Quigley's Draft Rankings 2015

[Quigley]

Okay after a year off I am back this year. I have not attempted to do a mock this year. I just think things are a bit too hard with the Academy kids in there and lets face facts it is a bit of a crap shoot anyway. I have just decided to rank the players as I like them rather than where I think they will go.

This year is a little over half the length of my 2013 edition but there is still a bit there to get through.

FWIW for anyone who has not read my mocks before I make no apologies for giving the Div 2 guys a good run. Also the last 10 picks are usually for guys I want to write about rather than necessarily guys that I think will be taken there.

 

[Quigley]

1. Jacob Weitering

Ht 195 Wt 94


This is a year which lacks the top tier mid and forward talents that we see most years. As a consequence we have a KPD sitting at the top of most draft boards. Weitering is a top tier talent but he plays a position for which a team is usually not prepared to spend the number 1 on. This year though there are not the other options and Weitering is quite simply the best player out there by a decent margin and consequently he is the smart pick.


The player who I have seen Weitering compared to most is Harry Taylor and I do think there is a lot of merit in that comparison. He is very capable of matching up one on one but plays off a fair bit and will back his superior play reading ability to beat his opponent. He is very good in a loose man role and can control the back half if he is left to run free. His play-reading ability is what sets him apart from both the forward and backs available this year. He gets a read on the ball in the air very quickly and positions himself very well. He judges his arrival at the ball excellently and marks at its highest point whether from front on or coming in from the side which is a bit of a specialty of his.


On the park Weitering shows excellent athletic ability for a key position player. He has good height and a leap in the top third of those tested at the Combine which allows him to play on taller opponents with relative ease. His pace is better than most key positions and he has elite agility which allows him to make the most of his pace. His endurance results at the Combine were a little confusing with him running a 15 beep but a relatively poor 3km and repeat sprint. Maybe his base level endurance is not fantastic but his strength of mind and gut running ability is. In summary though I think he has the athletic ability to go with pretty much any forward he is likely to come across. He will need to put on a bit of bulk but he looks to have a frame which will easily add the muscle he needs. He has shown the strength to go body to body with forwards he has matched up on at junior level.


By foot, Weitering is well above average for a KPD and often takes the kick-ins for his team. With that said there are occasions when he gets overly conservative with his options and others when he goes for more and starts missing targets. Style wise he looks good. I do think he has a real weakness by hand which will need to be worked on. He is capable of pulling out a good powerful handball but too often he misses his targets with his handballs or gives it to a player who is under pressure.


Weitering has played a fair bit up forward and he is capable up there much in the way that Taylor is for Geelong when he is swung forward. With that said he has not dominated up forward in any games I have seen this year and if I am honest he has disappointed me a little with his forward work. He trained with the Lions earlier in the year and word out of camp was that he was capable of being a dominant force at either end. He has not shown that up forward over the year. Up forward he provides a good contest and will get to the ball but I have not seen him really assert himself. He is a good shot for goal and has good goal awareness.


Attitude on the park is something which I don’t often talk about in my write-ups but it is definitely worth mentioning with Weitering. Weitering looks in control when he is in defence. He is the focus and the rest of the players work off him. He controls his line beautifully and others take their cues from him. He played with Collins as his full back all year and the two of them worked exceptionally well in tandem. The ability to form such a great complementary partnership with your other KPD is something which should not be underestimated. AFL is a team game and having guys who can work effectively in the team and make the whole greater than the parts is essential.


In this draft, Weitering is a worthy number 1 and is a player who Carlton can plug in as their starting CHF for the next 10 years. There is every chance he will be elite in his position and when you are rebuilding I take that no matter what position it is.


2. Josh Schache

Ht – 199 Wt 101


Schache is a big powerful full forward who has developed really nicely this year and dominated regularly throughout the year. He kicked the most ever goals at the Champs and won the Larke Medal for the best Div 1 player. With that said I think he is far from a certainty to succeed at the next level.


The big issue for him is his pace and an inability to get separation on the lead even at junior level. When he is matched up on the bigger and quicker AFL level defenders, chances are that he is going to struggle at least early in his career when he does not enjoy the physical advantages he had over his junior opponents. Schache is a 3.2+ 20m runner and he is not an endurance machine. He has reasonably agility for a guy his size but he lacks the burst to get away from a defender. He is smart enough to get a step or two but that is going to get closed down quickly at AFL level. He is going to need to rely on his big body and strength to be effective. There is every chance he will be able to do so but he is by no means a certainty to be a dominating force.


The pace issue is obviously a major concern but apart from that there is a lot to like about Schache. He is a very tall, powerfully built, true full forward type. When he gets on the lead he is strong and is not easily moved off his line. He has very good hands above his head (probably not quite elite but close) and he takes a nice contested mark, watching the ball into the hands very well. Below his knees he is clean and shows reasonable awareness for a big guy when shovelling it out. At AFL level I expect a lot of the better defenders to play in front of him and back themselves to read the ball better coming in. Schache takes a little while to pick up the flight of the ball and a good defender is going to beat him to the spot pretty regularly. Francis showed how this could be done when they matched up at the Champs.


One of his big selling features is his goal kicking ability and he might be the best KPF kick for goal to come through in recent years. He is a left footer with an easy, uncomplicated set shot style that goes through the big sticks much more often than not. I have also been very impressed with his field kicking especially delivering it into 50. He has good hurt factor on his field kicks and tends to take good options.


Defensively, Schache is a bit of a bludger and he is very prone to having his man run off him. He lets his man go too easily and does not really work to impact defensively. What he does do though is get to dangerous spots and if there is a turnover he is in a position to impact the scoreboard. There is going to be more expected of him at AFL level but the smarts he shows in these situations will also stand him in good stead if he can get onto a team who can generate turnovers out of its forwards and mids.


Schache rucked a fair bit at junior level but I suggest he needs to improve quite a bit to do that at AFL level. In the ruck contest itself he often looks like he has no idea what he is doing. He has the height and strength to compete but he does not really use it effectively in the ruck. When the ball hits the ground he is better and around the ground he can be an effective option.


Overall I like Schache but I think he is going to take 2 or 3 years to work things out and develop his game to be effective at AFL level. Supporters are going to be frustrated with him early but I think he gets there. I struggle to see him being a Coleman contender but he will be a dangerous target who will help a team’s structure a great deal. As far as player comparisons go he reminds me most of the Rocca boys and I could see him having a career like those two.


3. Aaron Francis

Ht – 191 Wt – 92


Francis is probably my favourite player in this draft but he does cause consternation amongst a lot of us amateur draft watchers with some loving him and some just not rating him at all. Me I love him and think he will be a dominant player at the next level. Some think he is an undersized KP but I see him as a big bodied flanker who can play on talls if needed and who is likely to move into the midfield as he develops. The first game I saw him live he was playing through the midfield and I was very impressed and I see him plying his trade there for most of his career.


What I like most about Francis is that no matter where he plays he is a dominant presence. He imposes himself on the game and things happen. Stringer is that type of player for the Bulldogs and I see a lot of similarities in Francis. Both are strong, big bodied types who have the confidence to try things and the ability to pull them off. I have seen Francis back himself to take a pack mark in amongst 4 and go up over top of a 200cm opponent. He played on the best KPFs at the Champs and played off, backing himself to read the ball better in the air and run off him. Schache got a few goals on him when they matched up but pretty much all of them came from turnovers by Francis’ teammates that left Francis out of position and scrambling to recover. I thought Francis comfortably beat Schache that day despite the scoreboard.


Francis is likely to start his career in defence where he has played most of his football to date but expect him to be swung forward a bit at need and develop into a midfielder. He is a good one on one defender who backs himself against bigs or smalls and is rarely beaten. He is a superb reader of the play coming in and reacts first on virtually every occasion. He controls the space and rarely gives the forward a look in. Despite his one-on-one skills I like him best when he is playing loose and can float around where needed. He loves to run forward and will go hard and present as an option.


He is a good user of the ball particularly by hand where he is one of the better proponents of the attacking handball available this year. He has a long penetrating kick although he tends to look to pick off intermediate targets more than just pumping it long. He has a nice feel on his kicks and delivers it into 50 nicely. When up forward he is a solid converter although he can miss some you would expect him to get.


As a forward he is a good lead and seems to get separation with relative ease despite not being the quickest player out there. He has range beyond 50 and will work nicely off his other forwards. When he can’t mark he will smartly keep the ball in the area or direct it to his teammates. Defensively he works hard when he is up forward and he pressures and tackles well. He plays up forward much in the way that Darling does for West Coast. Francis has a very high football IQ and you can see him doing smart things wherever he is on the park.


Athletically he is pretty middle of the pack with him neither standing out nor having any particular weakness. Francis is a natural footballer who should not be inhibited from reaching his potential by any particular athletic deficiency. His tank does need some work but I see him getting there. He has a strong body and plays with excellent strength. Give him a couple of years and he will be monstering midfields throughout the AFL I have little doubt.


Francis has not played a lot through the middle of the ground but I thought there was a lot of potential there when I saw him play there at the Champs. He uses his body effectively, reads the ball off hands nicely and attacks strongly. He is composed in traffic and whilst he does get scragged a bit he impacts the contest. He throws himself around and will lay strong tackles on those that have the ball.


He is an excellent contested mark, probably the best available this year. He plays taller than his 191cm and will back himself to outmark anyone. He judges the ball in the air supremely well and has very strong hands. He is one of those players who goes up and does not seem to be moved in the air despite other players flying with him.


4. Callum Mills

Ht – 188 Ht – 80


I had Mills as my number one prospect coming into the year. It has been a year of frustration for Mills who has had a series of small injuries which have prevented from playing all but a couple of games this year. He has suffered from shin, foot and hamstring injuries which apparently are unlikely to affect him long term. On that basis I struggle to see him falling very far.


Mills was good in the Champs in 2014 and was selected in the All Australian team after averaging 21 disposals, 9 contested disposals and 5 clearances per game. If I am honest he did not really stand out to me a hell of a lot when I saw him at the Champs but I started to pay a lot of attention to him when he started to smash the NEAFL for the Swans. The Swans had a good reserves team with quite a few guys who would be playing AFL football if they were in other teams. In amongst them was this bottom aged kid who started racking up disposals week after week including a 40 disposal game. He stood out in senior company despite his tender age.


Mills gets talked about a lot in comparison with Heeney who went to the Swans last year and both are similar players. I really rated Heeney last year but if you asked at the time who I thought would be the better AFL player I would have said Mills. Both are similar in a lot of respects but I just thought Mills had a greater ability to find the ball. Heeney has looked great this year and I expect Mills to look similarly good next year. Both of them move very similarly around the park and you can see that they are products of the same training regime.


Kicking is often seen identified as Mills’ weakness. There was some truth to this last year but it does look like he has been working to improve that this year. In his three games this year in the NEAFL he went at 70% DE% which is probably a step up from last year. Last year he seemed to release the ball a little high and it does look like he is dropping it a bit lower this year. It is worth noting that I would not have rated Heeney to be the quality of kick that he has shown this year. I am expecting Mills to similarly improve when he gets into a full time AFL environment. It is worth noting that Mills is also very decent off his left as well as his right.


Mills is an elite inside prospect who is also very proficient on the outside. Inside he positions himself really well around the clearances and moves to the ball nicely. Mills reacts very quickly both with and without the ball and he is very aggressive both in chasing the ball and when the opponent gets it. He is a very good tackler and creates chances with his defensive work. When he gets it he has very quick hands and he gets it to good targets. He is very much a one touch player who is very clean with the ball below the knees. Whilst there has been some criticism of his kicking the same could not be said of his handballing. I would consider him to be elite handballer at junior level. Unlike most he uses his handballing as an attacking weapon and has good penetration by hand.


Mills has great lateral movement which he uses to keep free. There are times when you think he is dead in the water he manages to keep himself free long enough to get the ball away. He is strong over the ball and keeps his arms free nicely in the tackle. He is very composed around the ground and is the kind of player who just always seems to know where to go and what to do when he is on the field. He just seems to have an innate ability to get to the right spot and do the right thing.


On the outside Mills is a very good mark of the ball. He reads the ball well in the air and his hands are strong. He has nice height and is a good jump. His endurance and pace do not seem anything extraordinary but neither could you consider them a weakness. He has enough functional pace and endurance to allow him to play the game he wants.


If you were going pick a player most likely to be a star Mills would probably be at the shortest odds. He reminds me a bit of Michael Voss and that is high praise indeed from a Brisbane supporter.


5. Jacob Hopper

Ht – 185 Wt 83


In the absence of Mills at the Champs, Hopper stepped up into the spotlight and established himself as one of the best midfielders in this draft. Hopper is a beast of an inside midfielder who is going to give his team first use of the ball.


He lacks a little bit of class with the ball in hand but he is not a liability with his disposals by any means. He will flash some good skills but for the most part he looks pretty middle of the pack with his foot and hand skills. His hands are pretty quick in the contest and he can clear the contest pretty well but he is not an attacking handballer like Mills and a few others.


On ball, Hopper is a Josh Kennedy type bull who wills himself to the contest and is extremely strong over the ball. He holds his feet very well and is very difficult to move. He has great core strength and is composed and rides contact well. He is one of the best at reading the taps in this draft and he gets to the right spots to win the ball. When he gets the ball he keeps his arms free nicely and is very difficult to contain even if he is in the grasp. He has clean hands which are reasonably quick, if not quite elite.


In addition to his inside ability, Hopper is also a very capable forward. He leads strongly to good spots and is quite a good mark. His finishing can sometimes be very good and sometimes be decidedly ordinary. I think he needs to slow down a little when he gets it inside 50 and take a bit more time than he currently does. He perhaps rushes things a bit and does not think things through.


From the contest, Hopper spreads pretty well and covers a fair bit of ground. He was outworked at times by Lovell when they played Tasmania but overall I think he works pretty hard. He seems to have above average but a bit below elite endurance. Pace is middle of the pack but agility is good for a bigger body type.


Overall I think Hopper should be a very good addition to the plethora of top quality mids that GWS have. They have gotten a lot of outside talent in the last couple of drafts and Hopper as an inside type should complement that nicely. If he can work on his disposal skills a bit he could become a top shelf mid in this competition.


6. Wayne Milera

Ht – 183 Wt – 78


Reading between the lines I think quite a few teams are very high on Milera and he is every chance to go around this spot in the real thing. After the Champs a few were thinking that they were a chance to pick him up down the list a bit but the SANFL finals series basically killed those dreams. I have heard it commented that you have to go back to Kernahan to find a junior to played as well in the SANFL finals. Teams were paying attention and I think he goes in the top 5 live picks. I only moved Milera up to this pick very late after having him in the teens since the Champs. I think I was just being obstinate in leaving him where he was and his talent warrants moving him up to here.


There is not a lot of class available in this draft but Milera is one of the few that could end up as an elite small / medium player. He is a balanced mover who is exceptionally elusive in traffic. He is very hard to tackle and he creates space for himself where few others would be able. He did not test particularly well in the 20m at the Combine (not badly but just not as well as expected) but he plays with really good pace and his 30m repeat sprint times were very good.


Milera plays up forward with stints in the midfield and he is good in either role. The limitation for me and the reason I initially did not have him higher was that I just did not see him picking up the number of possessions he needs to justify a top 5 pick. His tank is very ordinary for a flank / midfielder and whilst that will improve when he gets into a full time environment I had not seen a willingness to gut run that would indicate a future as a full time midfielder. His work late in the year in the SANFL and particularly in the finals would suggest otherwise though.


When he is onball he is reasonably effective. He is not the best read of the tap but he wins his share and when he gets it he is very good at getting it from the clearance, maybe the best in this draft. He seems to take his time when he gathers the ball and for a while I thought he did not have particularly quick hands but I think he just takes the time he has. When he has more time he uses it and when he has less he can get it out quickly. He reads the play well and will work it in around and under the opponents to get it to the good option.


Milera is not a long kick but he does have good hurt factor on his short to intermediate length kicks and delivers it very nicely inside 50. He knows where the goals are when he is inside 50 and finishes very well. He is also a good set shot and can kick bags of goals. He is a strong mark for his size and he uses his body very nicely to create opportunities for himself.


In the open field he is a balanced mover who covers ground quickly. Things happen when he gets the ball. Going the other way he is not much of a factor. He will make a couple of tackles but he is not a consistent worker. Again this is probably a function of not having a very big endurance base.


Overall I think Milera is a very good small forward prospect who can do spot midfield minutes. There is no guarantee that he develops into the star midfielder some expect but even if he doesn’t he would remain a valuable player for a side playing on the forward flank. I have heard him compared to Shaun Burgoyne and there is decent chance he develops like Burgoyne did. For me I would compare him to Jack Martin. Both are hugely talented but the question is whether they will ever rack up the possessions to justify the hype?


7. Darcy Parish

Ht – 180 Wt - 74


There is a lot of love for Parish and he is likely to the first non-academy off the board probably going at 3 or 4. The fact that he is going that high probably reflects the weakness of this draft. Most years he would be unlikely to be in the top 5 and would be the fourth or fifth midfielder to be picked. This draft lacks a bit of top end talent at the pointy end of the draft and so Parish stands out as the one for those Victorian teams looking to go local with their high pick.


Parish had a broken thumb midway through the year which interrupted his preparation for the Champs but he still did well and was a key player for the dominant Vic Country team. He played as a half back at the Champs last year and was picked in the All Australian team as a bottom ager and backed that up by make the All Australian team this year playing through the midfield. He averaged 22 disposals a game at the Champs to go with his 28 a game in the TAC.


Despite lacking ideal size Parish is predominantly an inside player. He does well on the outside when he gets it but he gets a lot of his disposals in and around the clearances. Inside he makes winning the ball look easy which not many can do. He reads where the ball is going early and he is on the move before others. As a consequence he just seems to be in the right spot a lot. He is usually moving when he collects the ball and his hands are usually clean although he can fumble every once and a while.


The player Parish reminds me most of as far as style goes is Marc Murphy. Murphy is a better athlete but both are smaller types who work well onball and have a frantic style when they get it. Although both are composed with the ball everything seems to be going 100 miles an hour. They react quickly and take the first option. The saying is that the first option is the best option has a lot of truth to it and getting it out as quickly as Parish does, does give his team options. Despite lacking size he works through traffic well and usually seems to get to where he wants to go. He has nice balance and keeps his hands free well in a tackle. On the other side of the coin, he is not a great tackler himself and his lack of strength often sees him brushed or unable to make an effective tackle.


On his right, Parish is a very nice handballer and has good power and accuracy. He gets it away quickly and often creates good things for his team by hand. On his left though he lacks power and co-ordination and he will need to work on that at AFL level. Parish often gets a lot of praise for his kicking and whilst he does some nice things I would not expect an elite kick if he were coming to my team. Again he is a lot like Murphy with his kicks. He looks to go short most often and whilst he will usually hit his targets he can look scrappy at times. When he needs to go long he can (without too much elevation) but he does not raise his eyes as much as he should.


Parish did go forward a bit this year and was fairly effective but I am not seeing him as being able to do that at AFL level. He is short, lacks pace and does not get off the ground. His hands are okay in the marking contest but nothing amazing. He does work into the forward 50 well and can sneak in for a shot or two on goal a game. His delivery into the 50 is also good. It is worth noting that he only managed 1 of the 5 kicks in the goal kicking test at the Combine.


