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ODN is Michael Gleeson from The Age.

Best player if we have pick five to eight. Port brought in other talls after taking Wines and Wingard ahead of Jaksch and Tomlinson.
Best player if we have pick five to eight. Port brought in other talls after taking Wines and Wingard ahead of Jaksch and Tomlinson.
We have Henderson, Jamison, Rowe, Casboult, Kreuzer, Warnock, Giles, Waite, Watson and Wood as our talls. One rookie, one first year player, 3 rucks who can't play key position.
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How many talls did Port have on their list at the time? We are devoid of talented talls. They do take longer to come on, but who cares at this point? We certainly can't be justifying that a mid has dropped a few spots so take them instead of a tall rated around our draft pick. Another Lucas situation would hurt.
I'm also sceptical about our ability to pick up talls in the 2nd/3rd rounds. Austin, Hartlett, Mitchell, McCarthy, Edwards ... talls in this area can be hit and miss, even for a good recruiter.
I don't want to take a Gumbleton, Hansen risk either but there are probably as many early pick midfielder failures as there are tall failures so you have to be in it to win it.
I'm not quite sure why people have a problem with balance or tend to dismiss big blokes taken early. I assume Michael Gleeson is some journo you disagree with so thanks for that. It does seem to me that sooner or later we have to draft talls that come on at the same time as the midfielders around them, and considering they take longer, it might seem logical to try to find some quality big blokes and build a midfield around them. We're not all able to pull of Buddy Franklin deals or attract two years of Brian Lake with the promise of a premiership in order to fill those gaps.
In fact, I'm trying to think about how many talls we have managed to attract from other teams in the last 15 years of so. Henderson is the obvious stand out.
Warnock, McLaren, McKernan, French, Angwin, Smith, Ackland, Hotton, O'Reilly, Morrell, Martyn, Mott ....
We may get a Livingston early, but we may get a Roughead or Franklin. Boyd and Patton look worthy of building a side around. We've been pretty ordinary at finding talls for a while now. We have relied on father/son selections or rookie gold and a lot of luck. Other teams have been hit and miss but it feels most have got the talls right more often than we have.
It's a draft full of decent top end talls and it is one of our deficiencies. If they are around the same mark, why are we in a hurry to bolster our midfield while still hoping to strike lightning in a bottle finding talls with later draft picks? They won't be performing at the same time anyway.
Probably a moot argument anyway. I'm so jaded by our lack of tall options and ability to develop them, I'm probably leaning towards that Jacksch/Tomlinson type trade where we can get an idea of where they are heading now, instead of risking it in the draft. Problem is that plenty of other teams are looking at any surplus talls as well and we have to present as a better option and a better run club.
Whatever we do, we need strong talls that can kick that will straighten us up and stand a decent chance in contested situations and we need to be able to cover them if they go down. Even if they all work and we have a surplus, they are gold on the trade table.

