St Kilda Draft Selection Discussion

[Vader]

Discuss the Saints' draft selections in this thread.

 

[bergholt]

32 Nicholas Winmar, 18, 190/78
60 Jesse Smith, 23, 191/83
64 Adam Pattison, 23, 198/97
79 Will Johnson, 19, 191/88

Effective trades:

Jasper McMillan-Pittard for Andrew Lovett
Xavier Clarke for Jesse Smith
Jesse 'Michael' Crichton for Brett Peake
Luke Ball for F**k All
Matt Maguire for Nuffin

Not a bad list all up.

Smith and Pattison continue to attempt (after Ray and Dawson last year) to fill the "Thomas Hole" in the list which was created in 2005 by trading for Watts and drafting Rix, Raymond, Sweeney. At least now we have some 1986 vintage kids. Let's hope they're decent.

Johnson fills the same role Maguire did this year. He's a backup tall defender in case of injury to Dawson, Fisher, Gilbert - though at 191 he's not exactly huge.

And Winmar could be anything or nothing. Picked for sentimental reasons, and we won't see him in the seniors for at least two years. So that'll take time.

 

[superfreak]

Can guarantee that Winmar wasn't drafted for sentimental reasons. Quite a few clubs rated him as high as a late first/early second round pick.

 

[Smaaart]

Not sure about Pattison, would have thought he would be third in line behind Gardy, King and Big Ben. I would rather we drafted an untried kid than him, he'll be lucky to play a game for the Saints. Smith is a bit of an unknown, hard to see him cracking the lineup as well. In all a bit of a top up exercise I suppose but we would want to get some games into our draftees from the last couple of years...

 

[samm]

Can guarantee that Winmar wasn't drafted for sentimental reasons. Quite a few clubs rated him as high as a late first/early second round pick.

how do you know this?

 

[borderbarry]

I think our main acquisition this year, including Lovett, may turn out to be Tommy Walsh.

 

[footyman]

Ross Lyon seems to be going down the recycling path, much like Sydney did for years and years. I'd feel a little bit sorry for their recruiters, they put a years worth of work in and come away with only one genuine draftee, alongside the two recycled players from other clubs and a guy who the coach took a fancy to from the aligned VFL team.

Collectively, the Saints "outs" are a far better group of players than the Saints "ins", so it's going to be a case of watch this space to see whether they can get themselves up where they were this year. Topping up is good and well...when it works. When it doesn't the damage takes some time to repair.

 

[goodie23]

It looks that way if you only look at this year's draft. But the last two years we've really loaded up on kids, plus we've finally started to make the most of the rookie draft.

This article tells it rather nicely:

We did take 10 18-year-olds last year - five in national draft and a number of rookies - and eight of those are still here.

"If you look at it over the two years, we've taken the most draftees, bar Fremantle, I think. And we feel our leaders and best players are 26 and going to be around for the next four or five years."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...recycled-players/story-e6frf9jf-1225805549751

 

[NeilElvis]

Not sure about Pattison, would have thought he would be third in line behind Gardy, King and Big Ben. I would rather we drafted an untried kid than him, he'll be lucky to play a game for the Saints. Smith is a bit of an unknown, hard to see him cracking the lineup as well. In all a bit of a top up exercise I suppose but we would want to get some games into our draftees from the last couple of years...

Collectively, the Saints "outs" are a far better group of players than the Saints "ins", so it's going to be a case of watch this space to see whether they can get themselves up where they were this year. Topping up is good and well...when it works. When it doesn't the damage takes some time to repair.

Ah that's what he was drafted for... to fill the gap between the old fellas (Gardy & Kingy) & the young fellas (McEvoy & Stanley). No good drafting an unknown kid if he can't come in & be an option in the ruck.

Not sure how you value the ins & outs....

Lovett v Ball- pure pace & goalkicking is what we lack. We've got plenty of inside ball winners.