Athletically he is pretty average and below average for what you would like from your elite mids. As has been reported he ran a 3.07 in the 20m which is reasonable but only a 13.6 in the beep which is quite poor for a midfielder. His agility test was also middling for those tested as was his 30m repeat sprint. He is definitely more of a footballer than an athlete but when you combine that athletic profile with his smallish stature you do start to have a few minor concerns.

 

[Quigley]

8. Ben Keays

Ht – 185 Wt – 80


Keays was an All-Australian last year as a half forward flanker and backed it up this year again making the All-Australian side this time as a midfielder. He was a major reason Qld won Division 2 and was rightly given the medal for the best Div 2 player, averaging 29 disposals per game following on from the 34 disposals a game he got at TAC level. He played a fair bit of senior football in the NEAFL as well including for the Lions and he stepped up to that level pretty easily always getting plenty of the ball.


Keays is an unquestionable ball magnet who works hard and has a great feel for where to run to receive the ball. He gets to dangerous spaces and demands to be used. He has worked hard on his running ability and is now a pretty good runner finishing in the top 10 at the Combine in the 3km. On the field he keeps moving and outworks his opponent. I followed him closely this year and the lowest number of disposals I can recall him getting was 21 disposals with him regularly getting over 30. When you consider how many games he played for the Lions reserves that is all the more impressive especially considering that the senior players often tend to look for their teammates as the 1st and 2nd passing option.


Keays did not time well in the 20m at the Combine but to me he seems to have decent functional speed. He does not have high top end speed but around the clearances he seems to have a quick first few steps. He does well at keeping moving in clearance situations so he already moving when he goes to accelerate which might give him the appearance of being quicker than he actually is. Keays has improved his clearance work quite a bit since last year and continues to do so. He is effective in clearance situations without being an elite inside prospect. He reads the ball off hands well, judges it nicely when to hold and when to go to the ball and has clean hands. His hands are a bit slow but he has seemed to improve in this regard over the year and he is serviceable at clearing the ball. He gets first hands to a lot of ball.


He has reasonable body size for a mid and pretty good strength. He holds his feet well in the contest and has a neat fend which seems to catch tacklers a bit by surprise. He backpedals well and uses this effectively to maintain space and buy time. When it is his turn to tackle he will do so and he picks up his share of tackles each game. He is not a thumping tackle but is generally effective.


One of my big issues with Keays after last year was his lack of hurt factor on his disposals. Sure he got a heap of it but if you were casually watching the game you would hardly notice him. He looked short 1st, 2nd and 3rd last year. This year he still looked short too much but he did show improvement in this area and there were definitely signs that there is a damaging player hiding in there. He is a left footer (with a functional right foot) who, when required, has decent penetration. When he lifts his eyes he showed a nice ability to pick out targets inside 50 with nicely weighted kicks. He is a much better kick when he has time and space and when he doesn’t he can be a bit untidy and he does lack a little composure. Up forward I thought he missed chances that he would have gotten last year and I would like to see him work to recover his goal kicking form as I see him starting his career as a HFF. His handballing is strong off either hand and he sets up play nicely by hand when he has a bit of time. He is not the quickest handballer in contested situations but seems to be improving.


Keays has good spatial awareness and seems to know where everyone is on the park. His ability to read open field play is up with the best in this draft and this allows him to get to the rights spots before others. His agility is decent without being anything exceptional and he is similarly a very capable mark without being considered elite.


The player who, for good reason, he most commonly gets compared to is Dayne Beams. I watched Beams as a junior and they did play very similarly. Both were big ball winners playing as inside out types despite them not being true inside players. Beams started his career as a flanker before moving into the midfield full time and I see the same happening for Keays. Like Beams I can see Keays adapting to the AFL pretty quickly and being a big ball winner once there. Perhaps a step below the true elites in the competition but certainly a very good player in any midfield.


9. Luke Partington

Ht - 181 Wt - 78


Partington is a bit of a nugget who I was surprised was 181cm. When I watched him play I thought he was about 175cm but at 181cm he has decent height. Partington was the primary mid in an undermanned SA midfield this year. He got a lot of attention from other teams and they ensured he was tagged throughout the games he played. As a consequence he was under pressure a lot when he got the ball and he didn’t stand out as much as he should have in his latter games.


Partington is primarily an inside mid at this stage in his development and he does need to work on his run and spread from the contest. In tight he works through packs excellently and his stop and go and change of direction is probably matched only by Lovell in this draft. He has a bit of a jitterbug style making him very difficult to tackle. He has good strength and holds his feet nicely in the contest and can brush through tackles.


He does need to tidy up his disposal skills at the next level and this was very evident in the last couple of games of the Champs. He is prone to miss a target especially with the little inside out stab which he seems to favour. There is a bit of technique work that needs to be done when he gets to a team as at the moment he closes his body a bit too early on his field kicks. He also needs to add some zip to his handballs as they are often too short or take a beat too long to get to the target. I do like it that he keeps his head up when running and seems to see the field well. If he can tidy up his disposal skills I can see him being a dangerous runner through the midfield.


Partington’s biggest strength is his clearance work. He is always on the move in clearance situations and reads the ball off hands well. Additionally when his teammates win the ball he moves to good spots to receive the clearing handball. So he is both a good clearance winner and a good receiver in the clearance situations. As mentioned above he moves through traffic very nicely and works well in the phone box. He is reasonably clean although admittedly he will bobble a few. His hands are reasonably quick but he doesn’t always find a target with his flick outs. This was probably impacted by the quality around him at the Champs.


Athletically Partington tested very well at the Champs finishing in the top 20% in most of the disciplines. His agility was very good and at 2.96 for the 20m and 14.1 for the beep he has the speed and endurance to do what he wants to do at the next level.


Personally I like Partington and think there is quite a bit to work with. There is plenty for him to work on but his inside skills give him a valuable skill with which to start his career. I loved Partington the first time I saw him this year and am happy to leave him higher than most have him.


10. Eric Hipwood

Ht – 200, Wt – 84


Hipwood is one of the most interesting prospects in this draft. I personally have no idea where he ends up playing. He has played mostly up forward and done pretty well, even in senior company, but he has not really dominated and kicked a big bag. He is a consistent 2-3 goal forward who will give a contest and clunk a few. Down back is where he has looked closest to dominating and is probably where he starts his career. The left field option and the one which might turn out the best is in the ruck. I have not seen him ruck but his around the ground ability could make him a star at AFL level if he can actually compete decently in the ruck contest itself. He has the height for it. The question might be whether he can put on enough weight to compete body to body. At the moment he is very thin.


Hipwood measured in at 202cm at the Combine and he plays to his height. On top of his height he has a good leap as he showed at the Combine. For most of his playing career to date he has been a medium tall type and he has retained the agility and playing style of a smaller player. For a ruck sized player he moves fantastically well. He is a fluid mover with good speed and the turning circle of a smaller player. Agility is what often gets the ruck sized defenders into trouble but that should not be a problem for Hipwood. At the Combine he combined a 2.96 20m with a 8.38 agility test both of which were great for a guy his size.


One of the big things I like about Hipwood, and one of the reasons I see him succeeding, is his aggressiveness. He is a big kid who loves to get in there and mix it up. He will attack the man and the ball whether it is on the ground or in the air. He loves a ruck contest in his area where he can play as a midfielder and wins a surprisingly high percentage of clearances in such situations. He is not just making up numbers, he will hit the contest at speed and has nice clean hands. When he collects the ball his junior opponents often don’t really know how to handle him and he gets it away nicely. Hipwood likes to take the game on particularly when playing at the back and he will run on and present as an option going forward.


His kicking is often raised as a concern about Hipwood but for me I think he has the potential to be an elite kick. He has a very relaxed style in his kicking and he is capable of really drilling a pass. At the back he takes very aggressive options and has been prone to turning a few over. He regularly takes kick-ins when he is at the back and that is a sign that his coaches trust his kicking ability. I am hoping he is just adjusting to having the ball need to fall further than it used to. Style wise as mentioned there is a lot to like but atm things go astray a bit too often. I like the aggressive options he takes even if he misses a few targets currently. He has a “take the game on” attitude that appeals to me a lot. He is an accurate shot for goal and will convert a good percentage of his chances.


Interestingly Hipwood appears to be a superior mark when playing down back but merely average one when up forward. Down back he will play a read and react role and back himself to read the ball better and then outmark the forward. In the games I have seen he is very rarely beaten in the air when in defence. His ability to read the ball in the air is great and with his height and jumping ability he is justifiably very confident in his belief that he will be the one to come away with the ball. He often plays loose and this is a role that he does very well. Down back he likes a mark but makes good decisions about when to mark and when to spoil. Up forward he will clunk a few and he competes hard but he is not the dominating presence he is down back. He goes up strong for the ball and held his own strength wise against junior opponents. In senior company he is going to struggle for a few years whilst he builds body strength. He needs to put on a lot of bulk to be truly effective at AFL level.


Hipwood likes to be involved going forward and is a good mark and run option coming out of defence. He runs hard to present and he genuinely seems to love that aspect of the game more than others. I have heard him compared to Fletcher in body shape and the way he plays and there is some merit in that. When I saw him play the player I thought he reminded me of in defence was Josh Gibson. Up forward he reminded me of Joe Daniher with his size and his impact up forward. Daniher was certainly the better junior forward but in senior company he has looked dangerous without dominating and this is what I have seen from Hipwood this year. He contests and will pick up his 2 or 3 goals a game but he has not torn anyone apart with 8. He picked up 4 in a quarter against Tassie at the Champs but did not pick any in the second half (somewhat unluckily admittedly).


Hipwood is a real presence on the field and is someone who could be a crucial element of whichever unit he plays on. There is a fair bit of risk of him busting but on the other side of the equation he probably has as high a ceiling as anyone in this draft.


11. Matthew Kennedy

Ht - 187 Wt – 88


I understand what the fuss is about but I have him lower than most because I have seen very little of him and what I have makes me worry about whether his kicking will stand up in AFL company. There is a lot to like but his kicking is a significant concern for me.


He played 5 TAC games and had a DE% of 58.6% over those games. This was a bit better in the Allies match when he went at 71.4%. Hopefully that is a sign he has been working on his kicking and he did look a bit better technically in the Allies match. Kennedy is a country boy who has only spent significant time in an elite program this year. When he gets in an AFL environment there will be a few things to polish up and his kicking technique is the first thing that will be getting attention. At the moment he pulls his hands away from the ball a bit violently and too highly and often goes with an around the body kick. This leads to a fair bit of inconsistency with his kicking. When he lines things up his kicking looks okay but there is still a fair bit of variability in the way his kick comes together. He also has some variability in his set shot and tends to fall away a bit and this can result in the ball not coming off the boot well.


On the positive side Kennedy reminds me a lot of Jimmy Bartel the way he plays the game. He is a very good onballer who can win his own ball and be a dominant force around the ball. Like Bartel he can also go forward and be a force with his great marking ability. With his posture he often looks shorter than he is but when he is in a marking contest he actually plays taller than he is and is a very difficult match up for anyone his height. He has pretty good height for a midfielder at 187 and has a very good leap. He was in the top ten for the vertical jump off either foot at the Combine. He also times his jump at the ball very well and can take it at the top of his leap. He has a really nice stretch and his hands are excellent. Hehas a big body and is difficult to get around. Like Bartel he does really nicely keeping his opponent positioned behind him and not allowing him to get around to spoil. He is not particularly quick but he seems able to get separation when up forward.


Before the Champs I was discussing the NSW side with a recruiter and he said he thought they probably had the best midfield of any team at the Champs, Div 1 included. That was before both Mills and Kennedy went down. Mills, Kennedy and Hopper would have been a very formidable trio but unfortunately injury struck down two of the three. Kennedy missed about three months in the middle of the year with a knee injury before retuning late and playing in the Allies match. When he is onball he has great strength and composure and can be a real bull in there. He can be a little rushed by foot but he does get out some really nice handballs. He gets good penetration with his handballs.


Despite the knee issues that Kennedy had he still tested at the Combine and did pretty well. As mentioned he tested in the top 10% in the jumps and he ended up 6th overall in the beep test with a 14.8. His 3km time was also good and he was (somewhat surprisingly) near the top in the goal kicking test with only one miss. His pace was the only real question to remain with him testing in the bottom half of those tested in the speed tests. He was not as slow as those in the Keays bracket but he was slower than is ideal for a top mid. Overall I thought his testing was good and certainly showed enough to work with.


Kennedy is from Wagga Wagga and for the couple of years prior to this one had spent most of his time playing locally with his brothers for Collinguilie. It is fair to assume that there is a lot of improvement left in him when he gets into a full time environment. Given that he already is a very good player I think GWS would be foolish to pass him up.


12. Mitch Hibberd

Ht 190 Wt 86


If Hibberd was not an overager I think he would have gotten more attention than he has to date. He had last season written off with a knee surgery and showed some really good form at the Champs despite having his preseason interrupted with shoulder surgery. I am always a fan of promoting the Div 2 guys and whilst there are plenty to choose from this year I have no problem throwing him up as someone who I think will become a player.


Hibberd probably starts his career as a half back flanker but he showed this year that he can work up into the midfield and he certainly has the running capacity to do so at AFL level. He is a great combination of really good midfield height and elite running ability. If I picked him up I would envisage him playing a similar role to Brendan Goddard. That is basically playing a running role all over the ground.


He played quite a bit of time onball at the Champs and he was serviceable in clearance situations but it is an area of his game that needs work. He won his fair share of ball but he was a fair way behind Lovell in his ability to read the taps and burrow in and extract the ball. When he did get it his hands were okay without being overly quick. He does have good strength in the contest and can hold his feet well.


Hibberd looks at his best in the open field. He is a smooth mover who covers the ground effortlessly. He has pretty good football IQ with where to run to receive and to position himself when he gets it to move on quickly. He is not often flat footed in the open field. If he works to a flank it is more likely to be a back flank than a forward and he is not really a goal scoring threat the way he currently plays. With his running power I would have liked to see him continue to run into the 50 to be a scoring threat but he is not that at the moment.


Skills wise a lot of his kicks are almost but not quite really good. With a little work I think he could be an excellent kick with high hurt factor. As mentioned above he is a smooth mover and he is very balanced when he kicks the ball. Style wise it is all there and he takes good options it is just that his execution is fractionally off with quite a few of his kicks. Sometimes he can really nail a kick which really make you pay attention but more often he is slightly off and he allows an opponent to get involved or his player is forced to adjust to collect and loses momentum. I think it is all curable though and with some work and with some more time working out of defence I think he could quickly become a very good kick. By hand he lacks a bit of penetration and again some work is required.


He is strong overhead and is not afraid to fly with the big boys and he has good leaping ability finishing in the top 20% of the running jumping at the Champs. He does not take a lot of contested marks but he is good at getting the ball to ground in those situations to the advantage of his team. With the ball on the ground I think his hands are cleaner than most of the other outside types available this year.


Hibberd was a very strong performer at the Combine. He was equal first in the kicking test and also had a good performance in the goal kicking test. He was third overall in the beep test with a 15.3 and was in the top 20% of the agility test. The 3.01 in the 20m was also a very solid result for a bigger bodied type. Overall I thought Hibberd showed superior athletic ability to go with a very good actual football game.


Hibberd is not a finished product but he is close and I think he would be a very nice option for anyone looking for a running defender who can move into the midfield as he develops. He has the height to play on mediums forwards and would be a player that opponents would have to match up on because he could provide some great run from behind.


13. Harley Balic

Ht – 187 Wt - 82


Balic seems to be slipping down a few mocks in the media and I am not really sure why. If he goes where a few of those pundits have him going he could easily end up the steal of the draft. Up until this year Balic has been splitting time between basketball and AFL and as a result there are still some rough edges to be polished. I can see there being a fair bit of difference in the ratings for Balic between teams and it is not out of the question that a team could love him and take him much higher than most expect. He has a very high ceiling and if he developed to his best he could be an elite midfielder at the next level.


Balic is at his best when he is the focus of a unit whether it is in the midfield, up forward or down back. When he is, he tends to rise to the occasion and good things happen around him. He is very good one on one and can impose himself on a game like few in this draft. He has improved quite a lot over the course of the year but there are still areas he needs to work on.


One of the areas he has been working on, and one that still needs some work, is his kicking. There is quite a lot of difference between Balic’s best and worst and at the moment there is still a bit too much of the worst in his game. There is not a lot wrong with his kicking style and I expect that with some intense work he will flatten out the flight on his kicks and be more consistent about getting it where it needs to go. Up forward his set shot technique is entirely too variable. He needs to get a routine and stick to it and work on improving his balance in his approach a bit more. With all that said though there is quite a bit of class in what he does even by foot. He has brought a heads-up approach from basketball and he has excellent peripheral vision. He tends to play to the short options but he usually takes good ones and is very good delivering into the 50.


Balic has played a lot more as an inside mid this year and he has shown pretty decent potential in that role. His kicking out of the clearances was a bit ordinary but by hand he is really good. His vision in the contest is excellent and is creative by hand getting it to good attacking options. As mentioned above he is very good one on one and he has good strength over the ball. He works through traffic well and is one of those guys who never looks rushed even when there are opponents all around him.


Athletically Balic seems pretty good in everything but pace. He ran a 15.3 beep last year and he plays with excellent agility. He can also fly when he has to and tends to play tall. Speed wise he looks like he is cruising around at ¾ pace for most of the game. He is smooth around the park and, for those of you old enough to remember, moves a lot like Michael Long. He is quite solid but has a loose limbed, very agile style.


Balic made a name for himself last year as a half forward and he is a very good mark. He can get up and he watches the ball into his hands very nicely. He also has very good body control in the air and he can keep the defender where he can’t get to the ball. He is not a good converter though and if he is going to play as a half forward at the start of his career he is going to need to improve his finishing.


On the outside Balic looks calm and composed and can often create opportunities for his team. He has improved his spread this year a lot and upped his disposal count to 23 disposals a game in the TAC and went at 22 a game at the Champs. At times at the Champs he was in a mile of space with no-one in cooee indicating that he is working out how to use his running ability more effectively. Balic is a talent and I think could be an excellent player in a few years.



14. Harry McKay

Ht – 200 Wt – 85


I have heard a few people complaining recently about a lack of ruck depth in the AFL at the moment. The problem as I see it is not that there are less tall players coming through, it is that a lot of the 200cm guys who have been drafted in the last few years have been taken as key positions and that trend continues with McKay. Traditionally he would have been developed as a ruck but in line with recent trends he has been playing as a forward.


Whilst I have not seen him really take over a game he is an interesting prospect that I could easily see making it at AFL level. His leading patterns need quite a bit of work and I see him more as a CHF at the moment rather than a full forward. He likes to get up the ground and link up going forward and then work back into the 50 where he can mark it. He is not a big lead and mark type although you will see a few of those types of plays in his highlights I expect. Inside 50 he takes most of his marks with the ball coming to him, on his head or with a few steps and jump.


