely and he has nice pace and creates separation. He is strong and holds his ground nicely which can make him difficult to contain. I think he ends up being a very powerful package which combined with his pace will give him an advantage over a lot of AFL defenders.

In the midfield he is competitive and can make things happen with his endeavour but I am not enamoured with any particular aspect of his game. I am concerned that his hands are not particularly good and he is prone to fumbling and double clutching the ball in the contest. At AFL level where opponents are a step or two quicker he is not going to be able to get away with that and I think he could struggle to adapt to a midfield role. It is worth noting that he has not had a lot of time onball this year though and if he gets a good run with injuries and can put time into his inside work he could improve with practice. He does have good strength and keeps his hands free nicely when tackled, both of which are very handy when playing inside. He does okay clearing the ball from the contest and when he gets into space his disposal can hurt the opposition.

On his skills, I note that he is often described as having excellent disposal skills. Personally I have not really seen evidence of this. In my notes I have more often described his skills as ordinary or average rather than good or excellent. If I was considering him in the first round with his disposal count I would want someone with elite skills who makes each possession count. I have seen no evidence of Venables being in that class. I have been trying to find a comparison for him and despite him not playing up forward the guy I came up with was Jordan De Goey. De Goey was overdrafted by Collingwood as a forward who was expected to transition easily into the midfield. He might still get there but the transition is not an easy thing and I expect Venables to have similar issues.

53. Willie Rioli

I go back a fair way and remember when Charles Barkley was called the "round mound of rebound" and for much of Rioli's career this seemed to be his role model. I have watched Willie since he was 16 and he was always overweight and out of shape. It was a real shame as it was clear that there was a talented player in there but his lifestyle was not going to allow him to play AFL level football.

At the beginning of last year however, Rioli was pushed to go to Adelaide and actually give football a good go. Credit to him he ditched the junk food and went all out to get fit. He came in halfway through the preseason but he worked hard and over the last two seasons he has turned himself into probably the best small forward in the SANFL. He has lost 16kgs since he arrived at Glenelg and his new self-discipline has gotten the attention of the AFL teams. He always had talent and now people can actually see that talent fully applied in game situations. Rioli tested at the State Screening and his 2.98 in the 20m and 13.2 in the beep were personal bests. He still has a way to go but he has shown a dedication to getting there that had not been there before.

Rioli is a small forward and there is a bit of Cyril in the way he plays. He has always been good defensively and since he has dropped the weight he applies elite pressure in the forward half. He has really good closing speed and is good coming from the blind spot with a burst of pace. The defensive side of the game is probably where he most resembles Cyril and he burst onto the SANFL scene on the back of this with 10 tackles in his first SANFL game. The other aspect where there is a definite resemblance is with his hands below the knees. I read somewhere that Willie just vacuums up the ball when it is on the ground and that evocative statement is probably very apt. Whether at speed or under pressure, Rioli is very clean below the knees and makes a lot of things happen with his ability to collect and get the ball away quickly.

Rioli is very clever with the ball in dispute. He is excellent at getting a hand in and knocking it away or too himself. It is similar in marking contests where if he is not going to mark the ball he will deflect or spoil it and control where it goes very nicely. This is just one of the small little things that I have noticed Rioli do and I am sure I have missed a lot more. He is a clever, instinctive player who does a lot of things which helps himself and teammates. He finds space well up forward and will exploit seams and drop off contests smartly to make himself available and in a dangerous spots.

He only managed 25 goals in his 16 games this year but he is dangerous around goal and his 4 goals for SA against Victoria in the interstate game earlier in the year will certainly have helped him get attention. He is a good finisher around goal and a very nice field kick. Some rate his skills as elite but I would put him a bit below that. He executes pretty well but I do not think his vision is as good as the likes of Cyril and others and he lacks a bit of zip on both his kicks and handballs.

Rioli turned 21 this year so he is young enough although it is getting to the now or never period of his career. He has done a lot to give himself an opportunity and I think a few teams will be interested in giving it to him. He has skills which are valuable and translatable to the AFL and it is probably not going to cost teams much to see if he can translate his game to the big league.

54. Jack Rolls

Rolls was one of my disappointments of the year. I really liked some of the things that Rolls showed last year and thought there was the potential for him to really take it to another level this year. Instead he probably looked worse this year than last and is probably more likely not to be drafted now than to be drafted.

