My mate in melb keeps telling me we are heavily being linked to Jacobs.
If you want someone with a brilliant pick eg Pitt or Jacobs you may not get someone who physically is developed or has issues with his defensive game.
No player is perfect in this draft except swallow.
Simith has everything except an iffy kick.
My question is would you prefer someone with an iffy kick but everything else is great. or somone like Jacobs/Pitt with a brilliant kick but defensive action/competive nature is no where near smith?
Jacobs is definitely one that wouldn't surprise me if we picked up with 14.
I'll preface this by saying I'm no expert and this is purely an opinion formed from the odd "youtube" clip and from what I have read from trusted BF posters, but I think there's a lot of Simon Goodwin about him. Similar height and body size, strong grab, long and powerful left foot, but not quite as damaging with it as say a Luke Hodge, also knows how to find the footy and is quite a physical player too. Whether he'll be as good is a completely different kettle of fish though. His decision making is probably the one thing that concerns me a little, seems to rush his disposal under pressure and doesn't seem to use his long kicking enough. He seems quite happy to chip short, where a player like him should perhaps try to hurt the opposition a little more with his disposal.
The one I wouldn't discount, if he falls to 14, is Jack Darling, not so much as a key forward, but as a bigger bodied midfield enforcer in the mold of your Matthew Pavlich or even Mark Ricciuto. Unlikely to reach us as I think the GC or even WC might take him, however if he does fall a bit, I think we may seriously consider.
I'd might also add, the fact that GC have so many early picks may mean that #14 will get us the kind of player we'd usually get much earlier. I can't remember what its called (maybe cmndstab can help out) but in game theory and economics if there are a number of parties vying for a share in the market on an even ground, typically the goods will be distributed or utilised efficiently. In draft terms this means that that if every team has an equal share of the draft picks (ie, an untampered draft) there will be a very good correlation between the value of a player and the place in the draft where they were taken. However, if one party has a disproportionate share of access (ie a lot of early draft picks, particularly if they are close together) they will not use them as efficiently as a number of parties would. In lay man's terms its much easier for a number of independent heads working together to work out the true value of players than it is for one. For example, if Rendell had the GC's picks in 2007 we would have ended up with:
1. Kreuzer
2. Cotchin
3. