Player Watch Luke Nankervis - Rising Star Nomination!

[Crow till I die]

Picking up talent at any stage of the draft is important, there is no guarantee with any kid you take at 18 years of age.

Why are you ignoring that all clubs have many first round fails, but can make up for it with later picks? Lists need to be built with every mechanism available.

Do you think Sydney are in their current position if they miss with both the Stephens and Warner picks? Of course they aren’t.

Have a look through every clubs draft hauls from 2015 onwards and tell me which club nails every single high pick and doesn’t rely on later picks and trades to build their lists? https://www.draftguru.com.au/clubs/adelaide#2019

For fun, I just went through Sydney's 1st round draft haul since 2015

Callum Mills - 2015
Oliver Florent - 2016
Matt Ling - 2017
Nick Blakey - 2018
Dylan Stephens - 2019
Logan McDonald - 2020
Braedon Campbell - 2020
Angus Sheldrick - 2021
no 1st round pick - 2022
Will Green - 2023

So of that group - Mills, Florent, Blakey, Campbell & McDonald are all top line players. Busts are Ling, Stephens and Sheldrick and we have no idea about Green at this stage.

So of the 9 1st round picks they had in that period, 5 of them are genuine topline players with 3 having played over 100 games and 2 over 150 games. so its a 55% strike rate with 1st round picks

This is regardless of the later picks they also nailed.

In that same time, here are our 1st round picks

Wayne Milera - 2015
Tom Doedee - 2015
Jordan Galluci - 2016
Darcy Fogarty - 2017
Chayce Jones - 2018
Ned McHenry - 2018
Fischer McAsey - 2019
Riley Thilthorpe - 2020
Luke Pedlar - 2020
Brayden Cook - 2020
Josh Rachele - 2021
Max Michalanney - 2022
Dan Curtin - 2023
Charlie Edwards - 2023
Oscar Ryan - 2023

That is 14 1st round picked players

Of this group and still at the club, Fogarty, Thilthorpe, Rachele, Michalanney and maybe Milera are the hits so far. Like with Will Green at Sydney, its too early to say on Curtin, Edwards and Ryan. Cook and Pedlar are at the crossroads where they could go on to become good p;layers or they might not. Galluci, Jones, McHenry, McAsey are busts and Doedee is gone

So right now, that is 5 of 14 players we have that we can reasonably say are worthy picks in the 1st round - 35% hit rate over a greater number of picks. Now it may rise if Curtin does what we all expect and become a star, Edwards and Ryan may also come on - we just don't know as yet.

Its merely just a look at the 2 clubs to see what sort of strike rate they have had with their 1st round picks in that window of time. Sydney with les picks seem to have had more 'luck' it seems to date.

 

[Rabish Binney]

Have watched him closely this year.

Initially seemed to be a bit lost at times in games earlier this year but has come on in leaps and bounds which is a great sign.

Amazing what happens when a young player is given a chance & is not the whipping boy week after week.

 

[Mutineer]

For fun, I just went through Sydney's 1st round draft haul since 2015

Callum Mills - 2015
Oliver Florent - 2016
Matt Ling - 2017
Nick Blakey - 2018
Dylan Stephens - 2019
Logan McDonald - 2020
Braedon Campbell - 2020
Angus Sheldrick - 2021
no 1st round pick - 2022
Will Green - 2023

So of that group - Mills, Florent, Blakey, Campbell & McDonald are all top line players. Busts are Ling, Stephens and Sheldrick and we have no idea about Green at this stage.

So of the 9 1st round picks they had in that period, 5 of them are genuine topline players with 3 having played over 100 games and 2 over 150 games. so its a 55% strike rate with 1st round picks

This is regardless of the later picks they also nailed.

