Game Day The 2025 Draft Day Thread

[UseR2006]

And a song to sing as we watch,

Hey Matty Clarke by Kevin (Random260) Wilson :

Hey Matty Clarke you campaigner, where the **** is Sharp
I’ve looked at all these other spuds and there’s no one that I like
I wrote you a ****ing letter and posted about it twice
You dopey ****ing Richmond fart, you forgot my ****ing Sharp

If I wanted a stupid ruckman type, I would’ve bloody asked
And this half back flank and temu mid, you can shove right up your arse
You’ve stuffed the bloody order up, it’s enough to make you spew
But it’s not just me who’s snakey, SGIO is dirty too

Next time I come to see ya, I’m going to punch you in the guts
And I’ll sack the other recruiting knobs and kick Toddy in the nuts
You just wait 'til next year when you go back to the draft
And me and me little GIO come stomping through the door
And we'll say, yeah, you wait for it

Hey Pyke and Woosh you smell his breath
And check his bloodshot eyes
And don't listen to him eagles fans 'cause he tells ****ing lies
He's just a ****ing useless campaigner and he's not even very bright
'Cause the stupid ****in' w***er, forgot me ****in' Sharp

Hey Matty Clarke you campaigner, where the **** is Sharp
I’ve looked at all these other spuds and there’s no one that I like
I wrote you a ****ing letter and posted about it twice
You dopey ****ing Richmond fart, you forgot my ****ing Sharp

A Quick Ai rendition: https://suno.com/s/blQP3cSnulhqYb5g
It's funny how it interrupted the lyrics XD

 

[boondy]

It is all about risk taking. I can be wrong too.
The fact that no other clubs ,except St Kilda is willing to bid with a very late pick has told the story. (Suggest you to browse to the replay of Cal Towmey night 2 draft comments to find out why St Kilda did that).
Wait a couple of year, we will know the answer.
Edit: Are we saying Fred Rodriguez is not a better selection?

I have moved on from being negative about it , the list management appear to have a rigid ,stern policy or process they are working to . Not being invested all their football life with west coast the f/s romance obviously wasnt there . They were brought in to do their professional job , far from me to judge players potential , list needs , draft ranking . Many west australians would have wanted banfield (Jakovich for example ) not just on Name but talent as well

 

[Elite Pete]

I'd suggest when Brisbane said they'd trade for need they meant they'd trade in good players of need. We didn't trade for any contested mids. We took scraps directly from the scrap heap
We didn't trade in the chad or the bont or even libba. We put 3 guys on an extended rookie list

Hard to get those calibre of players to wait come to the Eagles atm. They by reports had an every get crack at Warner, Darcy Cameron and Marshall so they are trying to fill our biggest needs by trade and highly rated players but it’s just unlikely atm.

This bloke has been there for a while and even when they have been down the bottom. Over that period they didn’t fill all positional needs with band 1 players. Fort, Ah Chee, Lyons, Mitch Robertson, Martin some players are in there to help bridge the gap.

 

[eagleyed25]

We have some good tall NGA waiting next couple of years. We need quota for those.

Do you know any of their names other than Shanhan and also any overagers to keep an eye on now that the NGA rules have changed?

 

[Obeanie1]

I reckon a massive fail would be adjusting your long term plan (that you've spent months putting together with a whole group of people paid to do exactly that) so that you don't put a bunch of people on the Internet's preconceptions out of whack?

Every club makes misjudgements in every draft, but if you go in without a plan you'll stick to, there's no way you can succeed. Sounds like the plan never had taking our aligned players other than Williams in the main draft.

Are Cripps and Cole in our long term future? Both will retire in less than 12 months lets be honest. Both hopefullly play mostly WAFL in their final year, which could have been achieved another way.

From a draft night tactical sense we dropped the ball IMO.

Getting Rodreguez quality that late covers missing out on Banfield to a degree. A pure mid in an area of need.

Our haul is eliete in the first 3 selections. Our 3rd and 4th picks solid choices with high ceilings. But we could have done better openning up another spot or two. Feel we missed an opportunity here after burning the Ryan Saints F2nd

 

[Elite Pete]

Why are GC & Lions academy/FS players allowed to play in there reserves teams full time but ours aren’t & if they do we have to get special permission?