Rolls was called up to the AFL Academy last year on the back of some really nice form both at the Champs and in the NEAFL. He played off the half back line mostly and provided really nice run from behind and some of his entries into forward 50 were elite. He had an excellent laser-like short kick that he used to hit his forwards on the chest. At times he looked like the second coming of Simon Black with his kicks. Not long, but deadly. He was renowned also for his endurance running and rumour was that he was close to 16 in the beep.

Fast forward to this year and he has played mostly through the midfield, has been besieged by injury and his kicking skills have deserted him. Through the midfield, Rolls has shown a good ability to find the ball and he is a hard worker both on the inside and out. He accumulated 30 disposals in his one TAC game and had a very respectable 17.2 disposals for the Lions in the NEAFL. Rolls’ endurance is the strength of his game and one of the things that might get him drafted is his willingness to work both offensively and defensively.

On the inside Rolls positions himself to receive well but I don’t think he has a natural feel for where the ball is going at the moment. Intellectually he knows where to go and he does a good job at getting there. Being in good position he does win his fair share of clearances. His hands are usually nice and clean although on occasions he does lift his head early and can fumble. I think with practice he will be fine there. Similarly the speed of his hands can be variable. I have comments in my notes saying both that he has quick and slow hands. When he collects the ball he tries to find a good target and does not just shoot the ball out indiscriminately. This is both good and bad with his team getting good value from the clearances he does get trapped with the ball a bit looking for a free target.

Rolls comes from a basketball background but is not one of those guys who seems to have eyes in the back of his head. He does get blindsided by tacklers quite a lot and he tends to operate within a bit limited field of vision. I do not think his peripheral vision is great. This applies both on the inside and out.

With his dark hair and swarthy complexion, Rolls reminds of Libba both in his looks and how he moves. He is strong over the ball and changes direction pretty well in tight. He can maintain distance and has good balance which allows him to go off either foot. He does lack explosiveness though and is pretty slow over the first 10m. Once he is up and going he reasonable and probably comparable with someone like Sidebottom. At pace he is not great with his change of direction but he does have a nice little body swerve that can get him through traffic. He looks to go forward with his running and despite lacking pace he often provides his side with nice run.

Rolls has reasonable height at 182 although watching him play you would think he was shorter. He is strong over the ball and has good balance. He is a willing and good tackler and he does get back defensively to help out his backs when needed. Overhead he is not particularly strong but depending on what position he is playing he can pick up his fair share. For example he averaged 6 marks a game in the NEAFL but only 2 in the Champs. He is not going to be an intercept marker but if he is behind the ball he will work to space be an option to mark and move the ball on.

The key for me as to whether Rolls succeeds or fails is whether he can regain his kicking form. I understand he had hamstring issues over the year and that he was asked to play through and the injury issues affected his confidence and execution. Having seen a fair bit of him over the year I did notice that his kicking did drop away the further he went and that excuse probably does have some merit. If he can get back that surgical short kick there is a place in the AFL for him. If not he is going to struggle.

Rolls was shattered when he was ruled out of the rest of the season with injury. He knew full well that he did not have a great Champs and the injury robbed him of an ability to redeem himself. I hope the Lions take him as a rookie if nothing else. He is a very determined, hard working player who I think has a chance to make it. Although he is certainly a lot fitter, he reminds me a lot of Tom Rockliff when he first arrived at the Lions and with work I think he could develop his game like Rockliff has.

 

[Quigley]

55. Zac Sproule

Like many of the GWS Academy kids I expect Sproule is hoping that GWS pass on him so he actually has a chance to play AFL football. Sproule is a nice player with a chance to make it but GWS have such an insanely deep and talented squad it’s hard to see him getting a chance for GWS anytime soon.

Sproule played mostly as a high roaming CHF this year but he was moved into defence at times and showed that he could be effective in that role as well. Sproule does lack a couple of yards of pace especially off the mark and if he is played in defence I think it will be as a match up for the ruck or ruck/fwd and he probably has the athleticism to play that role. He did not really get exposed in defence when I have seen him play and he often just seems to be in the right place at the right time. Perhaps he would also work nicely in a zone structure that does not really rely a great deal on one on one match ups. He reads the ball well in the air and whilst he is not the best marking forward he would be better than most KPDs.