He is not a big jumper but at 200cm he hasn’t really needed to be. That is likely to change at AFL level where he will be matched up on bigger and more athletic defenders. It is going to take him time to become effective at AFL level I think. He has a very nice frame to build on and I could see him ending up a very powerfully built type. It will take a while to build up and learn to use his bulk and it is worth noting that he was moved around a fair bit at the Champs in body on body situations. He is very young for this draft class only just scraping in with a late December birthday so there is plenty of development to go with him even relative to those taken with him this year.


He is a decent read of the ball in the air but I would not put him anywhere near the top of the class in this regard. McKay’s hands overhead are good and probably a bit better than that below his knees for a big man. He is a pretty composed player when he gets the ball and unlike many ruck sized guys he looks comfortable collecting and moving the ball on. He is not flustered with the ball in hand.


McKay is a left footer with a reasonable field kicking style. He keeps his head up when he gets the ball and cycles through the options pretty well and usually seems to take the right on. His set shot is fairly effective although style wise it leaves a bit to be desired. He has quite a high hold on the ball and gets a little side on when he kicks it. Whether it is worth straightening out his kicking style will be determined by whether he can consistently kick goals when under pressure with his kicking style. If he can then leave it alone. By hand he is pretty good for a guy his size although again there are probably a few better options around this year amongst the big blokes.


There is a lot of development potential in McKay and if I am picking between 10 and 20 and have a need for a KPF who can probably ruck down the track I would have little trouble taking a punt on McKay.

 

[Quigley]

15. Rhys Mathieson

Ht – 186 Wt 82


Mathieson seems to have been losing popularity since the Champs and I remained very bullish on him until I got a look at his Combine beep test result. Prior to that I had him in the top 7 given how he controlled things at the Champs. Vic Country had a stacked team this year including the blokes who are virtual certainties to go 1 and 2 but personally I would probably have Mathieson behind only Schache in terms of importance to that side. He gave his team first use of the ball more than any other (no stats to back that up fwiw) and seemed like the leader of the midfield group who stood up when they needed someone to.


There is still a lot of improvement left in Mathieson if he can get his endurance up to an acceptable level. He is mostly an inside player at the moment who gets his hands on the ball first a lot. He has nice size and is a strong presence around packs who keeps his feet and bullocks through packs. He is composed in traffic and has a variety of moves to get himself free and he rides contact nicely. There are guys in the AFL who you just know are going to win a clearance at important times in a game and Mathieson is one of those types of players. He has clean hands which are reasonably quick. He does not always get it away cleanly or to a player in a good position but he gets it out well enough.


Mathieson was considered a poor kick coming into the year and has worked hard on improving his kicking. Whilst there is still the occasional loopy kick that does not go to a target he is much better by foot now than he was at this time last year. He has gotten to the stage where he seems well balanced when kicking and will deliver some nice flat passes with penetration. He needs to make that kick his default kick and with the improvement he has shown this year I would back him to get there.


As mentioned a couple of times already the big issue for him is his endurance and he tested very badly in the beep test at the Combine. He was in the bottom 5% of those tested and whilst I did not expect him to be elite in his endurance testing I certainly did not expect him to do as badly as that. He tested better in the 3km (in the 40th percentile) but the lack of improvement in his beep test results would have sent red flags to teams. Pace wise Mathieson is also nothing to write home about and again tested quite poorly in the 30m repeat sprint. He did do okay in the jumps however and surprisingly well in the kicking test. He also tested well in clean hands test although this was less surprising. Going into the Combine I was not expecting much from Mathieson but he managed to underwhelm all the same.


Mathieson needs to work on his outside game. His spread is not up to AFL standard and that is likely to be a function of his endurance levels. He is going to be in for a painful preseason no matter where he goes as he tries to improve this aspect of his game. When he gets the ball on the outside he is pretty good with it and things move around him pretty well. His decision making is reasonable and his delivery into 50 is often pretty good. He is a quick thinker and will move the ball on quickly as demanded in the AFL at the moment.


Mathieson is capable up forward. He is a good mark and dangerous with the ball on the ground. He is smart with the use of his body and keeps the ball in front of himself and the opponent on his back very nicely. He is a good finisher and knows where the goals are when he gets the chance.


I am often very partial to the really competitive guys and I think if you have a heap of those types in your team you are going to win a lot more than you use. Mathieson is one of those guys who will run through brick walls to get his team a win. If I am taking a guy in the first round I prioritise taking those sorts of players. It is not just what he can do himself but what he helps the team do as a unit.


16. Nick O’Kearney

Ht – 180 Wt – 71


I find it interesting how low O’Kearney is rated by most. He might lack some class and athletic ability but this is a kid who works his arse off and will continue to work on his game. I back him to start out being a solid midfield option and to develop into a very valuable contributor in a good team before he is finished. Recruiters will often value glimpses of flash ahead of hard grind and I think that is a mistake. If you are building a team you need guys like O’Kearney to do the heavy lifting and whilst he might not win games off his own bat too often he is going to give his all to the team and he will keep his team in a lot of games when the flashy guys are nowhere to be seen. If I was asked for a comparison I would probably say that at his best O’Kearney could turn out to be a Rockliff type player. Rockliff it is worth remembering was similarly athletically challenged and slipped all the way through to the PSD. I don’t see O’Kearney slipping that far but I do think he is going to be a bargain for someone.


O’Kearney is a very good accumulator of the ball. He covers a lot of territory and works to space to present as an option for his teammates to use. He does not always get to the most dangerous spot and often seems to be working to accumulate the cheap ball. O’Kearney is a bit one paced but he keeps going and will work hard both ways. For someone who tested as badly as he did in the beep test I found his work on the park is surprisingly good. It is worth noting that he tested quite a bit better in the 3km than he did in the beep test.


It is fair to say that O’Kearney is a poor athlete. He was last in the repeat sprint, ran a 13.4 in the beep and was in the bottom 15% of the jumps. He was also close to the absolute bottom in the 20m. The only saving grace for him was in the agility where he returned a very solid 8.31. Whilst he might improve with some work, O’Kearney is always going to be more of a footballer than an athlete.


With the ball in hand he lacks a bit of adventure, preferring mostly to take the short safe options. When he does go longer some of his decision making can be a bit questionable and he is prone to turning it over. With that said there is not a lot wrong with his kicking style and he does seem quite composed with the ball. He is a reasonable kick off either foot and as he develops and puts more time into his game I see no reason why his hurt factor will not improve.


In my notes on O’Kearney I will often have conflicting comments on the same attribute. For example I have a couple of notes saying that he showed good awareness and another couple saying that he has poor awareness. I think this is a bit endemic of his game. He is a bit inconsistent at the moment and is not a finished product. He is improving various aspects of his game but he is not there yet and he can look pretty average at times.


He and Balic seemed to switch around for Metro and rarely were both performing well in the midfield together. Balic I thought showed a bit more class but O’Kearney seemed to work harder for the team and help his teammates out when they needed it.


O’Kearney has a reputation as a student of the game who loves his footy and will study carefully how other mids go about it and then work to incorporate those learnings into his own game. It is all about forward momentum with him and steady improvement. This is not a kid who thinks he knows it all. He is capable of identifying things in his game that needs improvement and he keeps working on those things. That kind of attitude is great in a prospect provided they have the requisite level of self confidence. It is also good to have in a playing group as he sets a bar for others to work toward.



17. Callum Ah Chee

Ht – 181 Wt - 72


Coming into the Champs Ah Chee was one of the must watch players. He had a reputation as being supremely talented and a guy expected to be taken right at the pointy end of the draft. He was given a chance to play through the midfield for WA in the early games of the Champs and he disappointed. He was not able to handle the close attention he got and would have left many wondering what all the fuss was about. The coaching staff smartly moved him back to his natural forward flank position for the last couple of games and he was able to reassert himself and recover some of the lost ground. What the Champs established for me was that Ah Chee should be drafted as a small forward. If you take him thinking you will get a midfielder you are likely to be disappointed.


In the midfield be doesn’t read the play very well and seems a bit lost where he should be. When he got his hands on the ball he fumbled pretty regularly and his hands did not look particularly sharp. He is slight of build and when in and under he is moved out of position pretty easily. In close Ah Chee is a willing tackler if not a particularly strong one. He goes with his arms a fair bit rather than driving with his shoulder. He seemed to have pretty good awareness whilst onball but lacked a bit of class.


When he moved forward though the class that lead him to being named the most promising indigenous talent a couple of years ago was there to see. He plays much better when the ball is coming at him. He is a smart leader who seems able to get separation with ease. He works up the ground nicely and is a very good mark for a player of his size. He has good hands above his head but also very good body control. When he gets it up the ground he is an excellent kick into 50. He leads his targets really well and weights his passes nicely for the forward to run onto. He seems to read the forward play very well. When kicking for goal he is a decent converter although not in the elite category. He is not a player who has a bag of tricks but he knows how to kick them from an angle if he needs to.


Ah Chee relies on his pace to get him out of trouble a lot. That works for him at junior level but it is not going to work as well at AFL level where everyone is just that much quicker and there are more guys with elite speed floating around. He did not test particularly well at the Combine finishing middle of the pack in most tests including somewhat surprisingly in the 20m. I am not sure what was going on there but he has been tested a heap before and he does have close to elite speed. His testing in general at the Combine was very poor and it may have been that he was carrying something.


His defensive work needs some improvement. In close he is a willing tackler but does not really put in the effort to run down players in space. When he does he is not particularly smart about it. I have watched him chase using his pace to catch up to a player only to go completely past him when the opponent somewhat predictably pulled up. Effort and IQ needs a bit of improvement in the defensive side of his game.


Overall if I need a small forward I think Ah Chee is a good bet. There is a lot of talent there and when in doubt bet on talent.



18. Sam Weiderman

Ht – 196 Wt – 94


Weiderman is a talented player but the talk of him going right at the pointy end to Essendon I think is too high. He has had some high class passages of play throughout the year but I am not sure there were enough of them to justify him going that highly.


Weiderman is going to be taken as a KPF but I am not sure that ends up being his best position. He played really well as a centre half back last year. Weiderman’s best skill, and the one his career will live or die on is his marking. Whilst he is very good up front he maybe is even better with the play opening up in front of him. Whichever end he plays his marking is very good. His hands are strong and he watches the ball into his hands the way coaches want all their players to do but few actually do.


When Weiderman is on up forward he leads very well and will give multiple leads. He is also smart and will work off his other forwards nicely. The player he reminds me of most up forward is Jack Reiwoldt. He leads hard to good spots and he is just as capable marking it down low as up high. For a big guy he gets down nicely at pace and takes the mark when a lot would drop them. Overhead he takes a strong contested mark but he does take a lot of these type of mark a bit on top his head rather than out in front of his eyes. Still he gets up and does judge he ball pretty ball in the air.


Athletically I find it a bit hard to peg Weiderman and he did not test at Combine which would have helped me out quite a lot. On the lead he commits and goes hard and looks okay over the 20m or so and he does seem to get separation and hold is okay. I am not sure his top end speed is particularly good though. He also tends to fade in and out of games quite a lot and I think this could be a function of a fairly poor tank. He will need to improve his running capacity to be effective at AFL level where he will be up against bigger and more athletic opponents and smart defenders who will be dropping into his space. [Late Note: Twomey reported on Twitter this week that Weiderman ran a 3.21 over the 20m and a 12.4 in the beep. Those results are certainly poorer than I was expecting and I am sure would scare the bejezus out of anyone thinking of taking him high.]


The athletic issues are one of the things which might limit his ability to play down back. Another factor is his field kicking which is pretty poor. He only went at 54% DE% in his TAC games this year. He misses too many targets and does not always take great options. As a forward he also misses too many set shots. He waves the ball around quite a bit on his approach and is unable to get a consistent drop. This results in the ball not getting to the foot at the same time or same place and a lot of the kicks going wide. I dare say a lot of work will be put into his kicking when he gets to an AFL club and it will have to be. It is probably below AFL standard at the moment.


So a nice size with a great lead and mark but a poor kick with athletic deficiencies. Weiderman is definitely worth taking a punt on but the risks are high before even taking into account of his injury issues. He has had a history of injuries and the stress fractures in his ankle that put him out for the second half of this year are not a great sign for future durability. Weiderman has a very high ceiling and could be a dominant forward in the competition. I could also see him busting out completely. The risk is high in this one and taking him at 5 or so is a bit more of a risk than I would want to take with my job on the line.


19. Brayden Hackett

Ht – 181 Wt - 67


Coming into the Champs I had heard nothing of Hackett and it took a couple of games for me to really pick up on him. It was when I saw him live that I realised how much of a gem this kid could be. He is an inside mid who is very undeveloped at the moment but managed to hold his own very nicely in a very undermanned WA midfield. WA had a few “names” in their midfield who were up for selection this year but Hackett outplayed every one of them.


I like his work around the clearances. He is always on the move and will fly in and attack the contests. He moves through traffic really nicely and has good clean hands. He has good spatial awareness in the clearances and pretty good body strength for such a slight frame. His hands are quick and he makes decent use of the ball when he wins it on the inside.


One of the things which impressed me live was how much ground he covered. He worked hard forward and back and was always around it and where he needed to be. He was working when other bigger names had stopped and let their heads drop. His defensive chase is good and he can create turnovers in the open field.


When he gets the ball in a bit of space he has some class about him and will take good options and hit them. He spreads pretty well and whilst he is not a ball magnet he gets enough of the ball. There will need to be a bit of work on his spread immediately after the contest. With that said he seems to have a good feel for the game and looks to be a natural footballer with a high football IQ. He will get out and bounce the ball when he has the chance and is a nice deliverer into 50. In the WAFL Colts he averaged 20 disposals, 4 tackles and 4 clearances a game. At the Champs he only got it 15 times per game but I do not think he was in the middle for all of the games he played.


I was a bit disappointed with his testing at the Combine. Not unexpectedly he tested very well in the 3km run (in the top 5 overall) at just over 13 minutes but the rest was pretty disappointing. He is a country boy and might not have trained for the testing like the others but I was expecting better. His beep was okay at 14.3 but again I did expect better. His 20m and agility testing were very disappointing for a guy who plays with reasonable pace and elusiveness.


Hackett is a player who I think could really blossom in an AFL environment if he can deal with the training load. He has a lot of natural talent and feel for the game and if he could get his physical attributes up to the level they could be I think he could easily be one of the best players to come out of this draft. The ceiling is very high for him but then so is the floor which I why he is so far down most mock drafts. He is physically behind most others, did not test well and has not shown the consistent great play making ability to make him a must draft. I would certainly be prepared to take a punt on him if I was picking about this stage but I could understand teams letting someone else take the risk.


20. Riley Bonner

Ht 190 Wt 85


Everyone loves Bonner because they all buy into him being an elite kick of the ball. Personally I do not rate his kicking that highly but he is a pretty decent player all the same and I am still happy to take him in the top 20. He is capable of making an elite kick but he does not consistently do so. He is a lot like Suckling in that he will bring out 2 or 3 great kicks a game which everyone remembers rather than the 7 or 8 kicks which don’t get where they should or if they do get there it is on the bounce or behind the target.


He has a lovely style with his kicking which reminds me of the way Rich kicks the ball. He makes kicking the ball look easy. He is a natural left footer and unlike most left footers is also very proficient off his right. He seems to keep his head up and shows good vision on the available longer options but he does tend to overlook the shorter options. He needs to cycle through the shorter options more than he does now. He has good but not great penetration.


I do like that Bonner, who is considered by most to be a weapon by foot, actually goes by hand quite a bit. He does not drink his own bathwater and goes by hand when it is sensible to do so and he able to execute reasonably well by hand. He is not able to rocket his handballs but he is able to go long if he has to. His hands are fairly quick for a HBFer.


Bonner has really nice size for his preferred role off the half back flank. Athletically he is nothing special but neither is he hugely deficient in any area. He is carrying a bit of puppy fat which will be quickly burnt off once he gets to an AFL club. Defensively he neither impressed nor worried me. He is not a big intercept marker and is not a player who controls the game defensively with his marking ability. He is middle of the pack with his marking. I see him as mostly an offensive weapon off half back but I think he will be able to do a job and won’t be a liability defensively. He is a pretty good tackler.


When I watch Bonner play he looks like a natural footballer with pretty good football IQ. He moves around the park well and gets to where he needs to be. He does not make silly mistakes and although he doesn’t always hit his targets he does seem pretty good at reading the play. He is not a big possession winner but he does work for his 15 or so disposals per game.


21. Ryan Burton

Ht – 191 Wt – 86


I saw Burton last year and thought the sky was the limit for him. He is a fantastic talent who has a lot of class about him. A lot compare him to Gunston expecting him to play solely as a forward. That is the most likely route for him but I could also see him ending up being a Fyfe type player. The way he played last year reminded me a lot of the way Fyfe did in his first year at Freo.


The big question mark is whether Burton can get all the way back from his very bad broken leg. There are plenty of guys who have injuries like that and are never the same athletically again. Being young should help him in this regard and from reports he has been very dedicated in his recovery. He tested at the Combine and I think demonstrated that he is doing okay but there is a fair way to get back to where he was. He ran a 3.11 which is slower than I would have expected last year and his jumping was very ordinary considering that would have been one of his strengths. He did not test in the beep and came in close to the back in the 3km – the only surprise there was that he actually ran. His kicking testing was okay all things considered but I was disappointed in his clean hands score which was close to the bottom of those tested. I thought he could have worked on his hands more over the time he had off.


So Burton has come a long way but he is still a fair way off being back to where he was. I like that he has put on 10kg and he looks fit and in shape. When I saw Toby Greene at his draft he looked in peak fitness and I would have bet anyone who wanted to take the bet that the kid was going to gun it in his rookie year. There are more complications with Burton obviously but I just get that kind of feeling when I saw Burton. He looks like a kid who is focused on what he is about and has put in to present himself in the best shape he possible can.


Burton made his name as an elite lead and mark and he 100% deserves the reputation he has. He has great leading patterns and gets separation and maintains it. He reads the play ahead really nicely and times his leads very well. He has great hands above his head and he adjusts his jump better than anyone else in this draft. He will go early or late whichever is to his advantage. His early jump is a feature of his game and when he goes it is very hard to spoil him. He does not have great height but he has long arms and is a very good stretch mark.


When I watched Burton live last year he was slotting goals from everywhere but he is not always as accurate as he was that game. I like his kicking style though and he is very confident no matter where he gets the ball. I think he develops into a very good and consistent kick for goal. He has range out beyond 50 which makes him a dangerous proposition. His field kicking is also very good.


Despite his clean hands test to the contrary I would consider his hands below the knees to be good and reasonably quick for a guy who has played most of his time up forward. I see some potential for him to move into the midfield if a team can drag him away from the forward line where I expect him to be very valuable (see Darling for a guy who I also think could be good in the midfield if he was dragged away from up forward).


Without the injury I think Burton would certainly have been in top 5 contention. The issues and uncertainty associated with his injury drops him down the list but how far is the question. If the medicals reports the clubs get are not positive it could be a long way. If they are positive it would not surprise me to see him go somewhere in the teens. He has as much talent as anyone.

 

[Quigley]

22. Charlie Curnow

Ht – 191 Wt - 95


I really do not understand how a team could be considering Curnow as a top 5 pick. A lot of people justify the pick by saying that he will turn into a midfielder. On what do they base that? There has been zero to suggest that he will turn into an elite midfielder. In the midfield he looks like a taller version of his brother. Serviceable sure but not worth anything close to a top 5 pick. If he is going to be an elite player it is going to be as a forward. At AFL level he is not going to be the focus of attack like he is at TAC level. He is going to be a slow third tall with below average kicking and finishing skills.