Like surely if they are in the NGA or FS they should be allowed to for the WAFL eagles if there form warrants it.

What the Crows did with Tyler Welsh was he trained and played for their SANFL team until National Carnival started the he dropped back into the WWT u18s team for that period and then came back up to the Crows ressies.

Was a top 10 watch 12 months out from the draft and after training and playing with their ressies dropped to likely rookie list if they wanted to. So not sure if they would do it again.

 

[luvdeanandluke]

Duursma was rated no1 by most of the media, potential to be a difference maker.
CDT rated the next best open pool player with possibly the most upside.
Williams was rated the highest of our NGA group and a possible top 20 bid was possible.
The club also clearly stated we would only have 5 selections, they considered Allen to be clearly above Banfield and Evans. We hoped one or both made it to the rookie, didn't work out that way.
I think we drafted a very dynamic group of young talent and hope for the best!

Few have suggested we didn't do well with our top 2 picks or even Allen. Some have suggested we could have created 2 more spots in the worst list in the afl. Also the only players selected that are likely to play next year will most likely be backs (Dursma and Lindsay). After training for to back, I can't see us improving much next year, unless Yoe steps up.

 

[Jootube]

Stop this rubbish.
If we wanted Banfield and Evans we could have done it or would have done it.
We move Cripps to the rookie list (sorry Fred)
We then pass on Sam Allen and take Williams, Banfield and Evans in the main draft instead of hoping both make the rookie list.
One thing i would guarentee would happen if we did this is in a couple of years time some would be looking at who we missed out especially pick 29.
You are the only one bringing up Schoenberg and Macrae rubbish for missing Banfield.
Nearly everyone bar you realises that Cripps was the logical one to be dropped off the main list as he has only one year in him and no other team likely to take him. It is time for you to move on.

Please re-read my post - at least half of your points are directly addressed.

"If we wanted Banfield and Evans we could have done it or would have done it." - Every poster with brain agrees that we should have had an extra main list spot for Banfield.

"You are the only one bringing up Schoenberg and Macrae rubbish for missing Banfield." - If we had an extra rookie spot, Cripps could be on it and Banfield (or Evans) would be on our list today.

"Nearly everyone bar you realises that Cripps was the logical one to be dropped" - My post literally says that Cripps should be on the rookie list. I've said it in at least 5 posts in the last 24 hours.

0/10 for reading comprehension - Significant improvement required for next semester - do better

 

[Elite Pete]

Where has this talk of SSP come from? Can’t you only have 2 players train on per vacant main or Cat A list spot? We don’t have any do we? Cat B only.

 

[bzparkes]

Everyone with a brain says our plan was bad.

Yeah, based off many posters' history on this site, that's a massive reach....

 

[steve hucka]

I have moved on from being negative about it , the list management appear to have a rigid ,stern policy or process they are working to . Not being invested all their football life with west coast the f/s romance obviously wasnt there . They were brought in to do their professional job , far from me to judge players potential , list needs , draft ranking . Many west australians would have wanted banfield (Jakovich for example ) not just on Name but talent as well

Yeah agree have had my meltdown now time to move on and be upbeat about the young talent we have secured

 

[squashface]

Where has this talk of SSP come from? Can’t you only have 2 players train on per vacant main or Cat A list spot? We don’t have any do we? Cat B only.

AFL gave us extra spots for being shit

 

[chaddy22]

Where has this talk of SSP come from? Can’t you only have 2 players train on per vacant main or Cat A list spot? We don’t have any do we? Cat B only.

They won't be train ons. They will be signed on monday i think they just go on the rookie list and start training straight away.

 

[Cuzz09]

And a key thing I noted from their comments were we have one less training session a week than VIC clubs due to our travel. AFL didn't do us any favours next year either by making us travel 9hrs more than 2nd on the list Dockers.