As a forward Sproule plays a lot of his time outside of the forward 50 up onto the wing. He is not always in a goal scoring position but he available for use. I don't know exactly what he does but he gets a lot of possessions from uncontested marks where he is in a mile of space. Occasionally he manages to do that inside 50 and I have wondered whether he has just worked up the field more than the backs are comfortable with and they let him go and then fail to pick him up when he drifts back with the ball. He is not a big contested marker and I would like to see him attack contests with more aggression. He is often there but does not really drive toward the ball and quite honestly he rarely looks like he is going to mark the ball.

At 196cm, Sproule has nice height and generally moves nicely around the ground for someone his size. He is not a guy who cuts sharply with his change of directions but he is reasonably fluid as he moves from one direction to another. He is not anything special athletically and his testing at the Combine was definitely on the poor side. His jumps were below average but not hugely so and with his height he certainly has a jumping reach above most. His sprints were slow with him running a 3.18 in the 20m and a 26.76 in the repeat sprints. The endurance tests were nothing special but they were good enough to show that he should be able to play his game at AFL level. It was similar with the agility test which was at the lower end of acceptable.

When Sproule gets the ball he is not hugely damaging with it and he mostly goes short with his kicks. He hits his targets well and there is potential for him to go for more with his kicks. His set shot technique seems fine, with everything aligned in a fairly classical approach. Despite that he can be a bit hit and miss with his goal kicking but from his set shots and his snaps. He knows where the goals are generally but his radar needs a bit of fine tuning.

One thing I really rate in Sproule's game is his defensive chasing. Unlike most KPFs he actually works hard defensively and he will regularly give you a really hard chase and not just when he is likely to run down his opponent. He runs down more players than any of the other KPFs this year and even when he doesn't get there he creates pressure that rushes his opponent and can cause turnovers in itself. Sproule is a hard worker who has a nice size and although he might not be the most talented draftee he is going to give his all to make it. On the field he reminds me a bit of Cale Hooker.

56. Myles Poholke

Poholke is a guy that I wouldn’t be surprised to see go pretty highly or drop right away on draft day. He has holes in his game that could concern teams but there are strengths there that a team might fall in love with as well. He has a clear career path in the AFL which should see him start his career as a HFF and progressively play more and more midfield. This is a pretty standard pathway in the AFL and a guy who fits that nicely is going to appeal to teams given they don’t need to have much imagination to see him in those roles.

At the champs I thought Poholke looked to be carrying a bit of puppy fat that he could stand to lose and I think teams will like it that he lost 3kgs coming into the Combine. It certainly helped his testing at the Combine where he was quite impressive. He showed good endurance returning a 14.1 in the beep and burst of pace in the 20m where he did a 2.98. His repeat sprint and jumps were also good. The one test where he would have been below what would have been hoped for was in the agility test but if you have seen him play that was probably to be expected.

Poholke is a strong physical presence on the field and will often look to go through rather than around a tackler. He was quite effective with that in the juniors but like Nick Robertson I am not seeing him pull it off at AFL level. He is going to need to make it more of a surprise tactic rather than the go-to move it is now. I would like to see him work on his change of direction but I am not expecting it to ever be a strength of his.

Poholke has a little unusual body shape with short legs and a longer torso and that together with his lack of agility tends to lead to an impression that he is not quick. That would be wrong and he uses it to his advantage. He is not a big accumulator of the ball but he does get a reasonable amount of it as a HFF and he manages to find space well. Poholke’s biggest strength is probably his marking. He has excellent hands, a reasonable jump and is a good judge of the ball in the air. Add to that the fact that he is difficult to move when he establishes position and you have a guy who is a dangerous one-on-one player.

Probably the biggest hole in his game at the moment is his kicking. He is not one of those players who seems to have time and this is exacerbated by the fact that he looks to play on quickly whenever he gets the ball. This usually means he does not take a heap of time with his kicks and with his tendency to swing his leg across the ball he can miss more targets than most people would like to see. He does seem to identify good targets and his reading of the play seems fine so I think most of these problems come back to those two issues, both of which should be coachable to some extent. His kicking technique should be able to be ironed out with intense work and it needs to be stressed to him that he needs to take his time when he has it and not overly rush his disposal.