Okay so what does he do that has seen people rate him in the top 5? At its simplest it is his ability to take over a game. He has the strut of an old school full forward and when he is on he looks unstoppable. So far he has not been able to string even a full game of such domination but people dream of what he could do if he gets it all together. He is the same height as Fev was and some think he could be a similar type of full forward.


Curnow’s big weapon is his marking ability. He is a big body and times his jump at the ball really nicely. He is a very good contested mark and will crash a pack if given any incentive. He marks the ball at its highest point and he might have the best hands above his head in this draft. He is very good on the stretch but I think he could struggle against AFL defenders. He is slow (bottom 10% in the repeat sprint) and defenders at AFL level will be able to close any separation he gets. He will be hard to get around but lots of defenders will be able to go over the top. He will be giving away height and that will be exacerbated by Curnow’s poor leaping ability.


He currently does not do a lot of repeat leading but he might need to add that into his repertoire to be effective at AFL level. Like his brother, Curnow has very good endurance and there is every chance that he could run his opponents into the ground. It is his endurance that encourages many to believe that his future might lie in the midfield. If he is going to use his endurance more effectively up forward he will need to improve his ability to work within a team environment. At the moment he works best when everyone clears out and gives him space to work in. When his own teammates intrude on his space things tend to go astray and he will often lead his opponent into the area and allow a spoil when his teammate would have otherwise have had an easy mark. Curnow has a star complex up forward and everything is about him. It will be interesting to see how that goes when he is playing as a third forward.


In the midfield Curnow is okay but I am not sure he is much more than that. He has a big body and doesn’t mind throwing it around. He will burrow into a pack and is decent at extracting the ball. His hands are pretty good below the knees but I wouldn’t say his hands are very quick or that when under pressure he creates a lot.


By foot I would consider Curnow to be below average with both his field kicking and his kicking for goal. If you want to have a look at what to expect watch the vision from the skills test at the Combine on the AFL website. Curnow looked hopeless. He is not quite that bad in game situations but he does miss a lot of targets and goals that he should get. Fyfe has shown you can be a poor kick and still be an elite player but I would be saying that Fyfe would be the exception rather than the rule and personally I like my top 5 picks to be able to kick the ball.


I have been very negative with my review and that has been largely to justify why I have him down this far in the draft. At the end of the first round or early second I think Curnow would be a fine pick. He definitely has a high ceiling and he could end up being one of the best players in this draft. The risks though are very high with him and personally I think there will be plenty who end up being better players.


23. Harrison Himmelberg

Ht – 194 Wt – 87


Himmelberg is a GWS academy that might be gettable given that Hopper and Kennedy are likely to cost them a fair bit and if someone bids something decent for Himmelberg they might not have the points to match. Himmelberg is very raw and needs a lot of work but he has a lot of talent and with patience I think he could be a steal.


In my notes I had him down as reminding me of Daryl White but looking at the highlights of him there is a lot of Cam McCarthy and he could be the guy that replaces McCarthy if he heads back to WA sometime in the next couple of years. He is about the same size as McCarthy and moves around the park a lot like him.


Himmelberg is a loose limbed athletic type of forward who is a bit slight but looks like he has the frame to develop enough bulk to play as a KP. He plays in front a lot and manages to get separation pretty easily. He has reasonable pace and works hard inside the 50. He lacks a bit of endurance and that is something he will need to work on when he gets into an AFL environment. He looks like he should be a CHF but he currently does not have the engine to play up the ground.


Himmelberg has developed nicely over the year culminating in a BOG performance in the Allies v AFL Academy game on grand final day. With that said he is clearly still very raw. He will make silly errors and take poor options entirely too regularly. On the other side of the coin he often shows glimpses of real class. I have watched a fair few of his games and I have made comments on a wide variety of high class traits. If he can get it all together he is going to be a very good player.


He gets out on the lead and is a pretty reasonable mark. On the ground he can fumble sometimes and at others pick it up cleanly and go before his opponent can react. He is the kind of player that seems to make things look easy with a fraction more time than others. Whether it is plucking a mark or kicking or handballing it. His kicking and handballing around the ground is good for a key position. The area which he needs to work on quite a bit is his set shot. He waves the ball around a great deal in his approach and as a consequence his ball drop is inconsistent and his set shot is liable to go anywhere. From the improvement this year he looks like a kid who will work on his game and there is nothing to suggest with some intensive work he cannot correct the issue he currently has in his set shot. At the moment though he wastes too many shots on goal.


Defensively he has an impact. Within his area he is a good tackler and can close down the ball carrier quickly. I have also noticed him poach kick ins in more than a couple of games. He reads where the kick is going to go and judges nicely his ability to get the ball and mark it. I think as his endurance base grows he could be a defensive presence much like Kennedy is for the West Coast.


In space he is difficult to tackle and he moves through traffic nicely for a big guy. He has a variety of fends, steps and spins that keeps him free. He is going to get nailed early trying these things in the AFL but as he builds his strength and adjusts to playing against AFL players I think he brings that aspect of his game to the AFL.


24. Clayton Oliver

Ht – 187 Wt – 86


Oliver has been a late riser and is every chance to go much higher than this on draft day. I am a bit sceptical of guys who are not considered good enough to be picked for the Champs and then suddenly burst into high draft contention on the back of some good form against other kids in the TAC. Most especially this year where the quality has not been great. With that said and credit where it is due he did also do pretty well in the VFL for Richmond.


Oliver certainly did not drop his bundle when he missed selection for Country. He went back to the TAC and concentrating on doing his best to prove the selectors wrong and you have to say that he certainly did that. He averaged 24 disposals and 6 clearances a game and finished with 20 goals in his 16 games. He finished the year strongly and ended up winning the Moorish Medal.


Oliver is a bit of a poor man’s version of Hopper. He is an inside player who is a very capable forward when he moves down there. On the inside he reads the ball off hands reasonably well and has good hands. What I like best in his game is his strength over the ball and his agility in the contest. Combined they make him a very difficult proposition to tackle. Oliver is a solid unit who has really nice balance and is very difficult to get to ground. He holds his feet very well and keeps his arms free. He is composed when under pressure and gets the ball out.


On the move he has excellent agility and dances well to buy himself time. He is not the most svelte player in this draft and I think that quite a bit of work is going to be put into his conditioning this offseason. He tested 3rd overall at the Combine with a 3.11 in the agility test which is pretty good for a bigger body type. Oliver also ran a respectable 3.00 in the 20m and a 10.45 in the 3km. Both of those times were better than I had expected of him. I note he did not test in the beep or the repeat sprint which I found a bit disappointing as I would have been interested in seeing how he went in both.


Disposal wise he is solid but does lack a bit of class. He has decent penetration but is a bit hit and miss and I am not sure he always takes the best options. Up forward he is a good finisher. He has nice hands above his head and uses his body well to protect the drop zone. He leads well for a medium type but he is not really a flyer.


Oliver does seem to have quite a bit of development potential. He had OP over the preseason which affected his preparation for this year and he did not look as fit as he could be. He is a country kid that carried a bit of condition for most of the season. That is going to come off pretty quick in a full time environment and given the improvement over the year you would have to think that he is a worth taking if you don’t have to overpay. I quite like Oliver but I would not be comfortable taking him in the top 10 as many are starting to talk about as being likely.


25. Kieran Collins

Ht – 194 Wt – 100


Collins formed a great KPD duo with Weitering at TAC level and for VC at the Champs. They complemented other really well and both worked to cover each other. I am sure the scouts paid very close attention at Collins’ ability to work in tandem with his KPD mate and in doing so make the whole greater than the parts. Collins is not as flashy as Weitering but Collins has some noteworthy traits in his own right and he allowed Weitering to stand out as much as he did.


Collins is a FB who operates best when matched up on power type players. He lacks a little height but I have not really seen taller players be able to take advantage of their additional height. Given the way he plays I think he has enough height to play FB effectively at AFL level. Where I think he is going to struggle is against the KPF’s with speed. He struggled to deal with Allen from SA who has decent but not elite speed and I do think he is going to have difficulties with such match ups at AFL level. With the zone defences prevalent in the AFL at the moment he can be protected to a degree but there are going to be times when he is going to be found out.


He did not test particularly slow at the Combine coming in around the 3.10 level but I think he plays slower than that. Collins does have good endurance though which allows him to make the best of the pace he does have.


Collins is a smart football player who reads the game well and gets to the right spots. He has a good feel for the development of an attacking play and will leave his man to help out a teammate or to drop into the dangerous space. He is a good (not elite) mark of the ball and shows good judgement when to go for the mark and when to kill it with a spoil. He will attack the contest when he has to go and body spoils it well.


He is not a high possession type of defender but neither is he a Presti type who will go long periods without touching the ball. He likes to get forward and connect up in the chain moving forward. He worked well with Weitering in this regard and this is an area where he improved quite a bit from last year.


Collins is a nice kick particularly going long. He seems to have a good feel on his long kicks and he can drop it into his target’s lap very nicely. It looks to me like he has been working on his kicking style. He will occasionally bring out an around the body kick but he seems to have a deliberate move to straighten out his kick on most occasions. It is working though and I would not be complaining. Where he can look a bit shaky is with his handballing. He has a bit of an awkward style and I would have concerns about how his handballing will stand up under AFL pressure. I would be putting a fair bit of time into getting his handballing up to standard.


Collins is one of the most improved players this year in this draft and teams do like an upward trend. There is a bit of a physical limitation with his speed but apart from that he has been developing a game very suited to AFL football.


26. Matthew Allen

Ht – 193 Wt – 97


Allen seems to be getting overlooked in the KPF discussion in this draft and I am not exactly sure why. Personally I think there is a lot to like with him and, although he is still a bit raw, there is a fair bit of potential to work with. He has only just started to fully focus on his football after splitting time with cricket and in a full time environment it would be reasonable to expect a lot of improvement.


Allen does lack the modern prototypical height but then so does McCartin who managed to go number 1 last year. He is tall enough and the way he plays he does not rely on his height to create goal scoring opportunities. He is a player who gets out on the lead, creates separation and marks out in front of his eyes. He reminds me a fair bit of Jack Reiwoldt in the way he operates inside 50. He is very smart in the way works his opponent over and when he goes, he commits to the lead and goes hard. He seems to create separation with ease and has enough pace to maintain the space he creates. He times his leads really nicely and seems to always leading at the man with the ball at the right time for his teammate to deliver it to him.


Overhead his hands are good if not quite elite. You can rely on him holding the marks he should take and coming down pretty regularly with the 50/50 contested balls. With the ball on the ground I have not noticed him being particularly strong nor weak so I am thinking he is somewhere in between. Most of his goal scoring chances come from his marks on the lead.


Allen was a true full forward as a junior and I see him in that role at AFL level as well. He can get up the ground but he does need to put some work into his tank before he is going to be consistent and effective in a more wide ranging role. He did not do a lot of defensive work as a junior and he will need to up his effort in this regard as a senior. As expected he did not test particularly well in the endurance testing at the Combine but the results were not terrible either. He is powerfully built junior who is carrying a few extra kilos that will be worked off pretty quickly this offseason. He did test reasonably well in the speed tests at Combine with him recording a 3.02 in the 20m and a similar type of result in the repeat sprint. As mentioned above when he gets space he has the pace to keep it against most of the AFL defenders he will come up against.


Allen generates quite a few set shot for goal and at the moment the results could be a bit better than they are. When kicking the ball he closes off slightly before he connects with the ball. There will need to be some work done with him to keep his shoulders open through his kick. I think this would improve his results in front of goal. Around the ground he is pretty decent by hand and by foot and he is quite composed with the ball in hand.


I would have rated Allen as the second best forward at the Champs, behind only Schache and he gave Collins a spanking in the televised game. Overall I think Allen has a reasonable chance to make it at AFL level and in a relatively thin draft.


27. Kieran Lovell

Ht - 173 Wt – 80


Does Lovell go this high on draft day? Hard to say but I think it is worth giving him a mention at this stage of the draft. He has certainly earned it.


Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the road first. Yes he is short and he is going to be pushing it uphill to succeed at AFL level. Teams are much less forgiving for guys his size and so he has to establish himself as that much better than other taller options. Looking at what he has done though I would back him in to succeed.


Athletically he is excellent. At the Combine he showed great all around athletic ability. He won the agility test with a great time of 7.90, ran a 2.96 in the 20m and a 14.7 in the beep. It is worth mentioning that he went under Hill’s agility record in a testing session in front of recruiters earlier in the year. The record is 7.77 and he went 7.60 which is hugely impressive. It has also been reported that he has gone into the 15s in the beep and has timed in the 2.8s in the 20m. As far as all around athletic ability goes there are not many better in the AFL.


The agility test is a bit unreliable generally but the guys who test at an elite level do invariably work through traffic well. Unlike most of the other guys who gunned the agility test, Lovell is not a light bodied waif. He is a nugget and has a Gary Ablett–like ability to keep his feet in a contest. In fact the way he moves through a contest is very reminiscent of the great one. Lovell is exceptionally well balanced, has a low centre of gravity and has great evasiveness. He might be as good in this area as anyone I can remember coming through.


The other area where he is very much like Gazza is in his love of the cheap disposal. Lovell works very hard but he does like to get a cheapie when he can. He will wrap around and link up for a quick one two very regularly. Lovell is up there with Keays and Mills when it comes to racking up possessions. He will get his disposals both inside and out with equal proficiency. He works very hard up and down the ground and runs his opponent into the ground.


On the inside, Lovell reads the taps of both his own and the opposition ruck very well and has a great ability to work to where the ball is going. When he collects he is strong over the ball and evasive enough to get it away better than all but a few in this draft. He also does very well at keeping his arms free. He is generally very clean with the ball on the ground but he does have an occasional game when he seems to get the fumbles. From what I have seen these games are the exceptions rather than the rule. Overhead he has nice hands and is a good mark for a guy his size. He will fly for a contested mark and is capable of bringing them down. Up forward he also uses his body nicely in marking contests to either protect the drop zone or to allow it to go over the top for him to run onto.


Disposal wise he is pretty good. He is a capable long handballer although he does need to build the power up a bit. By foot he tends to go to short or intermediate targets but he weights his kicks very nicely and usually takes the right options. He does not have a heap of penetration on his kicks but he can surprise you on occasions. Under pressure his kicking holds up well. He is a good finisher around goal and his set shot is technically fine and he takes the chances he gets.


Lovell is a very smart footballer who has a lot going for him and one big inhibiter. Like most very small mids these days I see him starting his career as a forward. The players he reminds me most of are Allen Christensen and Luke Dalhaus and like those two I think he ends up in the midfield after a couple of years up forward.


28. Daniel Rioli

Ht – 180 Wt - 69


There are always lots of comparisons between Daniel and his famous uncle Cyril buts let’s be clear; he has nowhere near the talent that Cyril does nor did he show the kind of freakish ability that Cyril did as a junior. The first year I really got into the draft I watched Cyril live at the Champs and it was obvious that his talent level was off the charts. Daniel could be a very good player but he is going to need to work more for it than Cyril.


One area where he far exceeded his uncle was in his performance at the Combine. Whereas Cyril pretty much tanked the Combine, Daniel was one of the stars this year. He had excellent performances across virtually all the testing areas. He won the 30m repeat sprint with a 24.16, was third in the 20m with a 2.89, 5th in the standing vertical, 6th in the 3km and was just outside the top 10 in the beep with a 14.7 and the agility test with 8.24. Overall he demonstrated that he an elite athlete and a lot of credit has to go to him for getting himself so fit this year. This time last year he would have had no chance of getting anywhere near those results but he knuckled down and turned himself into the runner and athlete that shone at the Combine this year.


I also found Rioli’s skills testing really interesting. I usually think the skills tests are generally a crock but in this particular case they pretty much reflected where I would put the respective skills relative to others available this year. He was 4th overall in the clean hands test and that is about where I would have him. He has lovely quick clean hands which I think could see him spend time in the midfield as he develops. In the kicking test he came in in the 74th percentile which is again about right. He is a good field kick but I would not consider him to be elite. At the moment I think he often tries a little too much and can turn it over more than he should. He weights his kicks nicely but too often tries to drop it into a too small window. In the goal kicking he came in at 44% which is about where I see him as well. He plays a lot up forward but misses shots he should get. He can sometimes do the spectacular (and likes to have a crack at them) but in front of goal he does not to the mundane well enough at the moment.


Where he ends up playing could be interesting. I do not see him as a forward as I think this would minimise his key talents and maximise his weaknesses. I would start him as a running back flanker with the aim of moving him into the midfield as he develops. I could most easily see him developing into a Lewis Jetta type player who can use his pace and endurance to turn defense into attack very quickly. Interestingly despite Rioli running a 2.89 in the 20m he was relatively slow over the first 5m. This indicates to me that not only does he have a very quick top end speed but also with some specialist training that he probably hasn’t had until now he could be even quicker. He has a lot of appeal in that role.


Alternatively there is some chance that he could also become a Shaun Burgoyne like midfielder. I don’t think he reads the ball particularly well off hands but when he gets the ball he is very quick and good with the ball. He works in the phone box pretty well and he often can buy himself some time with good backpedalling but he is nowhere near his uncle in this regard and he does get scragged a bit when his confidence overwhelms his competence. He tackles well particularly in close situations.


Rioli has not been a high possession winner to date and that is why he is so far down the list. He has a high ceiling but to date his performance has not been up to his talent level. He did play a very good game in the Allies v AFL Academy and finished with 20 disposals which would encourage many teams. Anyone picking him will be doing so based on glimpses of the potential to be a very good player but there is significant risk given he was not able to consistently be that even against junior opposition.

 

[Quigley]

29. Darcy Tucker

Ht – 183 Wt - 80


I have to say that I was a bit disappointed in Tucker this year after a very strong bottom aged year. He made the All Australian team last year as a bottom ager averaging 21 disposals a game but followed it up by only managing 17.5 disposals a game this year. He was far from poor this year but I like many just expected more from him.


Tucker is a wing or half back flanker athough the Ballarat talent manager is pretty certain that he is best as a back flanker. He was played a bit onball at TAC level this year and he was not terrible but it is pretty clear that he is an outside player first and foremost. He doesn’t really have the hands or ability to work in the phone box that the good inside players do. He is a nice combination of endurance and speed and likes to get up and down the park on the outside. He averaged a respectable 22.6 disposals a game at TAC level this year and I liked it that when he got his chance at VFL level he stood up getting 19 disposals and 7 marks whilst going at a tick under 80% DE.


Despite being on the outside Tucker does okay averaging 4 tackles a game across all levels this year. For the position he plays that is very good. He is runs both ways and whilst I would not describe him as a close checking defender I have not really noticed him being caught out defensively much either.


Tucker had a good Combine running an elite 15.2 in the beep, going under 3 seconds in the 20m and finishing in the top 15%-20% in the jumps. His 3km time and repeat sprint were also in the top quartile. So the kid is athletic. In game situations he is not the quickest guy off the mark and his is not the most elusive player out there that was born out in his testing. He does however have a reasonable top end pace wise and he likes to use his pace and will back himself.