​	​	​	​
​	​	No' Games Traveling​	Hrs Traveling​
1​	West Coast​	10​	78h 40m​
2​	Fremantle​	9​	69h 50m​
3​	Gold Coast​	12​	63h 25m​
4​	Brisbane​	11​	54h 25m​
5​	Sydney​	11​	48h 25m​
6​	GWS​	11​	45h 50m​
7​	Hawthorn​	10​	39h 30m​
8​	Port Adelaide​	10​	39h 0m​
9​	Adelaide​	10​	38h 35m​
10​	Melbourne​	8​	34h 55m​
11​	N Melbourne​	8​	31h 15m​
12​	Western Bulldogs​	7​	28h 25m​
13​	Geelong​	7​	28h 0m​
14​	St Kilda​	6​	27h 50m​
15​	Richmond​	6​	26h 50m​
16​	Collingwood​	6​	25h 20m​
17​	Essendon​	6​	25h 20m​
18​	Carlton​	5​	23h 55m​

idea for equalisation...

Every AFL team must fly similar kms.

Eg, Carlton need to fly an extra 50 thousand km by rd23 to make it even

 

[Elite Pete]

They won't be train ons. They will be signed on monday i think they just go on the rookie list and start training straight away.

Yep got it.

 

[EagleEgo]

Jacob Brennan not in the same league as Banfieid - that's the point.

Both are regarded as end of corresponding National Draft quality.

 

[BSD]

This is all sound rationale for the path we took. pantskyle says we asked for the pre-listing, it’s disappointing this wasn’t granted. As many have pointed out knowing the players you’re getting helps shape your overall drafting strategy.

The Beagles will be instantly better, perhaps this accelerates the development of Gross, Grego et al and offsets the loss of the broad NGA/FA net that could have been cast.

Please re-read my post - at least half of your points are directly addressed.

"If we wanted Banfield and Evans we could have done it or would have done it." - Every poster with brain agrees that we should have had an extra main list spot for Banfield.

"You are the only one bringing up Schoenberg and Macrae rubbish for missing Banfield." - If we had an extra rookie spot, Cripps could be on it and Banfield (or Evans) would be on our list today.

"Nearly everyone bar you realises that Cripps was the logical one to be dropped" - My post literally says that Cripps should be on the rookie list. I've said it in at least 5 posts in the last 24 hours.

0/10 for reading comprehension - Significant improvement required for next semester - do better

He's not the only one that wasn't on the rookie cripps band wagon. There were plenty of other contenders for the rookie list Barnett, Cole & Johnson just to name 3

 

[EagleEgo]

Do you know any of their names other than Shanhan and also any overagers to keep an eye on now that the NGA rules have changed?

I have no inside information nor expert in this area but heard rumour about the WCE is interested in Koby Lecras (not Eagles' NGA) who is a key forward.

 

[UseR2006]

Having slept on it, cooled off from the draft, been reading the opinions here and in the greater landscape I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Very very happy with the players selected. I think all of them have huge upside and can end up b22 if they continue to improve. Particularly excited for Duursma, Lindsay and Allen.

2. The SSP crew. Dev, Schoenberg and Macrae likely wont set the world on fire but what they should bring to this young list is some qualities we have desperately been missing for the last few years. Experience. All three have been high quality environments and they can help part good standards to the kids coming through and hopefully surpass the three of them.
They will also help stabilise the WAFL team by having at least 2 of them holding down mid roles and hopefully making the lower team more competitive.

3. Missing out on Banfield and Evans is more on bad timing than anything else. Were there things we could have done to get them on the list, sure. However, I think the club knew we had just gone through probably 2-3 seasons of bit cuts from the team and wanted a little bit of a consolidation to see where the list is at, give the players 12 months to develop and grow and next season was always going to be another more serious cut with probably more of the kids going (old guys will retire as natural attrition). It just so happened we had those two in the F/S&NGA system when we didn't really have the spots post cull. Should we have canned Barnett and probably retired Crippa, sure. but then we just get even younger. Would have loved both on the list (Banners and Evans) but we can't always get what we want.