Out: Maguire & X.Clarke- did not play a senior game between them in 2009. Both sad losses though. Very popular amongst supporters but happy to see them get another chance.

In: Johnson & Winmar- developing kids in the positions that Goose & X played. Depth in those positions mean that we don't need them to play immediately.

Out: Leigh Fisher- Good player, others have gone well past him.

In: Jesse Smith- injured but huge talent if we can get him fit. Would allow Goddard to play forward (which IMO is the final piece to the premiership puzzle with Lovett already on board).

 

[sainter]

I think Goodie and NeilElvis have pretty much summed up where we are.

If anything it's not only a reflection of our strong list but a show of faith i the likes of Lynch, Stanley, Heyne, etc. The second year kids. Generally Lyon likes to give kids a long apprenticeship and the fact we lost 3 games for the season and had very few injuries meant they were never going to see any action this year. However that doesn't mean that the club doesn't rate them highly.

Oh, one last thing. If trade week and the selection policy of the St Kilda Football Club of 2009 has told you anything, it's that sentimentality barely rates a thought. Do you really think Ross Lyon would waste a second round draft pick on somebody because of their name?

 

[yaco55]

I think Goodie and NeilElvis have pretty much summed up where we are.

If anything it's not only a reflection of our strong list but a show of faith i the likes of Lynch, Stanley, Heyne, etc. The second year kids. Generally Lyon likes to give kids a long apprenticeship and the fact we lost 3 games for the season and had very few injuries meant they were never going to see any action this year. However that doesn't mean that the club doesn't rate them highly.

Oh, one last thing. If trade week and the selection policy of the St Kilda Football Club of 2009 has told you anything, it's that sentimentality barely rates a thought. Do you really think Ross Lyon would waste a second round draft pick on somebody because of their name?

I think that StKilda needs their second and thrid year players to stand up.

This could be the difference between a premiership and a close runner up position.

 

[sainter]

Armitage and Steven are probably the two most obvious candidates to step straight into the team, the former as a direct replacement for Ball.

Tom Lynch went at #13 in the draft last year and had a good year for Sandringham. The fact he was drafted as a third tall type forward and that's an area we could probably do with strengthening might help his chances. Jarryn Geary, Robert Eddy and James Gwilt all spent roughly half of 2009 in the firsts and will be looking to cement a senior spot. Like Lynch, Nick Heyne was another kid that was rated highly 12 months ago on these boards and showed some good signs for the Zebras but was a little inconsistent. The other candidates are Luke Miles who didn't play a game but was named as an emergency on a number of occasions and has since been promoted from the rookie list and Tom Simpkin who was a first year rookie listed defender from the Geelong Falcons that seemed to be in the VFL best players every week and has been retained for another year.

Potentially the most exciting of all of them is Rhys Stanley who played VFL seniors all season which is a decent effort for a skinny ruckman that was drafted as a long term investment. His performance in the Grand Final sprint probably raised his profile a little but Lyon has already said that the recruitment of Pattison was partly due to Rhys still being quite raw and needing another season at VFL level.

Emma Quayle wrote the same thing as Footyman the other day about our recruiting staff being disappointed because they had watched the kids this all year and only got to choose one of them. However the fact remains that it was actually their decision to go for Jess Smith at #60 rather than take a stab at a young player because the quality just wasn't there.

Lyon and Drain seem to really rate the young players at the club which flies in the face of the perception of most people when discussing our club. It remains to be seen who's right. I mean Emma Quayle does seem to know her stuff, but she's also somebody that having seen these kids all year wants to see them drafted and playing AFL footy. Well, she won't see many from the 2009 draft but lets hope she gets to see a few from 2008 instead.

 

[Squizz]

I think that StKilda needs their second and thrid year players to stand up.

Agree.

We rate them, but they have not proven themselves yet at AFL level.

I think a few of them will this year.

 

[budge11]

If they can get Jesse Smith to get his ankle/hamstring right then he'll be the best player in the draft.