Tucker is a strong rebounding player and likes to run and bounce. He covers a lot of ground and tends to play with pace. He is a balanced mover and gets to space pretty well. He does get scragged a bit but he shows good strength in the tackle, he holds his feet and has a nice ability to shake the tackler with body movement. When an opponent sticks the tackle he keeps his arms free in the tackle, is composed and usually manages to get the ball away to a teammate. He is not easy to get to the ground and even when he goes to ground he recovers quickly.


Skills wise, Tucker does his best work in space. He is a left footer who has neat skills but does go long to a contest too often. When delivering into 50 he gives his forwards a chance but he doesn’t often hit the forward lace out. When he gets inside 50 himself he manages to get free pretty well but he is not a great finisher. He misses some shots you would expect him to get. Overall though there is a fair to like with his kicking and I think he has the kicking skills to survive at AFL level. By hand he is a little slow and lacks a bit of zip but this is not that unusual and you usually see handballing skills improve a lot when players get into an AFL environment.


Tucker has a nice body shape and plays tall. He has a broad set of shoulders and should develop into a powerful athlete in an AFL environment. Tucker was held in very high regard at his TAC club for his leadership and it was noted that he has an “outstanding football brain”. He did all the opposition analysis this year for his TAC side. Tucker has the tools to be an AFL player although I am not 100% convinced that he makes it.


30. Tom Cole

Ht – 186 Wt – 80


This is probably as low as I expect Cole to go and it would not overly surprise me if he went anywhere up to the low teens. Cole is a meat and potatoes, low risk - low ceiling type the likes of which Richmond have made a habit of picking the last few years. Cole I see ending up being a mix of Bagley and Docherty at his best.


Cole has played a combination of half back and through the midfield this year and I think he starts his career as a small defender. At the Champs did some run with roles with time spent on Partington and Clarke that I noticed. He did a good job on those two. Cole is not a very big body just yet but he likes to get in and throw his body around. As he builds his bulk I could see him being a real hard nosed type that will do a job for a team and do it well.


Cole is a reasonable kick off either foot. He does chip is around quite a lot and needs to flatten his kicking but he will usually hit his targets particularly when he has more time off half back. He played 3 VFL games this year for Geelong off half back and did really nicely winning 17 disposals a game and returning a 83% DE%. He does need to improve his handballing. At the moment he lacks zip and misses too many targets most particularly when he is onball.


He is good below his knees and has pretty clean hands. Above his head he is solid but nothing special and most of his marks tend to come in space. He attacks contests hard but is not the most balanced player on the inside or in the contest.


Cole has a good workrate and he spreads well when his team has the ball. He does not have a great feel for where to run to receive and he does not rack up the disposals like some others in this draft. With that said he did manage to average 25 disposals a game in his 9 TAC games this year so maybe I am being a bit harsh. At the Champs though playing the more defensive game that I expect him to play at AFL level he could only average 14 disposals a game.


Cole is a good runner and he uses that well in game situations. He ran a good 14.7 in the beep test and a 10.37 in the 3km. His 20m and agility test results were much more average and reflect that he might struggle a bit with quick AFL small forward. His leap is also below what I would like but he does have decent height for a small defender.


31. Blake Hardwick

Ht – 181 Wt – 79


There are a few really interesting small / medium forward options this year of varying types. Hardwick and Dodge are two good leading, power forwards who if they were 195cm would be taken in the first couple in the draft. As it is both are undersized for the way they play and are likely to be taken later in the draft (if at all for Dodge). Personally I like both of them quite a lot.


To put things simply, when I watched Hardwick up forward this year he looked like an AFL player playing against juniors. It is hard to narrow down why to any one thing but he just looks to know what to do, when and he seems to be playing the game a couple of seconds ahead of his opponent. He is solid in most aspects of the game and not elite in many but he looks to be doing things easy. He has an excellent understanding of when and where to lead and when he gets a chance in the forward half he is a very good finisher.


Hardwick is a powerful small that is a difficult match up for a small defender in the air and for a tall on the ground. He gets a lot of chances from his lead and mark game and he has a good running leap. He marks it at the highest point and has really nice hands above his head. His hands are also good below his knees which is interesting given he has very small hands (second smallest of those tested). Hardwick is not just a lead and mark type and can score from any situation. He crumbs well and has a big, well balanced body that enables him to keep his feet and finish. He does not do the outrageous but he has a good goal sense and finishes well with more conventional techniques.


What I like about Hardwick is that when he is on he is capable of kicking a bit bag. He takes full toll of his form and will play a whole game. He had bags of 12, 10 and 8 this year on the way to leading the TAC in goal kicking. He kicked 45 goals in the TAC and only 14 behinds which accurately demonstrates how good his finishing is. He has an uncomplicated and consistent set shot technique that Hardwick uses to great effect. In contrast his field kicking is really quite average and is something that Hardwick definitely needs to improve. I do not see anything much wrong with his technique, he just seems a bit lax in what he does with the ball when he is up the field. If he focuses on his field kicking I think he should turn into a reasonable if not good field kick.


Hardwick played a bit of time onball at the Champs and did okay in the clinches but did not do enough on the outside. If he is going to play more midfield at AFL level he is going to need to work on his spread a lot. He tested quite poorly for endurance at the Combine and I would suggest that lack of capacity rather than lack of desire might have been the reason for the spread issue. On the inside he wins a bit of his own ball and seems like to get in there and mix it up but he does lack the great hands that the top inside talents have.


I think Hardwick plays early next year and I would be surprised if he does not get goals.


32. Stephen Tahana

Ht – 183 Wt – 77


Tahana impressed me a great deal last year at the Champs on the way to making the All Australian team as a small defender. This year at the Champs he played onball and was nowhere near as impressive. He has dropped out of a lot of mocks as a consequence but I remember how he played last year and think if he is moved back into defence he could be a nice shut down back with some offensive potential.


Athletically he is a very nice package. He could be a little taller but he plays tall and is strong in defensive contests. He has very good speed, agility and jumping ability. With a little work I think Tahana will be capable of going step for step with most AFL small forwards. He has the mentality and physical ability to do it. He reads the ball coming in pretty well and although he is not a big mark he does a good job at preventing his opponent from marking the ball. Endurance is his Achilles heal at the moment and he tested very poorly in the beep at the Combine. If I am a small forward I try and run Tahana into the ground and whether he can be truly effective will depend on his ability to build his tank to a sufficient degree.


I don’t see Tahana making it as a midfielder. He fumbles too much, gets buffered around, leaves his feet and seems to get a bit flustered in and around the ruck contest. The more 360 degree aspects that a midfielder needs to deal with seem to confuse Tahana. At the back where the ball is largely coming from in front of him he seems much more comfortable. The lines he runs in defence are noticeable more crisp and intelligent.


In the middle of the ground he tends to move it on by hand quickly. The results tend to be a bit variable with some games he looks very good by hands and other terrible. For me he is a bit too inconsistent for my liking. He needs to hang onto the ball a beat longer and make sure he executes better. At the moment he is too focused on moving it quickly rather than making sure it gets where it needs to go. By foot he has a pretty comfortable style and has reasonable feel on his kicks. There is a bit to work with with his kicking although he probably does not use it as much as I would like.


When in defense, Tahana needs to focus more on getting off his player when his team gets the ball and present as an option going forward. He needs to be more of a two way player rather than purely a stopper. He is a good enough kick to warrant getting involved more. His endurance might be a limiting factor at the moment. Tahana is one of the better tacklers in Div 1. He has good technique and will hit hard.


In a draft which is not particularly deep I give Tahana a chance. The ceiling is probably not particularly high but he is a guy who can go out and do a job on an important opposition player and if he can add some more offense to his game he could have a long career.


33. Luke Surman

Ht – 197 Wt – 98


Surman is a very interesting one and a player being overlooked by many. I loved my early looks at him but gradually cooled on him and was thinking that he might miss getting picked up. The Combine though gave me great assurance that maybe the biggest weakness I saw him may not be that much of an issue after all.


From watching him play I had doubts that he would have the speed to be able to compete at AFL level. Forwards are able to get by with substandard speed but at the other end there is no such allowance for the cement footed defenders. I was leaning at putting Surman into that category before he pulled out the surprise of the Combine when he ran a 3.01 in the 20m. He needs to bring that speed to his game but clubs have to be reassured that he does have enough speed to work with. They can develop the other aspects of his game in the knowledge that he does not have a big anvil around his neck.


Surman would have to be in the running for the best contested mark in this draft. Not so much up forward but down back he is superb at judging the ball in the air and getting to the right spot to mark the ball. He backs his judgement even when others are moving forward or back and he is invariably right. He has nice height and bulk and uses both well. He is strong through the body and is not moved off the line once he commits and he can ease others out of the road if needed. Up forward he does not seem to enjoy quite the same advantage he does down back.


With the ball on the ground Surman looks nowhere near as assured. He lumbers a bit and is not confident to go down and come away with it. Defensively he is a bit inconsistent. There can be times when he is marking everything that is coming and his opponent is not getting a look in. When he has to match and keep a close eye on his opponent he does not look that assured and his opponent can get the better of him. At the Champs both McKay and Schache won their battles with him. He will punch on occasions but mostly he backs himself to mark it. He will need a bit more discipline in this area when he hits the AFL.


When he gets the ball he seems pretty comfortable by foot and by hand. He doesn’t go for too much and plays within his capabilities. I do have some concerns with the amount of time he takes to get the ball away. When he passes by either foot or hand he seems composed but does take more time than is really necessary. At AFL level this tendency is going to result in both Surman and his target being under pressure. There is not a lot wrong technically and it might well be that he can speed things up as he game speeds up.


Surman has occasionally been swung forward but I am not seeing him as a swing man at AFL level. He does not seem to have any real weapons as a forward. He gets out and about in the forward 50 but he does not lead particularly well and he is not a great finisher when he does get a chance. He gets a little side on in his set shot and is not particularly accurate.


Surman has really nice size for matching up the new uber tall forwards. He needs to convert a bit of his baby fat into muscle but he has good strength already. His beep test was poor at the Combine and a lot of time and effort will need to be put into building his tank before we see him at AFL level.


34. Corey Wagner

Ht – 180 Wt – 74


Wagner is a bit of the forgotten man of the academy players this year which I am sure pleases the Lions a lot. At the beginning of the year the Lions were massively high on Wagner and him being picked up by them was considered a foregone conclusion. He had a pretty good season but I think it is fair to say he didn’t stand out as much as many thought he would. That could be a function of him playing more of an inside role this year which does not really suit his strengths. To me Wagner did not really show any elite skills but he was solid in all areas and he could play at AFL level with some physical development.


The player who Wagner reminds me most of is Aish and particularly in regards to how they played in their draft years. Both are more suited to outside roles but were asked to play more of an all around onball role. Both were pretty good but it was clear to anyone with eyes that that was not the role which suits them best. Wagner, like Aish, is quite light bodied and whilst he cracked in he had trouble establishing position and holding it. He worked hard inside and got his fair share of clearances but he fumbled too often and did not do enough with his clearances for anyone to really consider him as an option in as a full time inside mid at the next level. It did show that he will go when he has to though and that with work he could hold his own with the second string onballers.


Wagner is a far superior athlete to Aish. He did not test at Combine but I heard earlier in the year that Wagner is a 16 beep runner and although that might be an exaggeration I think it is safe to assume he easily runs in the 15s somewhere given the running he does on the field. In today’s AFL that gets you drafted and as a footballer I would say he is head and shoulders better as a prospect than Billy Hartung was at the same stage. I have heard his earlier testing over the 20m was nothing to write home about but to me he seems to have pretty good functional speed. He might not be the quickest off the mark but once he is up and going you don’t see him get run down and I do remember him going away from a player at the Champs who supposedly had very good pace.


To me he looks a good athlete who is also a pretty good footballer. I like him best working on a wing behind the ball. He is a two way player and is far superior when he has space to work in. He tends to be a bit safe with his kicking and lacks a bit of hurt factor but there is potential for that to improve. He has a decent flat kick and his peripheral awareness in space seems great. He will sometimes take options where you wonder how he saw the player. He has reasonable penetration when he goes long but he mostly uses short to intermediate targets. By hand he is a bit inconsistent with him sometimes looking to have good penetration whilst at others looking a bit weak. As he gets stronger and works on it more I think he is fine in this regard. By hand he is neither particularly quick nor slow.


As mentioned above he is prone to an occasional fumble but he does attack the ball on the ground well and comes away with his share at pace. Overhead he is not much of a factor. He will mark in space but he is not a flyer although again if he needs to provide a contest he does and I have seen him come down with a few.


Wagner is definitely a two way player and will work just as hard defensively as offensively which is great to see in a junior. He will get back and help the backs and runs nice defensive lines to cut down opposition options. He is not really a hitter but he is a willing tackler and will pick his 4 tackles a game. Wagner also does a lot of the team things which coaches love. I remember at the Champs him running as a rear gunner for his teammate for about 40m to allow a shot on goal.


When I look at Wagner I see an elite runner who is also a very solid footballer. Maybe not elite in any one area but without any glaring weaknesses either. I compared him earlier to Aish and I could honestly see him stepping straight into Aish’s position in the 22 and losing very little in production offensively and with probably a fairly big improvement in defensive effort. He is also not going to look as scared as Aish did for much of this year.


35. Nick Dodge

Ht 182 Wt 79


In a draft where the talent falls off a bit about now Dodge is one guy who I would be willing to take a punt on. He is an old fashioned small forward who reminds me a bit of Schneider and if you were looking to add a few goals that the converted mids were not delivering he is one I would be looking at. Dodge is a goal scorer and when he is on he can score goals in batches. He is capable of going for 5 or 6 goals if he is having a good day.


He leads out strongly and to good areas. He can get separation but regularly creates goals with his ability to use his body to manufacture opportunities. He has a fairly powerful lower half for an under 18 and he holds his position and keeps his opponent away from the ball. He judges he ball well and protects the drop zone very well. He is not a player that relies on one trick though and he a wide variety of getting his goals.


He has big hands and is clean with the ball in the air and on the ground and is not adverse to waiving the ball around in one hand ala Jared Brennan. Having big mitts like that is an advantage when he is trying to create something around goal. He has good goal awareness and has all the tricks you would expect of a modern forward. He is prone to the occasional muffed kick but generally he is a very good finisher who will make the most of his chances. He has a no nonsense set shot technique which sees technically fine. When bringing out the party tricks he holds the ball appropriately and maintains his balance well.


Dodge is more of a footballer than an athlete but I do think he has the athletic ability to compete at AFL level. He seems pretty middle of the road for pace and maybe a bit below for endurance but he has the football IQ to make the most of what he has. One thing I have noticed is that he is a player who recovers very quickly. He will be back on his feet and gone before his opponent is back on his feet. Eddie Betts is a master of this and people underestimate how important this can be for a forward. Dodge can go to ground or be eased past the ball and won’t just accept being out of the contest. He is a quick thinker and gets back in there quickly and regularly gets second chance opportunities as a result.


He attends clearances in the forward half and is serviceable. He will win his fair share of clearances and competes. When he doesn’t he continues to compete and is a reasonable tackler. He holds his feet nicely in the contest and when the ball leaves the contest he spreads to dangerous spots. With work he could play time on ball but I do not see him as a full time mid at AFL level.

 

[Quigley]

36. Brayden Fiorini

Ht – 187 Wt – 76


Fiorini was not going to be in my mock after the Champs but weight of TAC numbers and the fact that he was played out of position a bit at the Champs convinced me to slot him back in. At the Champs he was played mostly off half back and managed to only get 15 disposals a game and he did not do a hell of a lot with the ones he did get. In the TAC though he managed to average almost 32 disposals a game playing onball and on the wing.


With the ball, Fiorini goes by foot about 3 times as often as he goes by hand. He has a very neat left footed kicking style and when he goes short (most often) he looks a lot like Pendlebury. He doesn’t take the options that Pendlebury does but style wise they look very similar. He lacks a bit of hurt factor with his kicks but that could be a function of the overpossessing game style that was played at the Knights. He hits his targets well but he likes to play it safe and does not really look to hit the attacking options. By hand Fiorini lacks a bit of zip but that is not uncommon for juniors and I think he picks it up to an acceptable level once he gets into an AFL environment.


He played in multiple positions for the Knights this year, both inside and out and forward and back. The fact that he was able to stand up and show he is quite capable on the inside will certainly help his chances of being picked up. He works around packs pretty well and he has really nice clean hands with the ball on the ground. Once he gets the ball his hands are okay speed-wise but nothing to write home about. He has played most of his time as an outside player and you would have to think there is a fair bit of upside on his inside game. He will start his career as an outside player but he has the potential to develop into an all round mid player who can operate effectively on the inside and out.


Although it was not evident at the Champs when he was playing in the backline, Fiorini does have a good feel for where to go to receive the ball on the outside. He gets over half his possessions from hand ball receives or marks. Those marks are in virtually all cases uncontested marks and as a result of him working into space for a short pass. He is not a big contested marker but he does have decent hands above his head and reasonable height for a midfielder.


Fiorini would have been disappointed in his performance at the Combine. His speed results were probably better than I expected coming in bang on 3 seconds for the 20m and doing okay in the repeat sprint. The endurance scores though would have been disappointing for a guy who seems to have good endurance in game situations and relies on his ability to cover ground. His skills testing was also poor for a guy who again seems to have good skills in game situations. It may have been that he was injured but there was nothing in his Combine testing that stood out and said pick me.


I have seen him compared to Kade Simpson and I do think that is a good comparison. He plays that outside role very much like Simpson does and like Simpson he tends to use the short to intermediate options. He plays behind the ball more than in front and is not really much of a goal scoring threat. Once we get to the third round this year it is a bit of a crap shoot and Fiorini is someone who could have nice upside and would be worth a punt.


37. Jade Gresham

Ht – 178 Wt – 77


I have heard Gresham described as a player without an AFL trick but who is just good enough at enough things that he could have a long AFL career. I think that is pretty apt. I don’t see him ever being an elite player at AFL level but he could have a long career filling out a position in the bottom third of the 22 for a team.


I have heard Gresham compared to Boomer Harvey, but the guy I have him compared to in my notes is Lewis Taylor. Like Taylor in his junior year, Gresham made a name for himself as a small onballer who had an ability to get all over the field. He would be helping out in deep in defence one minute and be on the end of the passing chain up forward the next. More outside but serviceable on the inside winning his fair share of the ball. Like Taylor he is elusive and quick rather than fast. Over the first 10m or so he is pretty slippery but his top end speed is not great.


Gresham was the MVP for Metro averaging 23 disposals a game and was the B&F for his TAC side averaging 29 disposals a game. He did everything asked of him for both clubs as a consistent midfielder. I see him as an outside mid or perhaps forward flanker at the next level but he can go inside and win it when it is his turn. His hands are pretty good and he reads it off hands pretty well. He is only a light body however and is moved off the ball and buffeted around pretty easily. So whilst he has been competent at this level on the inside I think he is going to be best suited, and has done his best work to date, on the outside where he can link up and move the ball forward.


Skills wise Gresham is nothing special. Some people like his kicking but I think he misses too many targets. He can kick off either foot although on his left he is not the most fluid kick I have ever seen. He seems to keep his head up and take good options but he does not execute the pass that well. He also lacks a bit of penetration in his kicking and goes short more often than not.


