Ya what?
2016 Pre-Season (All news, press conferences, training reports, Photos)
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Rockliff skipping the captains day, after finding out about beams through a lynch's mouth I wonder just how bad Rocky's hammy is
He was sprinting around at Redlands on Saturday. Probably best for his back that he spends as little amount of time on planes as possible.
- Sep 9, 2012
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Does anyone have more info on this back business?
Did last year too from memory
he was there.
Hanley gone down to represent us. Thinking of it the club stated he would be training with the main group on Thursday which is the same day as it.
Our young midfield group is the worst in the competition by a long margin. The recruiters have not seen all the trees the good midfielders are growing on to use the quoted analogy.
I accept that we have been hurt in this regard by the guys who have left, the concentration on drafting talls lately and the trading of picks for experienced players ie Beams.
I agree with this post but have a slightly different slant.
And have been quiet on this 'til now out of fear of being labelled a whatever.
My real suspicion is that we've recruited a heap of the wrong sort players.
Tall, clumsy, not quick on their feet in a game that requires nimbleness as a basic.
Most importantly, not talented enough.
Watching the NAB, not all that closely as I have enough depression on my plate right now, it just seems to me that other, admittedly better-resourced, clubs recruit players who just strike me as astute picks resulting from a deep and very well considered selection process.
I sincerely hope I am wrong, as I have been often enough in the past, but I go into this season with less optimism than I've had for years.
Saying that we havent drafted any decent mids. Polec, aish, docherty, crisp and yeo would make most teams best mids in terms of youth.
Losing these kids is the sole reason we have little talented young mids on our list. Pur recruiters have done a fairly good job at identifying talent. The club has done a poor job at keeping them.
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its interesting to work out whether this is a result of poor talent identification or just a by-product of the strategy we've taken with list development.
If you were to look back at the 2010 draft onwards (this is what i'd class as our young midfield group FYI) you get something like the below.
2010 - Pick 5 - Polec Alternatives - Conca, Caddy Heppel, Prestia, Atley, isaac Smith
pick 25 and 28 - Karnezis and Lester - Alternatives - Parker, Dalhaus
2011 - pick 8 - Longer Alternatives - Greene, Adams, Devon Smith, Brandon Ellis, Brad Hill, Lachie Neale (we also picked Docherty and Yeo in this draft)
2012 - pick 8 Mayes - Alternatives - Vlastuin, Garner, thurlow, lonergan,kennedy, towers (not really a great lot of options there IMO)
pick 23 Paps - Alternatives - i can barely find one for the rest of the draft
2013 - Pick 7 Aish - Alternatives - McDonald, Sheed, Lennon, Cripps
Pick 22 Gardiner - Alternatives - Crouch, Hartung
Pick 25 McStay - Alternatives - Merrett
Pick 28 - Taylor - Alternatives - Dumont?
Pick 33 and 34 Cutler and Robertson - Alternatives - struggling to find someone after this once again who would have been a better pick.
2014 - Pick 5 Dayne Beams - Alternatives - De Goey, Cockatoo, Weller, Laverde, Touk Miller
what is interesting is if you look at who was taken before our first picks on those drafts
2010 - Gaff, Bennell, Swallow
2011 - Coniglio, Tyson, Hoskin Elliot, Wingard
2012 - Whitfield, O'Rourke, Toumpas, Stringer, Macrae, Wines
2013 - Kelly, Billings, Bont
2014 - Petracca, Brayshaw, pickett
Overall I'm not seeing a huge issue with our actual talent identification. The big one for mine is Aish which was the major miss pick wise and of course selecting Longer which was a stupid decision in hindsight. While there were a few other names after Polec as well I would like I still think he's not a bad pick talent wise (you just can't predict injuries) where we got him.
what stands out to me is that while we've been bad, we've been bad at the wrong time and despite not making finals we haven't really been picking low enough to get that real impact midfielder that we've needed. Of course i'm probably missing some names from this list so others feel free to add someone they spot however overall i'm not seeing the long list of good midfielders that we've missed out on that we had access too?
Add to that a few compromised drafts...
I agree with your comment and this whole notion of our 'top' midfield confuses me. I understand that some of these players have had a great one or two season in past but as a collective it hasn't all come together. I'm not going to try and pinpoint the reasons as to why as that doesn't solve the problem. For me the next 2/3 drafts are very important and should more or less just be mids.