In the middle of the ground he is a bustling presence who battles away and wins his fair share. His hands are clean and quick enough but he is not a great read of the rucks’ taps. He is strong over the ball and competes well but I just do not see him as a natural. With time and exposure he should improve though. He uses his strength well in his tackles and he is not afraid to get in and mix it up.

Poholke has his fans and his detractors. I am somewhere in the middle.

57. Nate Dennis

Okay not many of you will have seen Dennis play this year given Kennelly's determination to showcase Olango throughout the Champs to the exclusion of all others. Although I ended up rating Olango, I found it a bit ironic that the one guy who I thought beat him in the ruck contest this year was overlooked entirely for him.

Dennis is an overaged prospect who was a late convert to the game after playing basketball and rugby for most of his life. He played at the Champs last year and I will admit I had basically written him off as a guy who was not going to make it. He was too passive and soft in the physical aspects of the game. This year though I thought differently. Although he is not a crash and bash ruckman by any stretch he was certainly willing to get in and mix it up. He was prepared to go hard when he needed to and throw his body into the ruck contest.

The ruck contest is where he excelled. He is a legitimate 200+cm ruck with a decent jump. He gets up and he has good balance in the air even when the bodies crash into each other. I watched him play a half dozen games this year against some very solid rucks and I don't think I saw him lose the ruck contest in any of them. He has a nice array of tap moves and he has nice control of his taps.

After rucking he lands well and quickly transitions to becoming another midfield albeit one who does not get a heap of disposals at the moment. In his 4 TAC games this year he averaged only 8 disposals a game and in his 3 Div 2 games he averaged 7 disposals a game. He has been working on becoming more involved around the ground and, watching him, I thought he was available for use more than he was used. He continued to work on his around the ground game as the season progressed and at the lower level he was more effective. In the AFLQ he was in the best in 5 of his 8 games for Uni. Although he has struggled a bit to recover the ball himself he has become a very good tackler in close and has had some high tackling games this year.

Another area he has obviously worked hard on is his kicking. Although he still handballs more than he kicks he did make a few really nice weighted kicks at the Champs. He has improved a lot since last year and I would put his skill level above most ruck prospects this year. He is not terrible effective when he plays forward although he will give a contest. He has been working hard on his set shots and his technique is reasonable.

Dennis is a rookie prospect at best but in a league where there is a shortage of ruck prospects I would give him a long look. He has improved significantly in all aspects of his game and there is still quite a lot of improvement left in him. I still rate winning the ruck to be an important aspect of the game and Dennis is in the top few at that skill in this draft.

58 Ben Jarman

Jarman is the son of Darren and like his father he is more of a footballer than an athlete. Adelaide has nominated him as a father son and I would say it is likely that that is where he ends up. I do not see him getting bid on early and as a late lottery ticket I think Jarman is as good as any.

Jarman measured in at only 172.5cm which was about an inch less than advertised and unlike most of the very short guys who are taken he is not an athletic freak. At the Combine he demonstrated more speed than most probably expected when he ran a very respectable 3.04 in the 20m and 25.83 in the repeat sprint. It was the endurance testing though which was the worry. Only 12.8 in the beep would concern teams given that he is likely to play up forward to start and will need that kind of endurance. His 11.06 in the 3km was better. Unsurprisingly given his heritage he was very poor in the jumps including finishing bottom of the standing vertical and absolutely gunned the skills tests. He was in the top 20% of those tested in all the skills tests.

If Jarman is going to make it it is going to be on the back of his skills. Everyone rates his skills as elite and whilst I would not classify his skills that highly, at the Champs he was certainly good with the ball in hand. I think I might have had him as a bit below elite because he tried things that others wouldn't (because they couldn't) and they didn't always work out. He has a lot of confidence in himself and he knows where the ball has to go to be most dangerous. He sees the field excellently and have very good awareness of where guys are around him. He is creative in the way he hits those players and with more practice he will more consistently get it where it needs to go.

Jarman has been held out of top level competition as a junior because he lacked size and this has affected his development a bit. There is significant upside to his game as he becomes more accustomed at playing at higher levels. He is still only light at 70kgs but he has put on a bit of bulk in the last year or so. For someone who has not played at this level much his football IQ is excellent and he reads the play a second or so ahead of others. He is on the move or made the play before others have even realised something is on. Whatever his deficiencies he does have the family's ability to read the play. He still needs a fair bit of polish and practice but he has a very important asset that gives him a chance to make it.