On the outside Gresham links up really well and works hard. He has a good burst of pace that he uses nicely. He is also elusive and he is difficult to tackle. He has a good feel for where to go to receive and he is starting to find the seams up forward more often which AFL teams would want to see. He delivers it into 50 a lot and usually gives the forwards a chance but the defenders will also usually have a chance to make a play on the ball.


Gresham finished equal first in the clean hands test at the Combine but apart from that it was all pretty average. He tested probably faster than I expected with a 3.00 neat in the 20m but tested worse than I expected in the beep where he only managed a 14.1. His 3km time was disappointing and his agility was decent but I had been expecting better as well. He was in the bottom half of the 30m repeat sprint and was below average in all the jumps. Like the rest of his game there was a whole lot of average in his testing.


Gresham seems like a gutsy little player who will give it his all. He has shown he has the ability to get the ball and that combined with his give it all attitude could see him play a lot of games in the AFL.


38. Jesse Glass-McCasker

Ht – 196 Wt – 92


There is going to be a lot of KP talent around in the latter part of this draft who have shown glimpses of some serious talent. Picking which ones who are going to succeed and which ones are going to flop is to largely be a function of luck but get it right and the recruiters are going to look like geniuses. Glass-McCasker is right in that basket. He has the potential to be a top tier defender but the risk is high and he could just as easily bust altogether.


Glass-McCasker can play at both ends and has done this year. Personally I think this has not helped him. He is still a very raw prospect and it would have been better to settle him into one position and let him learn the nuances of that position rather than throwing him from one end to the other. I see him as a defender. He has good size already and when his frame fills out he is going to be a beast. He does not get into too many body on body contests at the moment but when he does he shows good ability to hold his position. He has pretty good hands and a nice vertical leap. He will punch but he does need to refine his decision making about when to mark and when to punch. Like many junior KPDs he does tend to go for the mark a bit more often than he should.


As mentioned above he is still a very raw player and his positioning at the back leaves a fair bit to be desired. Smart forwards would eat him up at AFL level early in his career and I see him playing a couple of years in a State league side before he develops the game sense to make use of his physical talent to the full extent. People should remember how lost Rance looked for his first 2 or 3 years before he finally got things together. Expect similar from Glass-McCasker.


Athletically there is a lot to like with Glass-McCasker. He was in the top 25% of the jumps at the Combine and was 6th overall in the agility test which is great for a big bodied defender. Being able to change direction quickly when a forward makes a move is an underrated physical trait for a defender. His 20m testing was not as good as I was expecting at the Combine but it was still pretty good. From watching him he just looked a bit quicker than he tested. His endurance is the big hole in his athletic profile and I doubt he is ever going to make a wide ranging CHB. More likely he will be a FB type. Like Rance though I think he could contribute nicely in the offensive side of the game.


Glass-McCasker runs off nicely when he gets the chance. He is nicely balanced and has a good burst of pace that surprises for defending forwards. He has a really nice long handball and is a decent kick of the ball. His kicking technique is okay and he is a bit of a feel kick. He does need to work on his weighting but he is not far away and with work in an AFL environment I think he could turn out to be a quality kick coming out of defence. He can get excellent penetration and can kick over a zone if they are a bit bunched.


He has been compared to Rance in body size and athleticism and I do think he has that kind of upside. He is well worth a punt in the second or third round.


39. Bailey Rice

Ht – 184 Wt 84


The son of Dean was eligible as a father / son for both Carlton and St Kilda and after much drama in the media ended up choosing the Saints. As a Brisbane supporter I have little sympathy when Carlton misses out on father/son prospects. Rice is a decent one although not nearly as good as the one they poached from us.


Rice is a small defender who can play both in the pocket and as a flanker. At the Champs he did not have a big influence averaging only 10.5 disposals a game but he had a lot more impact at TAC level averaging 21 disposals a game. Rice is a solid kid who is going to be a bit of a powerhouse after a couple of years in the gym. He is a hard at it type who runs off hard. When I was trying to come up with a comparison I was thinking of describing him as a combination of Steven Morris and Reece Conca and then I read the AFL website where he was compared to Michael Hibberd and I was crestfallen. Hibberd is a much better comparison both in the offensive and defensive aspects of his game.


Rice is quite good defensively but he is not afraid to drop off and chase the ball. He likes to play in front and go for his marks. He judges the ball pretty well in the air and has nice hands. I don’t think his marking will be as effective at AFL level though. Whilst he has a nice stretch he is not particularly tall, does not get off the ground and takes the ball behind his head rather than in front of his eyes. Without adjustment I see a lot of AFL small forwards coming straight over the top him to mark the ball.


The big knock on Rice at the moment is his endurance levels which are well below what they need to be to compete at AFL level. It is interesting to note that he did not even have the fortitude to run the endurance tests at the Combine notwithstanding he did all the other testing. Rice did run the 30m repeat sprint and his results were very poor considering his 20m time was pretty decent coming in a tick over 3 seconds. He is carrying a bit of condition at the moment which might go some way to explaining his poor endurance results and being Nostradamus I am foreseeing a lot of pain in Rice’s short term future. The other testing of note was in the jumps where Rice came in the bottom third of those tested across the board and struggled to get off the ground with the running right foot jump.


Like Hibberd, Rice likes to get off his man and attack when he can. He uses the pace he has well and could develop into a nice attacking option coming from defence. He attacks the ball with power and straight lines the ball very well. His kicking is good although perhaps not as good as some rave reviews I have read from hopeful supporters. He takes pretty good options and hits his targets. Sometimes he looks elite by foot and it is not out of the question that with some development he could gain more consistency and be a very good kick coming out of defence.


Overall I would not overpay for Rice but if the Saints can get him with their third rounder or later they will be doing well.


40. Reuben William

Ht – 182 Wt – 79


William is a Sudanese kid who is not the typical raw 195+ cm we are starting to see come through. Instead William is a 6 foot, half back flanker who plays a read and react game. By his own admission he is obsessed with AFL football and has been playing it for quite a few years now so he is not new to the game like many of his ethnic cousins. Prior to reading up on William I had expected him to be relatively new to the game given the improvement I have seen over the year. He is a much better player now than he was at the beginning of the season and has gone from a long shot to be drafted even as a rookie to a guy who I will be very surprised if he is not taken in the national draft.


I have really only seen William play as a HBF this year and I would not draft him expecting him to be anything else. He is not a close marking defender, instead liking to play a step or so off his man and back himself to read the ball in the air and to make up ground with his pace if he gets caught out. He reacts very quickly when the ball is kicked and often seems to arrive a couple of steps ahead of his opponent. He is a pretty good judge of the ball in the air but does occasionally misjudge it. He plays tall and watching him play I was expecting him to be in the high 180s rather than the low. He has a good leap on him and long arms. His stretch marking is a feature of his game and this often allows to make up for any slight misreads he makes.


He did not test at the Combine but from watching him play I would expect him to be in the low 2.9s over the 20m. Not elite pace but very quick all the same. He will need to build his tank before he can compete on an equal footing at AFL level but he is probably mid table of those seeking to be drafted at his position this year. William uses his pace nicely in his game but he does not go on the long runs that I would like to see from a guy with his natural gifts. He is a run 10-20m and kick it type of player. I would expect his coaches at AFL level will be encouraging him to extend his runs when he has an opportunity. Another thing he does not do is continue to work into 50 when the opportunity is there. He could have been dangerous doing this at the Champs but broke off his runs invariably at the 50 when there was space for him to run in and receive the ball.


William is quite strong in the marking contests but with the ball on the ground he gets buffeted around a fair bit and can go to ground a little easily. He does have a nice frame though and I think he will be a powerfully built unit after a couple of years in the gym. As mentioned above he is quick off the mark and is a balanced runner. He does have not a lot lateral movement in his runs but there is enough so that, going at the pace he does, he works through traffic pretty easily.


One of the biggest issues I had with William early in the year was his kicking. Over the course of the year though he has shown good improvement in this area and although there is still plenty of room for improvement you could rightly think that if he continues as he has recently he will be fine. In the couple of games I have seen of him later in the year he seems to have flattened his kicks out a fair bit. He also picks targets a bit more and does not just pump it long to a contest like he did too much earlier in the year. He is a balanced kick on the run and he is a nice low ball drop which makes his whole kicking action pretty reliable and it certainly looks pretty effortless. His kicking is best when he has some space and goes for the short to intermediate targets. If William does not get away an initial indiscriminate quick flick he can be a bit slow by hand and is prone to getting tackled whilst trying to work out what to do with it. He needs to work on keeping his hands free and punching out his handballs.


William has had some impressive games this year in the TAC, the Champs and in the NEAFL for the Lions. One of the most impressive came late in the year against the Swans where he managed 23 disposals, 10 contested and went at 80% by foot. That kind of performance against a team with a lot of AFL listed players gets attention. He seems to find space easily when defending and will work to link up going forward. This combined with his high marking style makes you take note of him when you are watching.


William seems like a mature kid who is truly appreciative for the opportunity he has to potentially have a career playing a sport he loves. He is studying at University already and coaches junior football in his spare time. This is a well-rounded young man who will work if you give him a chance. I am sure he will get one.


41. Oleg Markov

Ht – 188 Wt – 76


I am going to be shocked if Markov is not taken by someone this year. Teams are crying out for guys with his athletic profile who have some idea of how to actually play football and that is before we even see how much more important endurance athletes are under the reduced interchange rules.


In the Champs telecast Shifter noted that Markov is a 2.87 and 15 beep runner. Those are great figures and he is all the more impressive when you consider he also was in the top 10% in both the jumps and the agility test. He was third in the repeat sprint and got a perfect score in the goal kicking test to top things off. To say he starred at the Combine would be underselling things. Coaches getting a look at him for the first time will be already scheming what they could do with a player of his athletic gifts.


On the field Markov has steadily improved over the last few years and is now a pretty decent footballer. I would still want him to accumulate more ball than he does but he has improved the consistency of his involvement. He has played most of his games this year as a medium forward either as a flanker or in a pocket. I like him best when he is working a kick and a half from goal and working back into the 50.


When he is a bit further from goal he seems able to get free at will and he provides a valuable avenue to goal. He attacks the ball hard and for a thin guy plays a pretty tough style of ame. He is a reasonable mark of the ball although he will spill one every now and then that you expect him to take. He is a difficult match up for anyone and plays tall. One thing I love with Markov is his composure in the air. He has a great ability to fly for the mark, come down, keep his feet and go.


With the ball on the ground Markov attacks the ball hard and is not afraid to put his head over it. His hands are pretty good and he can pick up the ball at pace and when he does good things often happen. He will sometimes lift his head a bit early and needs to work a bit on watching the ball into his hands both on the ground and in the air. I think this is eminently fixable.


Markov is a quick thinker and seems to take good options. He has neat skills by hand and by foot and he has good penetration on his kicks. His set shot technique is a little unorthodox (his hold is a bit to the side of the ball and he waves it around a little) but the results are pretty good and he has range outside of 50. His delivery into 50 is usually pretty good and he can use his penetration to carry defenders who have been sucked forward. He is not pin point with his passing but he is creative and usually gets the ball where he wants it to go. He has good goal sense and can do the spectacular.


42. Andre Parella

Ht – 203 Wt – 104


A lot of the media has focused on Nyuon as being the primary ruck coming from this draft but of the Div 1 rucks this year I would go with Parella. Parella does not have the leap that Nyuon has but he has 5 centimetres in height. I also like Parella’s tap work and work after the tap more than Nyuon’s.


Parella’s tap work can be elite at times and really set up play for his mids. He is not consistently great with his tap work but he gives enough silver service to have me thinking that there is a lot of potential there particularly from bounces and boundary throws. He is big and strong bodied and when he gets the chance to use those in the ruck contest he does well and clears space to allow him a free tap of the ball.


When the ball hits the ground Parella is good. He throws himself about has pretty clean hands. He clears space and puts good physical pressure on any opponent with the ball. He shoots out a pretty quick handball when he collects it.


Parella is a typical traditional ruck in that he handballs much more often than he kicks it. He is not a terrible kick but he does not seem to trust his kicking ability. If there is an option to handball or kick he will invariably look to handball it. He is a decent handballer but nothing out of the ordinary.


He will take a few marks but I would not consider him a strong marking option. For a guy his size he could do better. His around the ground work needs to improve. He is very much an old school ruck at the moment – good in and around the ruck but not much of a factor around the ground.

 

[Quigley]

43. Josh Schoenfeld

Ht – 187 Wt - 75


Schoenfeld has one big weapon that makes him draftable and that is his endurance. He ran a 16 beep test at the Combine and had a fantastic run in the 3km to break the record with a 9.15. Schoenfeld not only has the engine he uses it on the field. When given free rein he will get up and down the park and help out wherever he is needed. He reminds me in build of Isaac Smith but plays the game a lot like Tom Bell both in the good and bad aspects of Bell’s game.


Schoenfeld has been working hard on it but like Bell his kicking is still a major deficiency in his game in my opinion. Like Bell he will occasionally pull out a very nice kick but too often he misses targets or gets them there on the bounce. He recognises the issues with his kicking and usually plays it very safe with little chips to no real advantage. I accept he had a very respectable DE% this year but I think that stat lies in this case. Schoenfeld needs a lot of intensive work on his kicking to flatten it out and give him confidence in his ability to hit a target more than 20 metres away.


You can say a lot of things about Schoenfeld but what you can’t say is that he is afraid of work and will not do everything he can to improve his game. He has been working on his kicking a lot as noted above and also the other big deficiency in his game which is his pace. He has recognised this and has been working with a sprint coach to get that up as much as he could. During games he gets the most out of what pace he has and often does not look particularly slow. I would compare him to Sidebottom in this regard. Both lack explosiveness but on the park they are rarely run down. At the Combine Schoenfeld ran a respectable 3.12 for the 20m. Not great but better than a few who will go ahead of him in this draft and a fair bit ahead of what the likes of Sidebottom and Rockliff ran in their draft years.


Schoenfeld is an outside mid and struggled to rack up disposals at the Champs averaging only 12 per game. With that said I liked a lot of his defensive run and the way he popped up where they needed him to be. He got much more of it at WAFL Colts level where he managed 22 disposals a game. Schoenfeld showed in the Colts that he can get ahead of the ball and is a pretty reasonable finisher when he gets a chance inside the forward 50. When he has the ball he is elusive with a nice step and is very difficult to tackle. He is a balanced mover and looks good when he is up and going. He is the type of player who might not have really long runs with the ball but will give it off and power down the park and get it back again or at least be an option. He is going to run a lot of opponents into the ground. Above his head Schoenfeld is solid. He will run under the ball sometimes and has small hands but he plays tall and he gets enough of it from marks.


I have no trouble taking Schoenfeld. There is plenty to work on but this is a kid who is not afraid to do the work and has an elite weapon that makes up for a lot of deficiencies. He is not dissimilar to Billy Hartung in this regard and Billy has been got games for the Premiers in his first year. In a copy cat league I think someone takes a punt on Schoenfeld.


44. Michael Hartley

Ht – 199 Wt – 100


For those of you with long memories you might remember that I was all in on Hartley in his draft year and I said I would have had him in the top 20 if he hadn’t been a NSW Scholarship player for Collingwood. I saw him dominate Patton at the Champs that year and thought he could be the best full back to come out of that draft. A couple of years of injuries and he was free of Collingwood and dominating for Coburg. In the last two years he has established himself as the best full back in the VFL and he is in line for a second chance the AFL.


If I was a team like Sydney or Freo who are in the window and are lacking in tall defender depth I would be jumping on Hartley. He can come in and play right away and play at a high level. I like that he has the height to go with the generation of ultra tall forwards as well as the bulk to go toe to toe with the power forwards. Hartley lacks the endurance to go with the big runners at AFL level but he should do reasonably well on the stay at home leading types.


For such a big guy Hartley has good pace and can get going pretty quickly. If a forward gets a step on him he most often has the pace to make up ground and close them down. He is disciplined and shows good judgement about when to spoil and when to mark. He plays the role of a close checking defender very well. At school Hartley was a very good high jumper and combined with his height he can get up as high as anyone.


An area where Hartley has really improved since I saw him as a junior is in his offensive game. As a junior he looked destined to play a Presti like role where he would only get a handful of disposals each game. In the VFL last year he averaged 14.2 disposals a game which is pretty good for a fullback. Not only has he gotten himself more involved but he has improved the quality of his disposals a great deal. He had a DE% of 76% in the VFL this year. He is very composed with the ball and takes his time getting the ball away. He has shown really nice touch on his passes this year and can drop the ball into a small window. He might be rushed a bit more at AFL level but the quality of his kicking is very good and I think it should stand up to AFL play.


I will really be cheering for Hartley next year and hope that he can come back and prove that I was right all along.


45. Greg Clark

Ht – 194.4 Wt – 89


My notes on Clark are a study in contradiction and as a consequence I really do not know what to make of him. For example one game I several notes saying how strong he is in the contest and in another I have a criticism of him for losing his feet too much. It is like that for a lot of his traits.


First the obvious. If Clark gets drafted it is in large because of the love at the moment for key position sized mids. Clark is the same size as Bontempelli and half the key positions running around. He is definitely a midfielder though and for someone his size he is not a big aerial threat even when matched up on smaller opponents. For that reason I do not see him developing into a key position even as puts on bulk and probably not a third tall either.


Clark has played mostly as an outside midfielder / HFF prior to this year when he was given more inside roles with the aim of seeing whether he could be turned into a Barlow type. Like everything else with Clark results have been mixed. Personally I do not see him making as an inside player. He does not read the taps particularly well and when he gets his hands on it he is fairly slow to get it away. Inside he seems to have pretty good awareness but he takes too much time to get it away and he is tackled very regularly. Also to reduce things to the lowest denominator, he also just does not win enough ball inside. There is a chance he might develop with work but I would back against it.


So if I were picking him it would be as an outside mid or flanker. He is a very good runner with a reported best beep test score of 15.5. He did not get anywhere near that at the Combine but he is definitely a run all day type. All the other testing at the Combine was decidedly average. If he gets the ball around the clearances he can show a bit of a burst of pace but generally he does look pretty one paced. That is not to say slow just that he does not have that extra gear that some of the premium outside mids have.


I do not think he reads the play particularly well as an outside player. He covers a lot of kilometres for his possessions and the ones he gets are a function of workrate rather than football IQ. By foot he is pretty inconsistent. Sometimes delivering it nicely to a good option at others just kicking it long to no real advantage. He does have reasonable penetration on his kicks and has a decent set shot when he gets a chance to kick for goal. When Clark is playing in the forward half he does seem to accumulate a few goals. Again it seems to be a function of workrate and size rather than being a naturally gifted forward.


Clark was the WA captain this year and is held in high regard for his leadership. WA did not have a good side this year and were on the end of some pretty decent beatings. Clark was one I did notice mucking in when they were getting kicked and trying to lift the rest of the team. His coaching staff also are very complimentary of his professionalism and coachability. If you give him things to work on he will go away and really concentrate on making the improvements required.


