Jack Watts will finish his career known as a very high quality player at LEAST.

[Jeebs]

This bloke was given no leeway early coz he's a pretty boy.
Dees are bringing him on well, he's on schedule, he's been showing good progress and looking every bit like the gun we expected.
Any #1 pick that isnt a rover and takes a bit more time will get pebbles thrown at him..Kreuzer a prime example. The same poindexters kind of "hope" these talented kids somehow fail.

The dumber types still talk about getting kicks playing "loose man in defence" or "loose off halfback" is akin to being the orange peeler. Right now it is regularly the most important slot on the paddock. Most of the #1 pix have had an education in all areas and thats all Watts is getting now. Plus how to time his runs and most important his vision.

Goddard, Hodge, Deledio all been thru the same education. He can see everything and the position wins matches...its not some sort of holiday. Last week the aints dropped Dal Santo back and it made a huge difference to them. Why are Carlton trying to establish Yarran the same way ? Nobody gave McLeod shit for basically the same role.

Will likely play better 1st halves for a fair while yet. On track.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Has really grown in confidence over the last 6 weeks or so. His game tonight was solid, but had about 5 contests where he got hands to a potential mark and just couldn't quite pluck them. We'll have an absolute beauty on our hands once they start to stick. I expect that is a few pre seasons away yet, but I'm enjoying watching him grow in the meantime.

 

[Rojik of the Arctic]

...On track.

Good post. Where he is at is pretty much where the club hoped he'd be at around this point. Every game he learns something. Every game he gets a bit more confident. Every game week he is a tad stronger than the last week.

I will expect him to start stamping some more authority on the game once he has a few more kgs but right now I'm enjoying watching the progress.

 

[MightyTiger]

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/the-getting-of-wisdom-20110527-1f8qk.html#ixzz1NaqhE200

I suggest you Melbourne supporters have a read of this, it is a great article about Vickery and his early struggles as a KPP and lack of size, talks about doubting himself and his worth to his team and not being able to impose himself on games due to a lack of size (Muscle not Height), I had massive doubts on Watts and like many others thought he was going to be a flop, I also had my doubts on Vickery at some points but bias swayed me most of the times.

The article really puts things into perspective about how hard these young KPP players who lack size to compete with the other seasoned players who have at least 10-20 KGs on there counterparts.

Here are a few snippets.

After the game at times, they would sit and talk. "He'd say to me, 'Dad, I jump into [Darren] Jolly and I just bounce straight off him as if I was nothing'. He tried to outleap them and they would put their hand up and just push him away,'' John Vickery said.

He is starting to get it together, but he copped his whack there for a while because people expected so much from him when he had just come out of school and was 89 kilos playing in the ruck against blokes 110 kilos plus.

'You want to be part of the team and contribute and I have felt like I have not pulled my weight in the team in the last few years. I needed to be better and I am looking forward to being able to contribute more,'' he said.

And this is my favourite part.

The former Port ruck recognised Vickery had the ruck makings when in a training drill he almost came to blows with Angus Graham.

Angus throws his elbows around a bit at training and he copped Ty one and Ty just came straight back at him and they nearly came to blows. Ten minutes later they were good mates again, but you don't mind seeing that because it shows he has passion and is not going to take crap from anyone,'' Lade said. Given John Vickery is also the club's boxing coach, it was perhaps wise of Graham not to trade blows.

These kids need time and they need lots of it, and if memory serves me right Watts was taken as a bottom aged teenager and he missed the first year of pre-season due to his schooling arrangements?

I'd say going by that he's maybe 6-12 months behind Vickery in terms of establishing himself on games by taking big marks and kicking 2-3 goals a game etc, future looks bright for both though.

 

[jeemak]

My kicking skills are better than half the AFL.

Mine are better than that. But unfortunately I'm not as quick or strong as these guys, I also don't have the continual strategy training attendence record they do. My weights program isn't nearly as specific to my needs as theirs, and the discipline required to modify my diet and alcohol intake is not sufficient to compete. Hence, my preparation suffers.