Jarman probably starts his career as a small forward. He has good crumbing ability, ability to find creases in zones and goal sense but it is going to be difficult for him to be effective at AFL level. He does not have any single physical ability that is going to allow him to get separation and defensively he is only average at best. I don't like the way he waves the ball around in his set shot approach and I can see that causing a few issues for him if he doesn't sort it out. Overall Jarman is going to be up against it but football smarts can take you a long way and he certainly has that.

59 Hayden Bertoli-Simmonds

Being one to spruik the Queenslanders at every opportunity I thought I would take the opportunity to put HBS on my list this year. HBS came through the Lions Academy in 2013 but obviously was not picked up. I had high hopes for him early in that year but unfortunately he did not really get enough of the ball to warrant being selected.

Over the last three years he has continued to work at his game and has been gradually improving before having a break out year this season. He has been playing mostly as a half back flanker in the NEAFL up until this year but with some players leaving Redlands he got his chance through the midfield and seized it. He started the year with a bang with a 30 disposal and 9 tackle game and was a consistent performer after that returning 23 disposals and 7 tackles per game on the year. He ended up winning the NEAFL Rising Star award in a very good field.

HBS is now 21 and has a mature body. He is a nice size and would physically be ready to play from day 1 if he were good enough. Athletically he seems okay and I would say his speed and endurance are okay. I do not have any testing for him so it is purely an eyeball evaluation. In game situations he covers plenty of ground and regularly works hard into the forward line to get to dangerous spots. He only managed 7 goals for the year but he was in position to kick a few more than that if the ball had gotten to him. He moves smoothly through traffic and he has worked hard to improve his spread this year.

As a junior, I remember HBS as an outside in player with nice skills. I was not as enthralled with his skills this year when I saw him play but I think in a full time environment they are likely to be polished up enough to be above AFL average and he should be able to rediscover the nice low punching kick I saw as a junior. He is not someone who always takes the first option but rather looks to take the best option. He has reasonably hurt factor on his kicks in particular.

He showed some nice inside skills this year and with more time onball he should only improve further. He reads the ball pretty well inside and his hands are reasonably clean and quick. I would not classify him as elite in any of these areas but given he has been an outside player for most of his career I think he shows some definite promise there. Playing inside definitely helps his tackle numbers and he impacts the game with his tackling. As mentioned above he averaged 7 tackles a game and if he did not get the ball himself he was quickly shutting the ball carrier down and affecting play that way.

As for positional flexibility I note that he has played most of his career to date as a back flanker and if selected I could see him starting his career at AFL level in that role. He is quite disciplined defensively and has some class coming out of defence with the ball in hand.

60 Shawn Watson

Okay for my last pick, and as is a bit of the norm for me, I am going left field and with a guy that most of you will not have heard of. Watson is a GC Academy player who I have seen play a few times this year most recently for Qld in the Div 2 Champs. So I am not exactly up to date with what he has been up to lately. Still I liked what I saw in the first half of the year and I thought he was worth a mention.

Watson is a power key position forward. He played in the first 2 games of the Div 2 Champs before making way for Ballenden to be the sole key forward in the last game against Tasmania. In the first two games he was quite impressive and if he had kicked straight he could well have gotten a chance with the Allies. Kicking 2 goals 5 behinds though gave someone else an opportunity against the weakest team in Div 2. Watson had been the best forward in the inter academy games in Qld earlier in the season and deserved his chance which he did not quite seize.

Watson is powerfully built, 196cm tall and reasonably athletic. He also would have the best hands of any key position forward available this year. He has big mitts that just swallow up any ball that comes his way. He is one of those rare forwards who when he goes up and gets his hands on the ball it is rare for him not to come down with it. He makes marking look very easy.

He is a good strong lead at the ball and he works hard up forward. His repeat efforts are good and he is strong in one-on-one contests. He does not seem to have much trouble getting separation and he usually able to hold it. He has gotten multiple shots on goal in every game I saw him play this year and always looked in the game. He has good size for an AFL player and knows how to use it.