All up I see Clark as a very impressive physical specimen who does not have a lot of natural football talent but tries his best to make up for that with hard work. Teams could do a lot worse than have a few of those types on their lists. Sometimes they make it and sometimes they don’t but whilst they are there trying they set a great example for the rest of the squad especially those guys for whom things come easy and who don’t work as hard as they should.


46. Wylie Buzza

Ht – 198 Wt – 97


When Buzza was not nominated by the Lions as one of the Academy players they were interested in taking, most pundits would have taken him off their mock lists. Personally I think the Lions got it wrong much like the professionals did for several years with the guy that Buzza is most often compared to – Ben Brown. I see Buzza as exactly the type of second ruck that teams should be looking for. He is a second ruck who can play most of his time as a key position and actually be useful in that role and when called on to ruck he can ruck well with a physical style that is going to really take it out of his opponent.


Buzza played most of the year as a key forward and did pretty well. He leads hard at the ball. He commits and goes hard. He is consistent and his teammates are going to know where he is going to lead. It is not complicated but he is big and athletic and he creates chances. He is not the best judge of the ball in the air and he can have days where he runs under the ball a fair but overall he is decent and gets to the fall of the ball pretty well. Probably Buzza’s biggest issue as a forward is his hands. He has hard hands and does not come down with the number of marks he probably should. With that said he does mark a fair few each game and even when he doesn’t mark he controls the spillage and his small forwards know where to be to collect.


As mentioned Buzza leads strongly and defenders know that they are going to get run through if they stand in front of him. Buzza is a big body and he loves to throw it around. He will body spoil any defenders who are in better position than he is on a mark. Generally though Buzza gets good separation on his leads and he seems to have the pace to maintain the gap. He ran a 3.07 at the State Combine which is pretty decent for a ruck/kp. Buzza has a pretty good turning circle as well for a big guy and can turn his opponent around if he needs to.


Another big reason I like Buzza is the defensive pressure he puts on both up forward and in the ruck. He attacks the ball carrier at 100 mph and he will thump them hard if he gets his hands on them. He is an ex rugby league player and Buzza knows how to make his tackles felt. He will also run through opponents to get to the ball carrier. He and Weller formed a great defensive duo for Qld at the Champs and caused a lot of turnovers from both actual and perceived pressure. They worked in tandem well and defenders got very nervous when they were in the area.


Buzza is a pretty good field kick and will hit his targets. When he gets a set shot the comparisons to Brown become hugely evident. He has the Sideshow Bob hair like Brown and also the very deliberate set shot technique. It works for Buzza though and he puts through a lot more than he misses.


The superficial aspects aside the players that Buzza most reminds me of are Shane Mumford and Barry Hall. He has the same kind of bash and crash game that those two have and had. That sort of physicality creates opportunities for his teammates. In the ruck I would consider Buzza close to the best around the ground ruck available this year. At the centre bounce he is nothing to write home about but get to an around the ground ruck contest where he can use his body and strength and suddenly he dominates. His body work in the ruck is excellent and he gets a lot of free taps. He controls his taps well and his taps to advantage would be very high percentage wise. It is worth mentioning that Buzza in the State Screening jumped the equal of the 4th absolute vertical leap at the Combine. So he can get up there.


When the ball hits the ground, Buzza recovers very quickly and will run through players to get to the ball. Buzza did not get that much of a chance to play in the ruck either for Qld or for his NEAFL side with both sides having well regarded ruck options. It is worth noting that one of the few games in the NEAFL when he got to play ruck he ended up with the Rising Star nomination.


Buzza is not going to score big bags of goals but I think he is good for a couple of game and another couple coming from his work. He can then go into the middle and give quality back up ruck minutes. For me that gets him picked for my team.


47. Sam Skinner

Ht – 197 Ht – 94


Skinner did his knee in the second game at the Champs this year which was pretty unfortunate for him for several reasons. First because of the injury itself and secondly because he was one who still had a fair bit to prove. One of the things he had yet to prove was where the hell he was going to play.


Skinner has played both forward and back this year as well as a fair bit of time in the ruck. He has good size being both tall and powerfully built. He has the size and inclination to play some second ruck at AFL level and that should help him be picked up. He has been coached the last couple of years by Leigh Brown and that is the kind of player that he is. He is a bit one paced and lacks explosiveness but he can get around the park and he uses his strength and size to create opportunities for himself.


He has been quoted several times as preferring to play as a backman. He was the MVP for Vic Country at the under 16 Champs in that role. At the back he reads the play well and gets to the fall of the ball nicely. He plays off a fair bit and backs himself to outmark the opposition. This has worked well at junior level but I am not sure that is going to fly against AFL quality forwards. In the AFL he is going to be playing against guys who are as tall and probably more athletic than he is and if he gives them a chance a lot are just going to come over top of him. I also think his lack of explosiveness is going to find him out at AFL level. He also has a bit of a wide turning circle and I think he is going to have trouble dealing with quicker AFL forwards who will get a couple of steps on him pretty easily and he will not be able to make up ground. He is not a high possession winner and does not get involved in the possession chain as much as you would like going forward.


I see Skinner as a KPF / 2nd ruck at AFL level. Up forward he can plonk himself in the square and work from there. He can offer multiple leads and is reasonably smart about the moves that he uses to get open. He might well be best suited as an old fashion power forward who overpowers the defender in a wrestling match. He can also get out and crash packs and bring the ball to the ground. I would not expect a heap of goals from him but he would provide a big target and his smalls could work off him. He is a good contested mark and has really nice strong hands. A lot of his marks are contested and I think that is likely at AFL level as well when defenders are going to be sitting on him. He is a good mark with the ball coming in on his head which a lot of forwards are not. He clears space for himself and goes up and brings it down.


Another reason I see him playing more up forward is his kicking. He is very ordinary by foot and went in the 50s for DE% both at the Champs and the TAC this year. He has good penetration on his kicks and seems confident enough but he just misses too many targets. Up forward his set shot also needs work. He pulls to the left on his release and this can cause issues with his ball drop. When he gets to the AFL he is going to need to work on his kicking.


48. Josh Dunkley

Ht – 189 Wt - 85


Okay now for a couple of guys who I had high expectations for but failed to deliver anything like the production that I was thinking we were going to see. Both have had injury issues and Dunkley missed the first third of the year or so with stress fractures in his back. That kind of injury does give me concerns for his longevity.


The Bound for Glory guys compared Dunkley to Patrick Cripps and that is probably as good a comparison as any. Both are big bodied inside players who have nothing in the way of athleticism. Dunkley’s pace, agility and endurance are all well below AFL midfield standard. I will usually describe someone in a draft as not being able to run out of sight on a dark night and this year that person is Dunkley. What that means he just has to be so much better at other aspects of his game in order to make up for his athletic deficiencies.


The problem is that his athletic problems are not the only holes in his game. In addition his kicking is about the standard of your typical old school ruckman. Quite simply it is not good enough and from the way he plays the game he realises that and does not trust himself. He either just pumps it long or tries to take a safe short option which he misses too often. His technique needs tidying up and although he looks to have been working on his kick his technique varies from kick to kick. At the moment he reminds me of a young Jobe Watson.


Like Cripps and Watson, Dunkley is going to live and die on his inside ability and Dunkley does work well on the inside and the contested aspects of the game. He is strong in the contest and has reasonably clean hands. When he gets the ball he is composed although perhaps a bit slow in some of his decision making. At junior level he gets away with it but he is going to get smashed early in the AFL whilst learning he needs to speed things up. I think he can do it however. When he needs to his hands are quick and he can feed it out.


On the outside Dunkley was not really a factor this year. He averaged only 12 disposals at the Champs and in his 6 VFL games. That I think demonstrated how far he is away from getting his work levels up to an acceptable level.


Again like Watson, Dunkley can also go forward and be effective. He is a very nice 189cm and he plays taller than that. He is very good overhead and his marking is a real strength. He has averaged a goal a game for the last couple of years and he could do that at AFL level. He is not going to get separation but he is very difficult to handle for most small/medium defenders with his size, strength and overhead ability. He protects the drop zone nicely, times his arrival at the ball well and keeps his opponent behind him. I do not see him playing as a forward full time but as a midfielder who can rest forward there is definite value in his forward skills.


Dunkley was voted the captain of the AFL Academy last year and was highly regarded as a leader in the Academy. So we have a good leader with marking and inside skills who is a poor athlete and can’t kick. That doesn’t exactly scream draft me high.


49. Jordan Snadden

Ht – 189 Wt – 78


Snadden had a lot of issues this year with groin and hip injuries and it is fair to say that we did not see him at his best. He is a big inside mid who made the AFL Academy this year and has the tools to be a very good player if he could put it all together.


If I was going to compare Snadden to anyone it would be to Michael Barlow. Barlow is a bit taller but Snadden certainly has nice height and bulk for a midfielder. He does not throw his weight around too much in the contest but he does clear the way nicely and has good strength over the ball. He is difficult to tackle and does get through a lot of tackles where you expect him to be gone. On the inside he finds his way to the ball okay but he does tend to collect it a bit too much when he is stationary and this can inhibit his ability to get out and clear the ball. His hands are also slower than is ideal for an inside mid. Still there is a bit to work with on the inside albeit, like Barlow, it might take him a little time to develop his inside game to AFL level.


In addition to his height, Snadden has superior athleticism. He had a great combine winning the 2 foot vertical and right foot jumps and doing very well in the speed testing. He did a 2.94 in the 20m and was the second fastest over the first 5 metres. I am sure coaches would have loved that last result in particular. Having explosive pace can be a huge advantage for an inside mid as shown by Judd and Dangerfield. The beep test was quite poor but interestingly he was in the top 30% of the 3km. Endurance is one area where Snadden needs to improve but the 3km time does show that there is a bit to work with I think. At the moment I think his gut running ability is lacking and that is holding him back both in regards to his game and his ability to fully utilise his pace. If he can get his groin and hip issues sorted though I think a team might find him make sudden jumps in his game generally.


Snadden is a left footer whose DE% is bolstered by his going long as much as he does. Personally I think he goes long to a contest too much and he needs to work on assessing and hitting the intermediate targets better than he currently does. He is a left footer and has a nice easy style and it may be that his injuries have hindered his kicking this year. When he kicks it it looks so good that you expect it to be finding the target but it too often doesn’t.


On the outside Snadden looks pretty good but can be a bit slow to cycle through his options and hit the targets. He moves well but does not have a great feel for where to run to receive. At the Champs he played onball a lot and only managed to average 13 disposals a game. In the WAFL Colts he averaged 20 disposals a game although it is worth noting that he averaged 21 disposals a game last year as a bottom ager. He was tried up forward a bit in the Colts this year but was not very effective. At the champs he did a bit of work behind centre and if he was going to play on a flank I would be looking at playing him as a back flanker. His size and pace could make him a good defensive option back there.

 

[Quigley]

50. Ryan Clark

Ht – 184 Wt – 84


Clark has been getting a lot of love of late but I just do not see it. To me he looks like a guy who has got the absolute most out of himself to get to where he is but does not have the scope for improvement to succeed at the next level. I am not seeing anything that sets him apart from any number of not quite good enough State league players.


Clark was solid at the Champs and had one game against WA which was better than that. He averaged 19 disposals a game at the Champs which I thought reflected where he stood ie in the mid pecking order. Pretty good but a bit below the better guys running around. In the TAC he managed to average a more impressive 29.8 disposals a game but I take that with a grain of salt given the relatively poor standard this year. I would have liked to see him get a game at VFL level to see how he dealt with the step up in class but it was not to be.


Any plaudits Clark has gotten have come through hard work and credit to him for that. He runs hard and keeps running hard. He has a pretty good feel for where to run and I do like the way he is able to find seams up forward to run into and create goal scoring chances. His gut running ability is mentioned by everyone who has watched him and he reminds me a lot of Viney in that he does not have great natural endurance but is prepared to run himself into the ground. If he continues to do that his tank will improve but he is not a natural endurance athlete. At the Combine he was very average in the beep with a 13.7 and was middle of the road for the 3km as well. When you consider his running ability is by far the stand out feature of his game you start to wonder if there is that much there to start with.


Similarly Clark plays the game with pace but again tested pretty middle of the field in pace. Decent pace sure but he was a fair way off being elite. Clark was also in the bottom 40% in agility, all the jumps and the skills. So all up a pretty ordinary Combine for Clark and nothing to demand he be selected highly in the draft.


Clark had been mostly an outside player but has played more onball this year and has improved his inside skills a great deal. He is reasonable and good enough to suggest that if he needed to go inside as an AFL player he could do okay. Below the knees he has very good hands and they are pretty quick when shuffling the ball out. He doesn’t read the ball particularly well off hands nor work through traffic inside. If he is going to make it at AFL level it is going to be as an outside player.


For an outside player his skills are quite poor and he goes by hand entirely too much. His kick to handball ratio is about 1:2 rather than the more common 2:1. By hand he is okay but can sometimes give it to a player who is being sweated on. By foot he can look okay but he holds the ball too high and pulls the ball up before he drops it and these technique issues often cause inconsistent results and sometimes outright shanks.


In addition to his kicking he also needs to work on his defensive running. He is very much a one way player. For someone with the deficiencies he has that is not going to cut it at the next level.


I generally like guys who are prepared to do the hard work and get the most out of themselves. I am not sure why Clark has not grabbed me the way these type of guys often do. I am not writing him off and I would like him to succeed but personally I would bet against him.


51. Yestin Eades

Ht – 184 Wt – 82


This time last year it looked like Eades was headed toward being another addition to the long list of wasted indigenous talents. He had made it into the AFL Academy but looked determined to follow a lot of his close relatives including his mother and father into prison. The trouble he had gotten into already prevented him travelling with the Academy to the US and it seemed a matter of time before he ended up like his Jordan who I assume is a relative of some description.


I was immensely high on Jordan Eades 4 or so years ago. He had a break out year in the WAFL and he looked an incredibly talented footballer who should have the AFL teams knocking down the door to get him to their team. It didn’t happen and it subsequently came to light that he had burglary charges pending and when you are on your way to jail all the talent in the world is not going get you picked. Yestin was headed the same way before the AFL stepped in and arranged for him to be offered a boarding spot at school in Ballarat. Yestin had to give up everything he had known to move to Victoria but credit to him he recognised where he was heading and seized the opportunity when it presented itself. Not only has he taken the chance but he has dedicated himself to turning himself around off the field. I found it interesting that the North Ballarat talent manager noted that Eades had by far the best intensity of any Vic Country player. He has come a long way.


On the field Eades has gone from a flashy forward to a meat and potatoes half back / mid. He still shows flashes of having a very high ceiling but this year he seems to have worked on doing the hard things first. Defensively he is very good and he can shut down an opponent very well. He is a strong tackler and likes to throw his body around in contested situations.


Unlike many indigenous players he is not a waif but looks well on the way to becoming a powerful athlete. He was not invited to the Combine but looks to be a very good combination of high end speed and endurance. In traffic he does not have the evasiveness of many of his indigenous brothers and he does seem to get scragged more than he should. In the air Eades is pretty good and has pretty good hands.


Eades does need to tidy up his kicking. At the moment he drops his eyes for too long when he kicks and releases the ball too high. As a result he tends to spray the ball and miss targets too often. He is often at his best when he is going around the corner or trying something quick and instinctual. In those types of situations his high level of talent often shines through.


I think Eades is most likely to be picked up as a high ceiling rookie. Given his background he is a bit behind where he should be and he does need to work on a fair few parts of his game. I like him though as a shut down defender initially and if he can sort out his kicking he could develop a nice two way game.


52. Matthew Perry

Ht – 188 Wt – 74


If I had to describe Perry in one word it would be – hungry. You get his type in every sport and playing with his type always used to drive me insane. He just keeps popping up and calling for the ball even when he is not the best option. He works hard enough and gets to space but if he was playing for the team rather than himself he would not be trying to get the ball in the positions he does. He should be putting on blocks and doing the team things but he doesn’t even consider doing those types of things.


Perry can absolutely find the ball. He plays on the wing or half back and even when on the wing he works around behind the ball a lot to find it. He has very good endurance and he uses it well during the game. He does not seem to have great pace and tends to get caught with the ball a lot. His agility is good and he has nice height for his position. Perry was not invited to the Combine which surprised me a bit. There were quite a lot of worse players attending at the Combine and I think he is a chance to be picked.


The hunger for cheap ball would not be an issue if Perry actually used the ball well and for me the biggest issue for Perry is quite simply that he does not. He just concentrates on getting it away with little or no regard if the ball goes to the advantage of his team. He invariably goes short and backwards a lot. By hand he often just goes to whoever is closest no matter if a man is sweating on him.


So why should a team consider taking him? I don’t mind Perry in that he is a nice sized runner who actually looks okay when he kicks. He needs to have someone pull him into line and get him to play within the team rules which prevail in the AFL at the moment and cut out the backwards crap he uses too much. I think there is a player hidden under there that could make it. He averaged 25 disposals a game in the TAC this year and 21 at the Champs. He is not afraid to work and he knows where to go to get it.


53. Ryan Gardiner

Ht – 196 Wt – 89


I watched Gardner a fair bit at the Champs after I worked out he was someone who was worth paying attention to (not as silly as it sounds if he is not one of the guys you have on the list to watch going in. You are splitting your attention a lot of ways as it is). I liked what I saw and asked a regular TSL watcher what the general vibe was in Tassie about him. His reply was to the effect that it was generally thought that he would be a solid TSL player at best. After that I had gone away from him but some decent form late in the year including in the Allies match and I am happy to slot him back in.


Gardner had injury issues over the year which have restricted him. He has had a hot spot in his foot which has flared at various times in the year including leading into the TSL finals. Gardner was given big jobs both at the Champs and in the TSL and usually stood up. At the Champs, Tassie lacked quality at the back and Gardner was often flicked around to whichever opposition forward was getting away. He stood up nicely and usually did a good job quelling the hot hand.


Although he is still pretty raw, Gardner is a very athletic 196cm player and for those two reasons alone I could see someone taking a punt on him. He plays from in front and does well getting to the ball first. He is not the best judge of the ball in air in this draft but he is good enough to get to the fall first on most occasions and does a good job of keeping the ball in front of himself. He is a pretty good mark of the ball and marked a few opposition inside 50 entries in the Allies game which would have gotten him some attention. He has good courage in the air but also knows when to punch. Gardner is a bit light and does need to use a bit more smartly in the contest. At the moment he looks undersized even against junior opponents so there is going to need to be a fair bit of time in the gym for him.


I have seen Gardner go to ruck sized forwards like Hipwood and do a good job but he also has the athleticism to go with smalls. He has good pace and agility for a guy his size. Going forward he needs to involve himself more in play. He is still learning the defensive game and is a bit too focused on that side of the ball at the moment. When he gets the ball, Gardner is usually a pretty good user of the ball and he went at over 80% across the Champs and in the Allies match. Apart from one glaring across the goal pass that went wrong I thought he generally took very good options at the Champs, playing within himself mostly but occasionally going for a nice attacking option if it was there to be taken.


Gardner has the height, athleticism and mindset to play at AFL level. There is still quite a bit of development that needs to go into him before he would be effective at AFL level but unlike a lot of KPDs who are drafted he does not have any glaring issues which would indicate that they would struggle to step up if the time was put into them.