Our younger midfield brigade is a worry. But we've got more than enough time to fix that up. Beams, Rockliff, Rich, Hanley, Christensen, Zorko, Bastinac, Bell and Robinson all have at the very least 4 years left.
It's for this reason I believe Mayes needs to be developed as a midfielder. He's potential is undoubtedly higher than any of our other young midfielders on the list. And I'd absolutely hate to see him reach that potential at another club.
It's for this reason I believe Mayes needs to be developed as a midfielder. He's potential is undoubtedly higher than any of our other young midfielders on the list. And I'd absolutely hate to see him reach that potential at another club.
I just can't ever see Mayes having the tank, the agility or the contested ball winning skills to play as a midfielder, whether for us or anyone else.
For mine he's a pure flanker, forward or back.
chopperduck
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Our young mids would be Mathieson, Jansen, Keays, Squiz, Robbo, Mayes... i start to struggle to find names. There is no doubt that there is a lot of work to do there. Our current group is great, but we do certainly need to keep bringing in some mid talent over the next 2-3 drafts. These will be the players that take over from Beams, Rocky, Rich, Hanley, Robbo, that is the quality we need to replace.
The immediate whole i see is genuine rover ball winning mids. Keays and Squiz are more outside types, Mayes a HF/HB who might do some rotations. Mathieson is a ball winner, but we need another 2 like him.
Our KP talent is pretty strong, but young. They will be hitting their prime as our current mids start declining, should give us a1-3 year window. These talls will need the ext midfield group to have some quality so we can make the most of it.
The immediate whole i see is genuine rover ball winning mids. Keays and Squiz are more outside types, Mayes a HF/HB who might do some rotations. Mathieson is a ball winner, but we need another 2 like him.
Our KP talent is pretty strong, but young. They will be hitting their prime as our current mids start declining, should give us a1-3 year window. These talls will need the ext midfield group to have some quality so we can make the most of it.
POBT
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Agree. 4 years is plenty of time to build a midfield. Midfielders drafted this year probably mature at the same time as the talls we've drafted in the last couple of years.
The 25-27 year olds are going to leave a massive hole when they finish up but we can afford to go midfield centric in the draft for a while.
If we draft any more flankers I will pull my hair out. Besides last season when we landed Keays and Mathieson, we have pretty much been drafting back flankers and KPPs. Really hope we get to keep our first pick this season as I think Allison is another that is more suited as a flanker.
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Mayes might have a lot more development left in him, I don't know. What I can say us this- the only person who can make that happen is him. I'm not sure i see the desire there right now.
Bit early to come to that sort of conclusion on Allison I'd say. It seems like the real issue is that we've tended to target the wrong sort of midfielder over a number of years, but we aren't alone there. I think everyone in the AFL is starting to recognise that drafting pure outside mids early is folly, you need players who can win their fair share of contested ball or who have more strings to their bow. Polec is probably still the prime example- he'll never be anything other than a winger, can't play anywhere else. Stephen Hill is probably the only example of that sort of player living up to their potential in recent times (Gaff has improved his ability to win his own ball now).
I think Cutler is one player who has the potential to move into the midfield in the future- needs to cement himself in his current role first of course. You're never going to build a midfield purely out of players who were drafted exclusively for that purpose, we need to get better at giving players who might have midfield potential like Cutler and maybe Dawson make the transition if possible.
Our current midfield would also be identified as our strongest area with Rocky Beams Hanley Rich Zorko Bastinac Robinson. As pointed about by previous posters you would think these guys will be around for at least another 4 -5 years. Add to that Taylor Robertson Keays Mathieson who are all young and will spend time there in the future. For me the best thing we have done in last two drafts is get get key position players of the future in Andrews, Schache and Hipwood. Thats our obvious weakness and needed immediate attention. Without any decent key position players is doesn't matter who you got in the midfield as we all know. If we were to pick up a gun mid in this years draft - he isn't going to get a full time in the midfield for at least a couple years.
Rarely does a draft go by where a club doesn't pick up a couple mids. Right now i would be more concerned about who is our next ruckman after Stefan? Do we need to draft another kid who will hold down a key position in defence with Merrett out of picture in next 2 years.
Bahahaha have been looking forward to the 2016 trade draft thread. Isnt that sad.
What day they on ?
That's not good to hear mate!
I hope you're not in a super dark place, but even if you're just feeling a bit sad, go and find someone you like and say hey I need to tell you about something, even if it's over the internet. It will be SO worth it believe me, I've been through it and come out the other side.
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