As you might imagine with his 2 goals and 5 behinds return he can be a bit hit and miss in front of goal but from what I have seen I had expected a better return than that. He has a stupidly long run up on his set shot at the moment which I would look to cut down but he seems reasonably balanced in his approach. He does pull the ball up a bit just before he kicks it and I think this affects his conversion rate. He gets a reasonable amount of the ball for a key position and is a pretty good user of the ball in open play.

Encouragingly Watson works hard when the opposition has the ball and drops into coverage quickly. He is dangerous marking the ball coming out of defence and he will put pressure on his opponent when they are trying to clear the area.

Watson lacks some polish at the moment but he is an intriguing prospect that with some work could really pay dividends. He has a lot of tools that could enable him to become an effective AFL forward and given he is likely to be very cheap I would consider giving him a go.

 

[LemmingMaster]

*Reads his first book for the year*

 

[2006_Eagles]

Comprehensive much? Wow love your work.

You've convinced me that SPP is not too much of a reach at 12

 

[LemmingMaster]

Poholke has his fans and his detractors. I am somewhere in the middle.

Ranked 57 and you call that the middle of a top 60, then fair enough.

 

[Quigley]

Ranked 57 and you call that the middle of a top 60, then fair enough.

I thought you might go straight to him

He is not in the middle I am just neither for or against him. I am in the middle

 

[LemmingMaster]

I thought you might go straight to him

He is not in the middle I am just neither for or against him. I am in the middle

I did search for a few of my personal late pick favourites and read about them.

I'll check the rest out probably on Sunday.

 

[SizeMatters]

Would love for Simpkin to slip to the Lions 2nd pick. Not sold on Berry personally as well.

 

[The Smoking Gun]

Enjoyed the read Quigley.

 

[year of the cat]

Terrific as usual. Quick assessment of Ridley?

 

[12Chill]

Very comprehensive, great read.

 

[bmaurizio]

Massive effort Quigley and very interesting read, much appricated.
Baggers options like pretty good, SOS was astute to accumulate a few extra picks.
Go Blues

 

[GreatSouthWest]

Sorry Quigley, but there's a grammatical error in section F, paragraph 4, row 12.

 

[TheZork]

Great read. You've sold me on Ainsworth over McCluggage so hopefully essendon pick him at 1 and McGrath at pick 2. We definitely need someone with an elite disposal coming off HB, I did have Witherden as that player but was wondering who would you pick? Also what would your realistic preferences be for our 4 early picks?

 

[Clems Knee]

I look forward to this every year. Your rankings give your opinions -warts and all- about the players (instead of trying to second guess the recruiters), and you've had some very prescient insights over the years.
I will look forward to reading the bios of the Fremantle picks again and again in a few days time.

Jordan Ridley was an omission from the other drafts. Any insight into the reason he missed?

 

[Quigley]

Terrific as usual. Quick assessment of Ridley?

He probably gets picked in this range on the day but I just had not really seen anything that screamed pick me. In fairness though I did not see his games in the midfield which have a few excited. Teams are loving the idea of tall mids and if he genuinely showed midfield potential then he is a good chance to be taken in the second round. He is a long legged 192cm who looks reasonably athletic. I am not sold on his agility which causes me a few concerns about midfield potential. On his agility I am not really sure there is an issue or not. He seems to have a decent ability to change direction but he does not look that fluid to me and I am not sure how quick his plant and go is. It was something I flagged to look at further but when I decided not to include him I didn't bother to follow it up. Might be something or might be nothing.

I have probably seen him mostly as a third tall defender and I was not that enthused. Seems to play behind a lot and gives his man a bit too much room. Looks to be an offensive player but his disposal lacks hurt factor. He goes east west too much by foot and does not really look past the short targets. Seems to just want to get the ball to a target without making a mistake rather than advance the team's cause. Handball lacks a bit of accuracy and when under pressure at the back can make some poor decisions.

One of his strengths is his marking and that could be in question with his shoulder injury. People like his hands below the knees but I am not so sure that they are any better than most mediums you will get in the draft.

All that is really justifying why I didn't pick him. Probably more than anything it simply was that I saw him play at the Champs and did not really rate him enough to make comment. If I see someone a couple of times and they don't do enough to make the match comments chances are I don't include them. I can understand why he would get picked though. He has good size and seems to move pretty well. He is a good mark of the ball and operates at a good percentage. He can play forward and back and may have potential to go through the middle.