Down at K Park
Norm Smith Medallist
- May 18, 2016
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Living in point cook makes sense why he chose us. 45 minutes up the road.
SA
0 v NY
0 PM
WSH
0 v MEM
0 PM
LAL
0 v PHX
0 PM
BOS
0 v LAC
0 PM
NZB
0 v BNE
0 PM
RGV
0 v IOW
0 PM
PER
0 v SEM
0 PM
MIA
0 v ATL
0 PM
SLC
0 v FWA
0 PM
MIL
0 v DEN
0 PM
SLC
88 v RGV
97 FT
CHI
112 v DEN
118 FT
HOU
90 v CLE
101 FT
MIL
105 v LAC
100 FT
BOS
111 v WSH
110 FT
LAL
117 v GS
91 FT
ORL
124 v DAL
130 FT
NO
129 v UTH
124 FT
HOU
84 v MEM
133 FT
POR
123 v CHA
111 FT
WSW
0 v MCY
2 FT
MIN
99 v PHX
118 FT
SAC
126 v CHA
127 FT
SA
113 v BRO
124 FT
PER
1 v CCM
2 FT
PHI
130 v IND
114 FT
DET
90 v NY
109 FT
Welcome Welcome Paul Tsapatolis as Cat B rookie
- Thread starter catempire
- Start date
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MelbCat
All Australian
- Sep 21, 2015
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You don't really loose alot by having a punt for 2 years. We're lucky he has a footy background and has played some juniors and by all reports we've had him at the club for the past year putting him through his paces and getting him up to scratch.
Hamingja
Brownlow Medallist
- May 20, 2014
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I hope Ottens was rag dolling him all around KP to see how he reacted. He's got to like the physical contact to make it before anything else.
Spazz Cat
Brownlow Medallist
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There's 80+% chance he won't make it. I'm under no illusions there.
But basketball is physical enough. He'll be fine in that regard.
Gotta give it to him. Could've gone to America and got a free degree, or gone to Greece and made some money but has chosen to have a go at footy.
Drunkcat
Club Legend
Sh-t i thought Paul Koulouriotis had made a comeback had to look twice at the name
thecatattack
Brownlow Medallist
Super excited to see him develop.
CatsDoItBetter
Premiership Player
- Apr 9, 2015
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Yeah I thought he was looking good with his development. Seemed like he could be a really good defensive prospect. I’d love for the club to find another spot for him. Can he go onto the regular rookie list from the cat b one?
Footy Smarts
Norm Smith Medallist
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There are no guarantees with any draftee and even talls who go in the top 10 are 50-50 prospects.
But Lucey had never played AFL before when he came out here at age 23 and Bathie tried to switch after not making it in the NBL at age 25. They're very different to a guy who played footy growing up switching back at 18.
Luxford is a fairer comparison. He represented Australia at under 17 level but was a bench player whereas Tsapatolis was a starter. The difference is Luxford had played almost no footy beforehand and he was a midfielder size not key position or ruck. Let's be honest and say that the average 200cm AFL player has far worse skills than the average 185cm AFL player.
I'm not saying he's a certainty to make it but I'm more excited about his potential than a tall taken at pick 50+ in the draft.
Interesting he has likely walked away from a guaranteed career in basketball (albeit most likely a European one).
By the time he's ready, well Danger will probably be 36 and we will be adding 40 year old free agents to the list.
By the time he's ready, well Danger will probably be 36 and we will be adding 40 year old free agents to the list.
The rabbi
Brownlow Medallist
- May 13, 2007
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No, Blake is looking to go to WA and have a try out in the WAFL.
catscollector
Club Legend
- Jun 30, 2018
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I'd feel much more confident in taking a ruckman at pick 50 in the national draft myself.
You would have pretty decent base to work with. The general basics of the game such as marking, footy IQ and ruck work is all there already.
You have a wait time of generally 3-5 years before that ruckman makes inroads or not.
This kid is a project player. Even if he does become a Mark Blicavs story, that's hardly a dominant player by any means at all.
Anyways good luck to him. We are in desperate need of a gun ruckman, or a ruckman who can be counted on against anyone in the competition.
David the Cat
Moderator
Good luck to the kid...hope he can do it....
I was more than pleased to see Okunbor retained...
I was more than pleased to see Okunbor retained...
catswhiskers
Premiership Player
Thanks for that. Good on him. Hope he goes really well and he lasts long enough in a future draft to allow us to welcome him back.