54. Jack Silvagni

Ht – 191 Wt – 83


We are in a copy cat league where chasing teams try and copy what is working for the teams at the top. The team that has lead the way the last few years has a thin, mobile, elite marking mobile third tall type and I expect a few teams to try and find their own version of Gunstan. In his one brilliant game of the year Silvagni demonstrated that he could be as close to that type of player as is available this year.


I am a sucker for a guy that really jumps out of the box in my first close look at him and that was the case with Silvagni this year. For the rest of the year Silvagni did not do a hell of a lot that I saw but that one game against WA still stays with me and I am willing to pick him based pretty much solely on that game. In that game Silvagni picked up six goals and looked like a star.


Silvagni in that game showed elite marking ability. He was taking fingertip marks at full stretch. He was getting separation and was finishing everywhere from the 50 to the pocket. He was the focus of attack for Metro which is something which he will not be in the AFL but I think the game he played could be adapted to a secondary target. He showed reasonable pace and ability to get separation. He lead to dangerous spots a lot and at other times to areas where it was the only place that it could go. He showed a good ability to read what was appropriate in the circumstances.


Wherever Silvagni plays he looks like a smart player who knows his role and executes well. With the ball in hand he cycles through the targets quickly and takes good options. He is not exceptionally skilled but he is pretty good and he looks to have AFL standard skills. He regularly does things which make me think that it was a really smart bit of play.


He has played a fair bit at the back and I have not really seen him have a big possession game playing in that role. This is a bit surprising as he is built to run off and with his smarts I thought he would get off quickly and often. With the positions he plays it is often hard to judge his endurance and it is possible that he lacks a decent tank which inhibits his ability to play a high possession game. To be successful as a defender at the next level Silvagni needs to be a two way player and work harder offensively.


Defensively he does well and does well both in a close checking role and knowing when to drop off and help a teammate. He reads the play coming in well and is disciplined in his defensive play. He needs to put on a lot of bulk to compete at AFL level but I doubt he will ever be a particularly huge guy. I would be looking at a build similar to that which Gunstan has.


Silvagni has played a lot of school football this year and not much TAC or other football and so is a bit under the radar. This could all be part of the Carlton plan to get him cheap. If so I expect that the plan has succeeded. He has shown some glimpses of real talent which would cause me to take him in this draft but the lack of consistency would not see me bid very highly for him. There is talent there though and I will be surprised if he doesn’t end up at Carlton.


55. Dylan Smith

Ht – 197 Wt - 86


There has been a lot of talk about Ben McKay being taken in the first round or early second which quite frankly I cannot understand. I think McKay lacks the attributes to be any kind of AFL player. On the other hand Smith has been very much under the radar and given the choice between the two I take Smith every day of the week. Both are very tall KPs who have played a bit at either end but I see both being forwards if anything at AFL level (despite common wisdom that McKay will be a defender).


Smith has not had a great year. His midfield were poor at the Champs and the delivery to him was well below what he would have been hoping for. He had a very nice first game against SA but after that was very quiet. He worked hard after the Champs but a finger injury hampered his impact and cruelled his senior game chances. There have been some questions on his competitiveness and willingness to impose himself on a game but personally I don’t see a lot of problems with the way he plays.


He is a very good contested mark and he has no trouble going up in a crowd. He comes down with the ball more than his fair share of the time and when he doesn’t he is one of the quicker forwards to react and chase the spillage. He keeps his eyes on the ball very well with lots of bodies around and his hands are good above his head (and below his knees for that matter). He is not afraid to fly and he has excellent balance and ability to adjust in the air. He is a good but not elite judge of the ball in the air and is really good at making the last second adjustments which allows him to mark the ball. He keeps focus under body pressure and seals his defender behind him well when he is protecting the drop zone.


Smith is not a great lead for the ball and you don’t see him taking a lot of marks out in front of his player in the forward 50. If he is going to mark it is usually with his opponent right in his pocket or he is coming into a contest which has been made by someone else. AFL coaches want their forwards to get up the ground and provide a contest on the wing and Smith does this already. He covers a fair bit of ground for a junior forward and he will crash a pack when he has to. His field kicking is solid as his work by hand. In the forward 50 he finishes well with his set shots and is pretty reliable out to 50. His technique is not as fluid as some but it tends to be effective.


The Combine returned interesting endurance results. From watching him in games I had thought Smith a fair to good runner but at the Combine he tested very poorly in the beep and 3km. I am not sure if there was a problem there but those results were inconsistent to the way he looks on the park. His agility was first class for a big forward which I liked and his 20m time was good although not great for a big guy. Good enough to maintain separation but not enough to run away from a defender in the first place. His jumps were about average which was okay when you consider the height advantage he has to begin with.


Overall I quite like Smith as a prospect and at this stage and if a team picked him up in the third round I think they would be doing very well.


56. Ben McKay

Ht – 199 Wt - 95


No people I have not forgotten Ben McKay and I have included him merely just to confirm that point. I had originally been intending to leave him out altogether because quite simply I would not pick him even at this stage of the draft.


Ben is very much the lesser of the McKay twins. Sure he is almost as big but he is nowhere near that player that Harry is. Where Harry is a forward who has flashed genuine talent as a forward, Ben to me has demonstrated to me why he is will not make it as a back. He has played some forward late in the year but he has not shown enough to be taken as a forward despite me feeling that he would have more chance of success up there.


McKay took time off during the year because he was the pale shadow of his brother and felt that he was not going to make it and now after some moderate games as a shut down defender and fill in forward at TAC level people are talking about him as a top 15 player. I swear sometimes people (including professional recruiters) just get caught up in the hype and ignore what is in front of them. McKay is tall but hardly gets off the ground (he was last in the vertical leap at the Combine), he is reasonable for pace when he is up and going but he regularly misses the jump and can be very slow over the mark and he has the turning circle of an aircraft carrier. There was a great variance in 20m times at the Combine and he managed to finish in the bottom 5% of the agility test. I have heard it said that he has good endurance but I have not seen it and he did not show it at the Combine testing in the low 13s for the beep test.


On top of that he is regularly caught out of position and does not read the play well. His football IQ is poor. I think the bigger, quicker and smarter AFL forwards are going to eat him up. They will get separation with ease and there is no way he is shutting them down.


Offensively, McKay also left a lot to be desired. He is a poor kick and tries to play within himself taking only the short safe options. Despite this he still managed to hit the target only about half the time. He is not confident with his kicking, turns it over half the time and even when he hits the target his hurt factor is not high. Perhaps because of his poor skills he rarely runs off and tends to be a stopping defender only.


What makes McKay attractive to many is his combination of height, marking ability and willingness to mix things up physically. He runs onto his marks nicely and is prepared to crash packs when he has to. He is a strong contested mark although I do think his marking ability is a bit overrated. Those strengths would be just as valuable, if not more so, up forward and up forward his weaknesses are less of an issue. If he is going to succeed I see him doing so as a Drew Petrie type full forward.


McKay did finish the year with a 4 goal game but that was a one off. He did not score more than 2 goals in any other game and he was rarely anything other than a sporadic threat up forward. He is a young tall and even younger than most of this class (24 December birthday) so it is fair to assume that there is a lot of development left in him. For me there will need to be for him to be any kind of an AFL player.

 

[Quigley]

57. Jake Sushames

Ht – 186 Wt – 66


Sushames was an AFL Academy player this year and would be a bit disappointed that he did not have a better season than he did. There is talent there though and at this stage I think he projects as a rookie draftee but I like him more than a lot of the others who are likely to go around this stage of the draft. There is a pretty good chance that if he gets a chance he busts but on the other side of the coin if he succeeds his ceiling is very high.


One of the things that really inhibited his development was his failure to put on enough weight to go toe to toe with those he was matched up on. I think he weighed more than the listed 66 at the Champs but I do not think he would have been much over 70 and that weight did not go far on his tallish frame. He was very susceptible to be bumped when going for the ball and any physical contact seemed to put him put his kicks off.


Sushames played mostly on a wing for Tasmania but he did regularly get in and mix it up at the contest. He is not the cleanest inside but he did win a fair few clearances. He reads the taps pretty well for an outside player. When he gets the ball though he is a bit rushed and does not always take advantage of the clearance win.


Whilst he might attend some clearances at AFL level, if he is going to make it it is going to be on the outside. Sushames has really good pace and he can use that to get to contests and break things open when he has the ball in hand. He can turn defence into attack very quickly. He reads the play really well on the outside and his defensive positioning is very good. He takes more than his fair share of intercept marks. With the ball in hand he has good vision and his option taking is good as well but he is not the kind of player who looks like they have a head of time. He can look a bit flustered even when he has a bit of space.


He is a willing tackler and he uses his pace nicely to close down his man. He needs a bit of work on his technique and more strength will help as well but he does create turnover opportunities with his defensive effort.


Sushames worked his way into the Glenorchie senior side and was part of the TSL premiership team albeit he does not remember any of it after being knocked out in the first 5 minutes. I think the rookie list was built for guys like Sushames and I hope he gets the chance. At the moment he is a poor man’s Andrew Gaff but if a team is patient and lets his develop they could be rewarded.


58. Nick Weller

Ht – 183 Wt - 81


Okay, if Weller gets picked it is going to be in the rookie draft but I really like Weller’s potential and am very happy to give him a mention here. Weller is a rugby league convert who only started playing AFL last year. As you might imagine he is still very raw and needs a lot of work on some aspects of his game. From what I have seen of him though he has elite potential and if you are taking a rookie I give a spot with that kind of upside.


Weller is an elite power athlete who has fantastic physicality in the way he plays. At the Champs the guy he reminded me of was Dustin Martin. The one massive difference between the two though is that Martin has elite disposal skills that is the biggest hole in Weller’s game. Weller’s style by foot is decent but he misses a lot of targets and this really needs to be tidied up if he is going to be an AFL player. Whilst he can badly miss sometimes a lot of his misses are close and I would like to think that some intensive work like teams do with Irish recruits would go a long way to bringing his kicking up to speed. His lack of experience means that there is no ingrained bad habits to get rid of so there is a fairly good chance that his kicking issues are fixable.


Weller has played mostly as a forward but he did play a fair bit onball at the Champs and there was quite a bit to like with him playing in and under. He thrived at the bottom of packs and read the ball off the ruck’s hands surprisingly well given his inexperience. He got his hands on the ball first a LOT. At the moment it is getting it out of the clearance that he struggles with. He needs work on speeding up his hands.


Up forward he is a pretty good mark of the ball but does his best work working off the key position. He formed a really good combination with Buzza. He is clean with the ball on the ground and is quick, strong and difficult to contain. He clears space around himself and from his league days he has a fend like Martin and can shrug a tackle and keep going. He needs to finish better than he does but he creates enough chances for himself. Weller is courageous and will put his body on the line. He plays tall and has no problem going up in front of a pack. He tested very well in the jumps at the State Combine and he can get up in the air if he wants to.


Weller ran a 2.86 sec over the 20m at the State Combine which puts him in the elite category and was in fact quicker than anyone else who tested this year. Importantly he not only has speed but he uses in the way he plays. He will use his pace to burst away from a pack but also to close down an opponent. I consider Weller and Buzza to be easily the two best defensive forwards in the draft this year and they are also head and shoulders the best two tacklers. They hunt the ball carrier and really thump them when they get hold of them. After a while in games you can see the defenders start to get jittery when they get the ball and they rush their disposal even when they are not about to be tackled. Buzza’s and Weller’s defensive pressure caused a lot of turnovers at the Champs and were an underestimated reason why Qld got up this year. Those type of guys give a real hard edge to a team and can be real cultural leaders within a group when others see what happens when you bring the physical pressure like they do. The Lions desperately need to improve in this area and that is one of the reasons I would really like to see Weller at the Lions.


59. Davin Ferreira

Ht – 174 Wt – 74


Going into the Champs Ferreira was the guy from NT that I most wanted to have a look at. Unfortunately he hurt his ankle early in the first game and although he came back for the last game he was still hampered by the injury and we did not get a chance to see him at his best. So I have not seen a hell of a lot of him but I have been impressed with what I have.


Ferreira is a feisty HFF / midfielder who rips in and gives his all. The big thing which is likely to hamper his chances is his height. He is short and although he plays tall for his size he has to excel to get a chance at under 175cm height and he might lack the numbers to really demand a list spot. If I was looking at filling a rookie spot though I think he could be an excellent option. Ferreira has improved a great deal over the last 12 months and played an important role in the Wanderers premiership in the NT league before moving to Adelaide to board. He worked his way through the reserves for Norwood playing 6 games for 13 goals before getting picked in the seniors just before the Champs. He had a stellar debut with 18 disposals, 6 marks and 3 goals and marking himself as someone to watch at the Champs.


Ferreira is almost a stereotypical indigenous player. Fairly small with a good amount of pace and very elusive. When the ball is in dispute he will crack in and when his opponent has the ball he will put his all into the tackle. When a tackle is there to be made he doesn’t hesitate instead closes the distance quickly and drives often winning the ball for his team. When he has the ball in those types of situations he does a great job at maintaining his space whether that involves moving forwards, sideways or even backwards. He is very hard to tackle, is composed and creates opportunities where you would have thought there was none.


Disposal wise Ferreira has very good hurt factor and by foot this is most often with short to intermediate distance kicks to dangerous options. He has really good awareness of what is going on around him and where everyone is and he invariably takes the right options. In front of goal he is very dangerous and has good goal sense. He finishes confidently and well when he gets a set shot. He is a good mark for a small guy and does not mind flying against a bigger opponent. Mostly though he gets his set shots from outworking or thinking his opponent. With the ball on the ground he is pretty clean but is not in the elite category. He does generate opportunities with a superior ability to recover particularly when he goes to ground. Like Eddie Betts he goes down and is up and gone before his opponent knows what is happening.


Ferreira has a high football IQ and he knows what to do on a football field. He needs to improve his endurance to be effective at AFL level but if he does so he could be a very good small forward option.


60. Mabior Chol

Ht – 198 Wt – 81


Chol was a player I had high hopes for this year but, notwithstanding a good game in the Allies v AFL Academy, I have been underwhelmed and I am consigning to the Archie Smith category of players who I expect to be picked up based on physical skills but who I do not expect to make it. Unlike Smith, Chol at least flashes some real skill but for me he just goes missing too much and even when the things he does look good they do not necessarily have the result you would desire.


He does look good when he is kicking the ball. When he does manage to get the ball and has a bit of time and space (it does not happen very often) he has a lovely easy kicking action that looks a million bucks. Unfortunately his lovely kicking action only allows him to hit the target about 50% of the time. Out on the ground that does not seem to bother him. I might be being unfair to him but from the sidelines he seems to have a very laissez faire attitude where style matters more than substance. With all that said he does have a big leg on him and he is capable of picking out targets he just needs to do it more often.


Like most of the tall Sudanese kids Chol is very thin at the moment and looks like he will struggle to put on weight. I thought the same about Aliir Aliir and he is now an absolute unit. There is no reason to assume that Chol will not be the same and I am not concerned about him developing bulk. He certainly does need to as he is very light and is manhandled very easily around the ground. This happens to such an extent that I would consider him a fairly poor around the ground ruck at the moment. As he develops physically though this is might change. In the centre bounces he can use his jump but around the ground he cannot hold position and he would be well down on guys I would want rucking for me in those situations.


Chol was one of the stars of the Combine. He was right up there in the top few in all the jumps and combined with his height and long arms (second longest measured) he is capable of reaching heights very few, even at AFL level can reach. He is a bit shorter than is ideal for a number 1 ruck (he came in a tick under 198cm) but his athleticism does compensate for the slight height deficiency. In game situations he is capable of timing his jump to take advantage of this great reach. If he gets a clean run at the centre bounce or a mark he is often well above his opponent even those taller than he is. When he gets clean hands on the ball he controls his taps well but I would not say he is elite in this area. In marking situations he is fairly easily body checked and when unbalanced in the air he is not a particularly good mark. He does not adjust in the air well. If he gets a clean run at a mark, he is a player you can see marking it a couple of seconds ahead of it happening it. In those situations he looks great but he does not do it very often.


There will also be a few plays each game when Chol will get the ball from a contest and weave through traffic and come out the other side. When he does so he looks like a million bucks. He is not the cleanest in the contest though and was very near the bottom of the clean hands test at the Combine. His hands are a factor which inhibits his ability to do these great things more often. When he gets the ball he has really good speed especially when he gets up and moving. He tested pretty well in the 20m at the Combine (just over 3 seconds) but over the longer repeat sprint he excelled finishing third (from memory).


With the things he can do, Chol has a very high ceiling as a player and higher than virtually any other ruck in this draft. Consistency of effort and ability to involve himself in games are however major issues for Chol that I see holding him back. Attitude is one factor but physically his tank is also quite poor and this could be a factor in him not being able to repeat his highlight reel plays very often.


Chol is a Lions academy player and they will have first crack at him if they want to match a bid for him. There have a few off field whispers and if the Lions want to do the best for him it might be best to let him go to a team in another state and allow him to make a clean start free of his current friendship group.

 

[Quigley]

Wow that is an amazing write up. Thanks for putting in so much time and effort. I am even more excited to see Mills playing for the Swans after reading your write up.

If he can stay on the park I think Mills will be star.

 

[LemmingMaster]

When i have more time I'll comment but Ryan Clarke is being harshly treated.

 

[RUNVS]

If he can stay on the park I think Mills will be star.

I hope you are right. Brisbane look like having another great year at the draft as well. I really rate the drafting and trading you guys did last year.

 

[choo]

Congratulations. That is simply fantastic reading. I hope Carlton's recruiting staff are as thorough.

 

[iBeng]

God damn I love your work Quigley.

Im still upset we didnt nominate Buzza as well...A draft of Schache, Keays, Hipwood, Wagner and Buzza would've been perfect.

 

[HBF]

Great work.
Terrific read.

 

[Quigley]

When i have more time I'll comment but Ryan Clarke is being harshly treated.

No worries it can be someone else you are wrong about

 

[PumpyChowdown]

Fantastic write up.

 

[LemmingMaster]

No worries it can be someone else you are wrong about

well you do know how to make mistakes. :;

 

[Bucking Bronco]

What are your thoughts on Marcus Adams? Haven't seen enough of him, or don't rate?

 

[VanDemonxx]

I'm pretty sure Oliver had an illness and that's why he didn't play champs

 

[Bishop]

Lovely Quiggers.

 

[foj1]

Great read.
I love your forthright opinions.
Okearney too high for mine. Can't see an afl position. Too slow for an outside mid too sleight and not good enough at stoppages to play inside.
Kick lacks penetration so effectiveness as a link man without a killer kick or great endurance ain't real desirable.
Ryan Clarke is better for mine than you rate but I respect your opinion.

 

[Since 2001]

Congratulations. That is simply fantastic reading. I hope Carlton's recruiting staff are as thorough.

Well going off past history i wouldn't be too confident.
But surely they make the right decisions this year as you can't really do much wrong with the picks you guys have

 

[Quigley]

What are your thoughts on Marcus Adams? Haven't seen enough of him, or don't rate?

I have not had a chance to have a good look at Adams and I did not feel confident slotting him in. From what little I have he seems like an interesting prospect and one who might get a job. The other WA guy who I would like to hear other's thoughts on is Jared Bell. I was interested in putting him in but again I lacked enough to really make an informed write up of him.