Watts was always going to take a bit of time. He's still got a lot of gym work to do though. For KPF's, confidence in body size and strength is paramount to performing well. The closer he gets to an AFL KPP body, the better he will get.

 

[BigBroMike]

Considerably faster.

yet it means *** all since he gets caught holding the ball soo many times. I don't doubt that he has good speed it's just his lack of awareness and lukonic style of play that lets him down enormously. Overall he seems to be improving though.

 

[blackcat]

Goddard and Cooney were hailed as failure #1DP's in their first 3 or 4 years

 

[blackcat]

Agree. Has the skill set required of a number 1 DP and to be a very good player. Good skills by foot and is the quickest 6 foot 6 player I have seen. Except maybe buddy.

So he's faster than stanley or naitanui is he. What a load of shit. Loose numbers and sideways possessions. Wow what a great way to spend a number 1 draft pick.

Considerably faster.

Dont think you could differentiate with NN and JW based on the 20 metre draft test which was 3 one hundredths of a second.

Remember NN was prolly giving 10kgs to JW in the draft camp combine. Means he had to accelerate that 10kgs, up to the momentum that nearly bested JW.

Stanley won the grand final sprint, b4(?) they were handicapped?

But that was 80 metres or so.

Depends on the test distance. James Walker may have been the fastest on a running track over 100metres, but when did he ever use it at Subi or the WACA? never did. He might beat Judd on a T&F athletics track, but could never accelerate away from a pack like Judd.

Big guys are disadvantaged with acceleration. Dont know if Stanley would be explosive or if he could take NN and JW over 100metres, when he gets his legs wound up. Obviously he has speed endurance and can hold his speed, helps with his stride distance, but NN's stride would be similar.

Think JW will be slower than NN if he sticks on another 10 kgs and is playing at 196 and 100kg.

 

[Lyyynnnchy]

Watts is looking better and better with every game he plays. He wont be the KPF Melbourne were "rumoured" to want him to be but he will be an awesome player.

Well done Dee's supporters for backing him up, will be a gun ;ead up forward/winger

 

[WeetBixKid]

Best game I've seen him play, massive improvement, let's see if he can keep it up

 

[Higgs Boson]

I went in early and saw some things I liked, the kid will be a gun. I also said that many will realize after some good games that he is a better talent than Hurley, right now between those two id prefer Watts.

 

[Demonic_Inferno]

Watts is looking better and better with every game he plays. He wont be the KPF Melbourne were "rumoured" to want him to be but he will be an awesome player.

Well done Dee's supporters for backing him up, will be a gun ;ead up forward/winger

I can see no logical reason to state that Watts will not become a power CHF. He has the height, the skills and when he gains more weight, the confidence will be imposing.

If he continues along the improvement path set by the last 5-6 weeks, he will reach the upper echelons of that category.

 

[ThePuppetMaster]

yet it means *** all since he gets caught holding the ball soo many times. I don't doubt that he has good speed it's just his lack of awareness and lukonic style of play that lets him down enormously. Overall he seems to be improving though.

I actually don't think he has been caught holding the ball more than twice this year...

 

[Tulip]

I'm sick of everyone talking about Watts. He looks like he will turn out alright, but there are a lot more exciting young players floating around now... Trengove, Martin, Fyfe, Shuey, Cotchin, Jurrah...etc

Watts was a number one pick so when he was struggling,there was nobody more fashionable to stick the boot into.

 

[Tulip]

Watts is looking better and better with every game he plays. He wont be the KPF Melbourne were "rumoured" to want him to be but he will be an awesome player.

Well done Dee's supporters for backing him up, will be a gun ;ead up forward/winger

If thsese last few weeks has shown anything, it's that the continual capping off Watts' development makes no sense.

 

[Damon_3388]

All I want to see is Jack Watts give it back with interest to Nick Maxwell. I have never seen a more w***er thing to do then get your whole team to tackle a first gamer just because he went number 1.

