Recruiting AFL Draft Watch 2022 - Tsatas, Hayes, Davey x2, Munkara & Montgomerie

Who should we take with Pick 4? (Pick 2)

  • Tsatas

    Votes: 60 27.9%
  • Humphrey

    Votes: 33 15.3%
  • Phillipou

    Votes: 109 50.7%
  • Clark

    Votes: 10 4.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 17 7.9%

  • Total voters
    215

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George at 6?

I do like your saying what you think and opinion is different to the herd though

You must have liked what you saw and i have to admit hes one i cant comment on as ive never watched. Just rather take a player not off an ACL with a top 13 pick in our position. Think top sides can certainly take the risk earlier as likely wouldve struggled early for a game anyway. Whereas we need our top 13 picks who arent 200cm playing plenty of footy year 1

The highest risk move we can currently do, is take guys without superstar potential. Playing it ridiculously safe is partially why we've been so terrible for 19 years. The riskier prospects of Cox and Perkins are the ones who could break us out of the mess. We need to keep stacking that level of talent, especially if it’s contested.

I don't think a lot of those early guys have shown enough to suggest, even if they reach their potential, they'll be vastly better players than the likes of Szykbowski, Ryan, Jones, Hotton, Konstanty, guys who will go 10-20ish picks behind some of them.

Whereas if George reaches his potential.... He kicked 18 goals in his first 5 games of the season (including 5 against the Power who were prelim finalists) and got injured after that. Keeps that up for the whole season and he takes out the goal kicking by about 9 goals over Cadman as a 186cm forward. Even if he doesn't transition to midfield; the need for us as a forward is there too and his talent as a forward justifies the selection on it's own. Gives us midfield scope with Perkins (and potentially Humphrey).

I don't think we need our kids playing straight away. With a fit list; spots will be very hard to get next year. I expect less than 20 games from our entire draft this year.

The other part is we can immediately chuck George on the long term injury list and take another player in to SSP or midyear. Despite being a shallow draft I like some of the unheralded prospects late like Bevan or a project ruck like Northam or Broadbent.
 
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Curnow… ffs

He only skipped a breatho a couple of weeks before the draft, played essentially no footy all year, didn’t have a position, clearly didn’t want to come to Essendon and Carlton had 4 first round picks in that draft.

Spare me

This is really interesting, and my take is almost certainly going to be an outlier.

If we accept the findings of the external review and also what our eyes are telling us pretty consistently then for me at least, we’re looking for answers in the wrong place, and to the wrong questions.

‘We already have too many one way runners’ is because (as we have now publicly acknowledged) we are not fit enough or well prepared enough. I don’t want to hear about ‘lazy’ or ‘they don’t want to’, we are physically incapable of doing so.

If we now think we can work on getting the list rock hard fit and running ontop of the ground then we should just be drafting the best available talent and not worrying about the problem that hopefully won’t be a problem in 2 years time.

You don’t jump at a shadow with a top 5 draft pick.


It's a common enough sentiment but it then means your only ever as good as the kids who get it together quickly in any draft.

Get stuck with a draft like 2015 to 2017 and your best performed top 5 to 7 is all over the place, from not really what you want or need to player's whose games lack the physical edge to translate to AFL footy.

Or you end up like us looking at an era of high picks you can't claim one star from and a midfield that makes no sense.

You take what you need or what you think you can develop into what you need, being realistic about that, this is mostly where things go wrong, or you split because you can get what you need later.
 

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It's a common enough sentiment but it then means your only ever as good as the kids who get it together quickly in any draft.

Get stuck with a draft like 2015 to 2017 and your best performed top 5 to 7 is all over the place, from not really what you want or need to player's whose games lack the physical edge to translate to AFL footy.

Or you end up like us looking at an era of high picks you can't claim one star from and a midfield that makes no sense.

You take what you need or what you think you can develop into what you need, being realistic about that, this is mostly where things go wrong, or you split because you can get what you need later.

Seems like we're agreeing? This isn't a forward planning or succession planning conversation or even a conversation around list fit.

If we are truly committing to uplifting the physical performance and preparation of the whole playing group (which is as close to a magic bullet as there ever has been) then the only reason not to draft Tsatas is because we don't think he's the best footballer available.

The amount of poo-pooing Tsatas is getting here is pretty ridiculous for a genuine blue chipper that can run with the footy and kick at speed, which is the singular rarest skill in the AFL. I'm not wedded to him but I'd welcome him with open arms.
 
Who does the defensive work and the tackling though?
I’m not suggesting Martin and Tsatas won’t be required to roll back.
 
I’m not suggesting Martin and Tsatas won’t be required to roll back.
I think the key concern is that we have a whole bunch of players who don't routinely do those things and it doesn't seem to matter how many coaches try, they can't seem to embed it.