In that same time, here are our 1st round picks

Wayne Milera - 2015
Tom Doedee - 2015
Jordan Galluci - 2016
Darcy Fogarty - 2017
Chayce Jones - 2018
Ned McHenry - 2018
Fischer McAsey - 2019
Riley Thilthorpe - 2020
Luke Pedlar - 2020
Brayden Cook - 2020
Josh Rachele - 2021
Max Michalanney - 2022
Dan Curtin - 2023
Charlie Edwards - 2023
Oscar Ryan - 2023

That is 14 1st round picked players

Of this group and still at the club, Fogarty, Thilthorpe, Rachele, Michalanney and maybe Milera are the hits so far. Like with Will Green at Sydney, its too early to say on Curtin, Edwards and Ryan. Cook and Pedlar are at the crossroads where they could go on to become good p;layers or they might not. Galluci, Jones, McHenry, McAsey are busts and Doedee is gone

So right now, that is 5 of 14 players we have that we can reasonably say are worthy picks in the 1st round - 35% hit rate over a greater number of picks. Now it may rise if Curtin does what we all expect and become a star, Edwards and Ryan may also come on - we just don't know as yet.

Its merely just a look at the 2 clubs to see what sort of strike rate they have had with their 1st round picks in that window of time. Sydney with les picks seem to have had more 'luck' it seems to date.

How many of your Crows list were taken at the pointy end i.e. top 5.

How many were taken with later than pick 10?

As far as drafting goes Jones and McHenry are not busts, both have played plenty of AFL football. They may not have met some on here's lofty expectations but they are not busts.

 

[cmndstab]

Oh ok, so we are only looking at first round busts and ignoring anything else done to build a list?

It’s a wonder how Sydney have survived with first round busts like Matt Ling (2017) and Dylan Stephens (2019)… could also go back to Dean Towers (2012) or Zak Jones (2013).

Sydney have obviously had an academy which has netted them some ridiculous talent, but outside of that they’ve drafted very well with later picks. Do you think they’re doing as well right now if they don’t get a Chad Warner quality player to makeup for Dylan Stephens, or Tom McCartin with a later pick in that Ling draft?

Amartey and McLean were very late picks, but are super important to the way they’re playing this year after Buddy retired. Papley taken in the rookie draft.

If only drafting high picks was needed for a successful list build, then why were Carlton, Melbourne and Richmond so shit for a decade?

The thing is, in order to stay at your current level you need to replace 2-3 players a year. Or to improve, you need to find 2-3 players per year better than the ones you've currently got.

Any time you can nail a pick later in the draft that is obviously a win, but you can't expect to nail 2-3 players a year late in the draft. Sometimes it happens but not year after year. Most of the time you find maybe one decent role player in the back end of the draft, and maybe a gem there every few years. Us getting both Soligo and Nankervis late in the draft is probably batting above average, and even then Soligo was pick 36, so in the middle of the second round. Not exactly late.

That's why it's so important to nail (and develop) those early picks. Those are the picks that should pay off most of the time. If you can nail 1-2 players in the first or early second round of the draft, then you only need one later pick/rookie to come on well. In a rebound, if you miss on those early picks, then you are relying on later picks to (a) work out, and (b) actually be better than what you've already got. Anything less and you're going backwards.


Looking at our picks of any note from the 3rd round onwards over the last few years:

2022 Dowling, Bond
2021 Taylor, Nankervis
2020 None
2019 Gollant, Keays
2018 Sholl, Strachan, Butts
2017 Murphy
2016 Himmelberg


It's pretty hard to build a side from those kinds of picks. You've got to nail the first and second rounders to be competitive. Admittedly, getting Murray and Keane as SPP picks has been a bonus. Hopefully the younger Murray will prove a coup as well, but I'm not holding my breath yet.


Fortunately for us we had what appears to be a bumper year in 2021. Traded in Dawson, picked up Rachele, Soligo, Nankervis, plus got Murray at the start of the year (kind of cheating, he's really from the 2020 offseason, but whatever). Also got Taylor who may yet turn into an AFL player. That's the kind of year that can set you up pretty well if the other years around it are acceptably good.