I thought they all converged on him at once because, you know, he had stopped dead like a scared deer in the headlights with the footy in his hands. He was fair game to be buried into the turf no matter who he was at that point. It's AFL, there's no free passes just because it's your first game or you're the #1 pick.

 

[timmy22]

Well certainly from last years form it looked like the Two top picks from the 2008 AFL draft ( Watts/Naitanui ) where disappointing. Certainly compared to Hill/Rich/Sidebottom. But this year Watts/Naitanui have Really progressed so maybe West coast/Melbourne made the right choice after all


1. Jack Watts
2. Nic Naitanui
3. Stephen Hill
4. Hamish Hartlett
5. Michael Hurley
6. Chris Yarran
7. Daniel Rich
8. Tyrone Vickery
9. Jack Ziebell
10. Phil Davis
11. Steele Sidebottom
12. Lewis Johnston
13. Tom Lynch
14. Ayce Cordy
15. Mitchell Brown
16. Ryan Schoenmakers

 

[weagles_fan]

Well certainly from last years form it looked like the Two top picks from the 2008 AFL draft ( Watts/Naitanui ) where disappointing. Certainly compared to Hill/Rich/Sidebottom. But this year Watts/Naitanui have Really progressed so maybe West coast/Melbourne made the right choice after all


1. Jack Watts
2. Nic Naitanui
3. Stephen Hill
4. Hamish Hartlett
5. Michael Hurley
6. Chris Yarran
7. Daniel Rich
8. Tyrone Vickery
9. Jack Ziebell
10. Phil Davis
11. Steele Sidebottom
12. Lewis Johnston
13. Tom Lynch
14. Ayce Cordy
15. Mitchell Brown
16. Ryan Schoenmakers

Shuey?Ballantyne?Beams?

 

[Tulip]

Shuey?Ballantyne?Beams?

That would be the first round which he listed. Plenty of good players to have come later

 

[Dagless]

Shuey?Ballantyne?Beams?

If you look really reallly carefully, you'll notice he has just posted the first round of the draft, not his preferential order.

 

[bisazc887]

If you look really reallly carefully, you'll notice he has just posted the first round of the draft, not his preferential order.

I think that was his/her intention

 

[timmy22]

If you look really reallly carefully, you'll notice he has just posted the first round of the draft, not his preferential order.

Correct

 

[Dagless]

I think that was his/her intention

Yeah, I was taking the piss out of weagles

 

[Damon_3388]

Well certainly from last years form it looked like the Two top picks from the 2008 AFL draft ( Watts/Naitanui ) where disappointing. Certainly compared to Hill/Rich/Sidebottom. But this year Watts/Naitanui have Really progressed so maybe West coast/Melbourne made the right choice after all

How was Naitanui "disappointing" last year? He played all 22 games for the Eagles in 2010 (a lot of AFL listed big men his age are struggling to get just one game), improved his averages in every statistical category bar tackles (just a drop of 0.5 per game, but still averaged 3.4 per game, which is good for a ruckman, particularly of his age), and established a Champion Data Player Ranking score average 14 points higher than in his first season (one of the biggest improvers in the league in that particular stat), showing that his overall statistical impact was much greater. Obviously stats aren't everything, but there's nothing there to say that he didn't improve greatly on his first season. He might not have been dominant or pulling highlight reel moments out every week (if he was, he'd probably be incorrectly labelled "all flash" a la Dale Thomas once upon a time), but what did people realistically expect from a second-year ruckman? Furthermore, Daniel Rich (a player you mentioned for comparison) was totally stagnant in his development in 2010 compared to Naitanui.

 

[Pie eyed]

I'll admit I have been unimpressed by his exposed form up until this point.
I thought Melbourne did him a disservice throwing him into the senior side so early and with such fanfare (not his fault).
He certainly played very well last night and it's waht you'de want to see if you're a Melbourne supporter.
Great mark.