4. definitely frustrated with the communication of our plans for the draft, seemed very inflexible for changes on the draft night, someone 100% fluffed the points calculations for the 3rd first bid. Trading out the F2 made no sense either. Also made no sense why we wouldn't delist Barnett early just to have a backup list spot incase things went VERY in our favor or the inverse where all our NGA/FS boys got bid on. In the end looks like we didn't value any of them except for Tylar Williams.

Overall very happy but definitely a little grumbly about the way we got to the end result.

 

[DorothyG]

Time for a me thinks

 

[Weshi]

Few have suggested we didn't do well with our top 2 picks or even Allen. Some have suggested we could have created 2 more spots in the worst list in the afl. Also the only players selected that are likely to play next year will most likely be backs (Dursma and Lindsay). After training for to back, I can't see us improving much next year, unless Yoe steps up.

Given the age of most of our squad I would think there is plenty of improvement to be had at least on an individual level.

 

[Mr Q]

Are Cripps and Cole in our long term future? Both will retire in less than 12 months lets be honest. Both hopefullly play mostly WAFL in their final year, which could have been achieved another way.

Probably not, but then again, it's likely not about Cripps and Cole. It's about where we see the best use of list spots to be going forward.

Clearly we saw the easiest route forward for getting some experienced and stronger bodies in the middle as some players in the SSP (Dev, Macrae, Schoeneberg). I'm guessing Macrae and Schoenberg have one year contracts (maybe with triggers). Think I read Dev was offered a longer contract.

But to do that we had to have spots for SSPs. Cripps being moved blocks that option. So one reason not to move him.

A second reason would be if we're looking at how we manufacture spots in 2026. It sounds easy with 15 players coming out of contract, but some quick checking that number comes down quickly

• Maric, Hewett and Brockman won't go anywhere,
• Champion is a rookie anyway,
• One spot has to go to Hutchinson,
• We'd be really hoping that at least four of Long, Hall, JWill, BWill, Bazzo, Newton and Johnston (and even Barnett) are not ready to cut
• Cole may yet be in our "need some maturity" plans for another year.

Suddenly that's six spots - but would be a very cosy five if Cripps is a rookie, and it's looking to be a strong draft next year.

 

[Boohemian]

If they weren't the sons of club legends we would barely even care. If we rated them as rookie list material but other clubs rated them as late draft pick additions to their main list, good for them.

I recall a fair few posters also moaning we passed on Alec Waterman and it turned out to be the right call in the end. It's a ruthless business, sure I would have liked both on our list but in the end it's not that big a deal.

We didn't pass on Alec Waterman. We drafted him, he immediately caught glandular fever and we delisted him as he recovered. He did enough to get picked up momentarily by Essendon, but I digress.

The problem is that the club rated both Banfield and Evans as rookie list tier players. That judgement is what is being called into question. Clearly the reigning premier disagreed to the degree that they traded up to snare Evans, and St Kilda was one of a number of suitors that rated Banfield.

I think it's quite reasonable to be disappointed in the club for not managing the list to allow at least one of these lads to be picked up. Cripps has a season left at best and could have easily been moved to the rookie list to allow us the opportunity to have a look at one of Banfield or Evans. We're clearly still developing, so we need to allow ourselves the opportunity to check out players that may be part of that next push.

Obviously, Clarke only had the intention to bring in so many 18-year-olds this off season so as not to exacerbate the age profile of the list any further, but honestly - who the **** cares? The three DFAs and Starcevich helps address that.

Yes, it's ruthless but doesn't necessarily mean it was the right call and those that are disappointed have every right to be.

 

[Shueygod]

SK and Brisbane didn’t, and Brisbane is a better assessor of talent than our incoherent group.

WC currently viewed as a carcass to pick the eyes out of, and our recruiters are so confused they don’t know what is going on or how to stop it.

I posted Brisbanes recent picks after 20 in this thread, eagles have had more success recently.

 

[Shueygod]

Banfield and Evans don’t go in the ND last year, we are melting over some seriously average prospects.

 

[juice568]

Banfield and Evans don’t go in the ND last year, we are melting over some seriously average prospects.

I think banfield is better than hamish davis or at least on par. Banfield is 192cm and does a 6 minute 2km. Definetely should of had a list spot over barnett, harvey johnson, newton, hutchingson, hall