2022 may also turn out to be quite a useful recruitment year if one of Dowling or Bond can become regular AFL players, to go along with Rankine and Michalanney.

 

[40porpoise]

Nicks just doesn't have an eye for talent. It was obvious to anyone watching his first game that he had it.

The fact it took him so long to play this year while Ned and Murphy were still getting games says a lot

 

[fuic08]

How many of your Crows list were taken at the pointy end i.e. top 5.

How many were taken with later than pick 10?

As far as drafting goes Jones and McHenry are not busts, both have played plenty of AFL football. They may not have met some on here's lofty expectations but they are not busts.

The fact that McHenry has played so many games doesn't reflect well on our club. He's a huge bust.

 

[Mutineer]

The fact that McHenry has played so many games doesn't reflect well on our club. He's a huge bust.

He is not a huge bust at all considering he was a late 1st round pick.

Opinions be like......

 

[cmndstab]

Just as a companion piece to my previous post, if we assume that our rebuild began in 2018, here is how we've gone so far in terms of bringing in players with any reasonable chance of being part of our future now (marginal or not-yet-established players in brackets). I've boldfaced those players who were picked with first or second round picks.

2018 - Jones, (McHenry, Hamill, Sholl, Butts, Strachan)
2019 - Worrell, Keays, (Schoenberg, Gollant)
2020 - Thilthorpe, Murray, (Pedlar, Cook, Berry, Borlase)
2021 - Dawson, Rachele, Soligo, Nankervis, (Taylor, Parnell)
2022 - Rankine, Michalanney, Keane, (Dowling, Bond)
2023 - (Curtin, Edwards, Ryan, Burgess)

Looking at it, you start to get an idea of how hard it is to build a decent team without decent picks.

 

[Mutineer]

A huge bust is a player taken near the pointy end that doesn't deliver...i.e. Jimmy Toumpas

Jimmy Toumpas

Age

30

Ht

183cm

Wt

82kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.4

4star

K

7.6

3star

HB

6.7

4star

M

3.3

3star

T

2.7

4star

CL

0.8

3star

No current season stats available

D

7.0

2star

K

4.0

2star

HB

3.0

3star

M

1.8

2star

T

2.4

4star

CL

0.2

2star

.

 

[Rory Walkerfield]

He is not a huge bust at all considering he was a late 1st round pick.

Opinions be like......

It’s the continued playing of McHenry that is the current issue. Don’t care where he was drafted, he just isn’t up to it.

 

[BACCS]

For fun, I just went through Sydney's 1st round draft haul since 2015

Callum Mills - 2015
Oliver Florent - 2016
Matt Ling - 2017
Nick Blakey - 2018
Dylan Stephens - 2019
Logan McDonald - 2020
Braedon Campbell - 2020
Angus Sheldrick - 2021
no 1st round pick - 2022
Will Green - 2023

So of that group - Mills, Florent, Blakey, Campbell & McDonald are all top line players. Busts are Ling, Stephens and Sheldrick and we have no idea about Green at this stage.

So of the 9 1st round picks they had in that period, 5 of them are genuine topline players with 3 having played over 100 games and 2 over 150 games. so its a 55% strike rate with 1st round picks

This is regardless of the later picks they also nailed.

In that same time, here are our 1st round picks

Wayne Milera - 2015
Tom Doedee - 2015
Jordan Galluci - 2016
Darcy Fogarty - 2017
Chayce Jones - 2018
Ned McHenry - 2018
Fischer McAsey - 2019
Riley Thilthorpe - 2020
Luke Pedlar - 2020
Brayden Cook - 2020
Josh Rachele - 2021
Max Michalanney - 2022
Dan Curtin - 2023
Charlie Edwards - 2023
Oscar Ryan - 2023

That is 14 1st round picked players

Of this group and still at the club, Fogarty, Thilthorpe, Rachele, Michalanney and maybe Milera are the hits so far. Like with Will Green at Sydney, its too early to say on Curtin, Edwards and Ryan. Cook and Pedlar are at the crossroads where they could go on to become good p;layers or they might not. Galluci, Jones, McHenry, McAsey are busts and Doedee is gone

So right now, that is 5 of 14 players we have that we can reasonably say are worthy picks in the 1st round - 35% hit rate over a greater number of picks. Now it may rise if Curtin does what we all expect and become a star, Edwards and Ryan may also come on - we just don't know as yet.