I believe he is into a bit of surfing now so
WA makes sense.
cats_09
Moderator
- Jun 21, 2011
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We have already seen the greek term used a lot on here and on afl website. Paul?Cant see that working on krock... I wonder if it is Tap a toll is ( with the S siient?). It was not that long ago that Kolo's name was a struggle or SavRat ..... so may you maybe you are on the right track..some sort of abbreviation becomes the norm
MacStradbroke
Premiership Player
- Jul 19, 2015
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Question, if this lad was in this upcoming draft and was on a standard draftee wage (I suspect he’s on a shitload with us due to what he’s knocked back) where does everyone think he may have been picked? Is it end of draft, rookie draft or with so many teams chasing him would he have gone earlyish? (That’s a word for now too
)
)AS we have not even seen combine type data ..very hard to tell. I think his size and potential is one component to clubs being after him...but the ability to just sign him plays a huge part..to just directly list him.Question, if this lad was in this upcoming draft and was on a standard draftee wage (I suspect he’s on a shitload with us due to what he’s knocked back) where does everyone think he may have been picked? Is it end of draft, rookie draft or with so many teams chasing him would he have gone earlyish? (That’s a word for now too
I suspect with more data , with seeing him compete against other players he would look like a late pick, if he had 12 months in system playing for the Falcons or Canyons etc. and he may have been like Jackson .. R1 pick ( really just spitballing )
The key for him is to see if he can be strong mark overhead. Jackson is not.
This type of recruitment has something to offer.. if all clubs got one players they could list like this. The afl would be scared that the best Melb kids would all go to the Melb clubs. The draft is so lop sided in fairness. A kid who has given all he can to the game..gets thrown in a luck dip situation, and another kid from a different sport gets much better treatment
gaz love x
Team Captain
- Oct 6, 2019
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Closer to the opposite. Sappatollis is probably an acceptable Anglicisation/butchering
Farmer2Goggin
Norm Smith Medallist
Perfect use of a Category B Rookie spot - well done Cats 
At 18 he's probably got a bit more growing to do even though he's listed at both 202cm and 204cm ( on the BB profile)
He looked very agile for a young centre and I particularly liked his ability to go both sides off the dribble - even though he's right handed his left hand lay ups were very sound and looked natural.
His vision and passing looked very good as well and a couple of the long fast break passes were guard quality , good sign in that he shows good touch.
Seems extremely keen on footy despite some impressive pathways on offer through BB so great signs - looking forward to monitoring his progress.
At 18 he's probably got a bit more growing to do even though he's listed at both 202cm and 204cm ( on the BB profile)
He looked very agile for a young centre and I particularly liked his ability to go both sides off the dribble - even though he's right handed his left hand lay ups were very sound and looked natural.
His vision and passing looked very good as well and a couple of the long fast break passes were guard quality , good sign in that he shows good touch.
Seems extremely keen on footy despite some impressive pathways on offer through BB so great signs - looking forward to monitoring his progress.
CharacterFirst
Premiership Player
Agreed.Perfect use of a Category B Rookie spot - well done Cats
At 18 he's probably got a bit more growing to do even though he's listed at both 202cm and 204cm ( on the BB profile)
He looked very agile for a young centre and I particularly liked his ability to go both sides off the dribble - even though he's right handed his left hand lay ups were very sound and looked natural.
His vision and passing looked very good as well and a couple of the long fast break passes were guard quality , good sign in that he shows good touch.
Seems extremely keen on footy despite some impressive pathways on offer through BB so great signs - looking forward to monitoring his progress.
And his speed as he drove to the basket was pretty good as well.
Almost blew past them which is a very good sign re AFL crossover athleticism.
Footy Smarts
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jun 19, 2006
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I think you vastly overrate the uniqueness of AFL ruckwork compared to other games. You also seem to ignore the fact he played a lot of footy growing up and by the sounds of it was always set on being an AFL player rather than a basketballer. It's not like he's never played the game. Basically because of basketball he's missed 1-2 years of footy. It's not that much of an impact. Interestingly if you look at the top 5 average hitout winners this year 3 of them had limited junior footy for various reasons and it didn't harm them much. Gawn did his ACL in his final year as a junior and missed almost the whole season, Witts didn't play footy seriously until age 15 and Goldstein missed a lot of junior footy because he was...busy playing basketball representing Australia at junior level. In contrast, the record of guys with typical footy backgrounds picked late in the draft recently are really bad.
Also you can't just magic a gun ruck out of thin air. These guys are few and far between. And if your level of expectation is so high that you can be negative about Blicavs, a 2x best and fairest winner and 3x AA squad selection, he's probably not going to live up to your standards. I don't even know if he's going to be a ruck but the record of rucks who are good enough to represent Australia at basketball at a junior level is way better than your average late pick (as far as I'm aware it's Goldstein and Luke Jackson who was taken pick 3).
Seeds
Hall of Famer
How do you know it is a long shot and how do you know its worth a punt?
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