It seems to be an innate quality to put the team first and not just hunt the ball on instinct, which is a quality our recruiters don't seem able to identify pre-draft.

I kind of wonder if the rules of the game in U18s that tries to keep kids playing in position with the 6-6-6 type stuff so they can show off their offensive traits might be part of the problem... except that other clubs don't seem to suffer for it.
 

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Seems like we're agreeing? This isn't a forward planning or succession planning conversation or even a conversation around list fit.

If we are truly committing to uplifting the physical performance and preparation of the whole playing group (which is as close to a magic bullet as there ever has been) then the only reason not to draft Tsatas is because we don't think he's the best footballer available.

The amount of poo-pooing Tsatas is getting here is pretty ridiculous for a genuine blue chipper that can run with the footy and kick at speed, which is the singular rarest skill in the AFL. I'm not wedded to him but I'd welcome him with open arms.
Listen to Simon Taylor talking about their list build and then get back to me .
Can not change the culture until you change how you rate leadership and competitors who will play a team role no questions asked.
 
I think the key concern is that we have a whole bunch of players who don't routinely do those things and it doesn't seem to matter how many coaches try, they can't seem to embed it.

It seems to be an innate quality to put the team first and not just hunt the ball on instinct, which is a quality our recruiters don't seem able to identify pre-draft.

I kind of wonder if the rules of the game in U18s that tries to keep kids playing in position with the 6-6-6 type stuff so they can show off their offensive traits might be part of the problem... except that other clubs don't seem to suffer for it.
I agree with you. I’m a little torn on the Tsatas pick. On the one hand, he doesn’t appear to be the best fit for our list. But if he’s clearly the most talented player, I think we should still take him. The key being “clearly the most talented”. If that’s not how our list management team rate Tsatas, then we should definitely take the better fit (assuming Humphrey or whoever is rated highly by RFK et al).
 
Listen to Simon Taylor talking about their list build and then get back to me .
Can not change the culture until you change how you rate leadership and competitors who will play a team role no questions asked.

I didn’t bring up culture at any point, it’s an issue, but it’s not the issue I’m addressing here.

The point was not drafting Tsatas because of poor defensive running is a fallacy because the only reason the current playing group is in this mess is because of our D grade strength and conditioning program.

Addressing that as we have resolved to do and getting everyone jacked and covering the ground solves for all of the above.

As I said there are others that are more desirable and I’d be comfortable if we went for Humphrey or Wardlaw if available for example but Tsatas looks an absolute jet.
 
I agree with you. I’m a little torn on the Tsatas pick. On the one hand, he doesn’t appear to be the best fit for our list. But if he’s clearly the most talented player, I think we should still take him. The key being “clearly the most talented”. If that’s not how our list management team rate Tsatas, then we should definitely take the better fit (assuming Humphrey or whoever is rated highly by RFK et al).
If they're going to be a star, you take them anyway. A star will make any team better. But not every kid in the first round is a star... as much as we'd like to believe it at this time of year, in reality you'd be lucky to get more than two out of a single draft, and they don't usually go top 5.

At the end of the day the best rated 18 year old isn't likely to be the best kid of that draft in a few years anyway. The top few have the highest floor, but not necessarily the highest ceiling. So at that point you have to look at what fits best with your plans for a premiership window in 2, 4, 6, 8 years.
 
Imagine if just once we took the obvious player at a high pick.

Isn't the problem that we always just take the obvious best available, not necessarily the best fit?

McGrath / McCluggage were pretty evenly rated by the end of the season, Parish was clearly the best available mid with Francis rated pretty highly by most from memory. We haven't got too clever with our first round selections, which is both good and bad.
 
Isn't the problem that we always just take the obvious best available, not necessarily the best fit?

McGrath / McCluggage were pretty evenly rated by the end of the season, Parish was clearly the best available mid with Francis rated pretty highly by most from memory. We haven't got too clever with our first round selections, which is both good and bad.
Is there even 1 example in the last 10 or so years of us reaching with a first rounder?
 
Is there even 1 example in the last 10 or so years of us reaching with a first rounder?

Not that I recall, people might argue over whether Francis should have been taken when we did, but I'd guess that he'd have gone within the next few picks if we didn't take him as he was rated inside the Top-10.

It's been the later selections they've tried to get clever with instead of picking guys that are 'safe'.
 
Not that I recall, people might argue over whether Francis should have been taken when we did, but I'd guess that he'd have gone within the next few picks if we didn't take him as he was rated inside the Top-10.

It's been the later selections they've tried to get clever with instead of picking guys that are 'safe'.
Agree, hindsight heroism with Francis. And yes, some of our second rounders have been poor (Steinberg, Ashby, Jackson Merrett, Long).
 
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