Its merely just a look at the 2 clubs to see what sort of strike rate they have had with their 1st round picks in that window of time. Sydney with les picks seem to have had more 'luck' it seems to date.

Good analysis, don't disagree with any of that.

Lets now have a look at what both clubs have done with later picks and trades over the same period (must be still currently on the list and played at AFL level with that club):
2015 - Tom Papley (Sydney)
2016 - Robbie Fox (Sydney); Elliot Himmelberg (Adelaide)
2017 - Tom McCartin, Joel Amartey (Sydney); Lachie Murphy (Adelaide)
2018 - Sam Wicks, James Rowbottom, Justin McInerney, Hayden McLean (Sydney); Will Hamill, Kieran Strachan, Lachie Sholl, Jordon Butts
2019 - Chad Warner (Sydney); Harry Schoenberg, Josh Worrell, Lachie Gollant, Ben Keays (Adelaide)
2020 - Errol Gulden (Sydney); Mitch Hinge, James Borlase, Brayden Cook, Sam Berry, Nick Murray, Patty Parnell (Adelaide)
2021 - Peter Ladhams, Corey Warner, Matt Roberts (Sydney); Jordan Dawson, Jake Soligo, Luke Nankervis (Adelaide)
2022 - Aaron Francis (Sydney); Izak Rankine, Max Michalanney, Billy Dowling, Mark Keane (Adelaide)
2023 - Taylor Adams, Brodie Grundy, James Jordon (Sydney); Chris Burgess, Dan Curtin (Adelaide)

Out of Sydney's 17 selections, these are regular or semi regular best 22 players (13 hits):
Papley, McCartin, Chad Warner, Adams, Grundy, Fox, Amartey, Wicks, Rowbottom, McInerney, McClean, Jordon, Roberts

Out of Adelaide's 25 selections, these are regular or semi regular best 22 players (16 hits):
Murphy, Sholl, Butts, Worrell, Schoenberg, Keays, Hinge, Murray, Cook, Berry, Dawson, Soligo, Nankervis, Rankine, Michalanney, Keane

There is some talent on both sides that are only recent draftees but are showing promise; however, left them out of this exercise for simplicity.

 

[Danger in Texas]

How many of your Crows list were taken at the pointy end i.e. top 5.

How many were taken with later than pick 10?

As far as drafting goes Jones and McHenry are not busts, both have played plenty of AFL football. They may not have met some on here's lofty expectations but they are not busts.

I mean, I can’t see premise in the argument that Jones or Ned have lived up to the pick they were taken at, from a talent/production standpoint

Yeah they’ve played a lot of games, but particularly in Ned’s case that’s more an indication of where the club has been at over the past five years

 

[Mutineer]

I mean, I can’t see premise in the argument that Jones or Ned have lived up to the pick they were taken at, from a talent/production standpoint

Yeah they’ve played a lot of games, but particularly in Ned’s case that’s more an indication of where the club has been at over the past five years

That's a lot different to a HUGE BUST.

Jarrod Pickett is huge bust.

 

[cmndstab]

That's a lot different to a HUGE BUST.

Jarrod Pickett is huge bust.

I think we're getting in the weeds a bit if we're arguing over whether something is "big" or "HUGE".

They are busts. Choose your own flavour descriptor, but they're busts.

 

[Mutineer]

I think we're getting in the weeds a bit if we're arguing over whether something is "big" or "HUGE".

They are busts. Choose your own flavour descriptor, but they're busts.

Mitch Thorp is a huge bust

History of pick 16, yes there's been some very good players taken at #16, there's also been a truckload of very average and worse taken.

