By 'better' do you mean a 50-100% increase?
WAFL FootyFacts - KELLY, Timothy (Tim)
WAFL player records, Individual WAFL player stats page, career player stats by season, game, opponent and venuewww.waflfootyfacts.net
His numbers for 2016 were the same as 2014-15. He was nothing special just your typical WAFL mid.
He had a massive breakout year in 2017 and got drafted (in the 2nd round mind you) accordingly.
Just don't like this revisionist history where suddenly every poster in claiming Kelly was an obvious get years before he was drafted. No he was not.
My point was he didn't look like a "plodder with poor skills", which is why I quoted your original post.
I happened to see lot of live WAFL in 16&17 which is why I mentioned those two years. If you watched him during those years he looked the exact opposite of your description. The jump in numbers and consistency is no doubt what got him drafted, but he was never a plodder and the poor skills things is a complete fallacy.