National Draft Pick #16 - Draftguru

www.draftguru.com.au

 

[RUNVS]

For fun, I just went through Sydney's 1st round draft haul since 2015

Callum Mills - 2015
Oliver Florent - 2016
Matt Ling - 2017
Nick Blakey - 2018
Dylan Stephens - 2019
Logan McDonald - 2020
Braedon Campbell - 2020
Angus Sheldrick - 2021
no 1st round pick - 2022
Will Green - 2023

So of that group - Mills, Florent, Blakey, Campbell & McDonald are all top line players. Busts are Ling, Stephens and Sheldrick and we have no idea about Green at this stage.

Strongly disagree when you say Sheldrick is a bust. Is very talented and hard at it, and is only not in the team because of an unfortunate run of injuries. I very much want him in the team, and as soon as he is back from injury and gets a few games in the reserves he will be pushing for a spot in the first team.

 

[BACCS]

I mean, I can’t see premise in the argument that Jones or Ned have lived up to the pick they were taken at, from a talent/production standpoint

Yeah they’ve played a lot of games, but particularly in Ned’s case that’s more an indication of where the club has been at over the past five years

At the end of the day, all clubs have really bumper years in drafting/trading and some abysmal ones.

Doing that exercise above, Sydney added a lot of their key talent in 2015-2020 (still some busts in there, but overall a clear success), while Adelaide has added most of it during 2019-2023. It's probably not super surprising that our drafting from 2015-2018 wasn't fantastic given the focus was largely quick fixes while contending for a flag (e.g. trading for Gibbs), while then being significantly better after that as the focus turns to a refresh of the list.

Better exposure of our list over the last couple of years and I'm confident the club would be in a far better position that it is now. Improvements in the football department are absolutely necessary and then I think the improvements onfield will happen fast.

 

[BACCS]

Strongly disagree when you say Sheldrick is a bust. Is very talented and hard at it, and is only not in the team because of an unfortunate run of injuries. I very much want him in the team, and as soon as he is back from injury and gets a few games in the reserves he will be pushing for a spot in the first team.

The exercise was more just going through each list and outlining players that are very clear best 22 or have been in the past. Every club has players like Sheldrick that we think/hope become best 22 regulars, but are either never backed in or injured a lot.

 

[footy4ever]

Rising Star nomination in the bag

Crows defender earns Rising Star nomination

The 21-year-old is Adelaide’s first nominee for 2024

www.afc.com.au

only just came across this.

Good on ya Nank!

Very clever, balanced, skilful, quick player...how come he plays for the Crows?

 

[skam85]

Huge bust, big bust, a bit of a bust or just a bust, a bust is a bust.

All boobs are great.

 

[jimvic]

Another Ogilivie drafting gem. His skinny frame was miles off AFL level when we first drafted him too. Murray, Keane and Nank have been shrewd selections in recent years.

If people are going to highlight first round misses, also realise that if any of these guys were taken in the first round you wouldn't be batting an eyelid. Talent can come from anywhere and it's about maximising every recruiting mechanism the AFL allows.

just watched the interview - he was great!

 

[RUNVS]

Huge bust, big bust, a bit of a bust or just a bust, a bust is a bust.

All boobs are great.

 

[Samcro24]

View attachment 2017892

Reported

 

[Crow till I die]

Huge bust, big bust, a bit of a bust or just a bust, a bust is a bust.

All boobs are great.

go back and watch the scene from something about Mary where Matt Dillon is spying on Mary and gets a glimpse of her flatmate's....whatever they were

 

[Mr MysteryGuest]

I think we're getting in the weeds a bit if we're arguing over whether something is "big" or "HUGE".

They are busts. Choose your own flavour descriptor, but they're busts.

I like to use baseball terminology , 2nd base being expectation level for the pick range.

Ned is a strike out, Jones got a walk to 1st base.

Nank would be 3rd base right now.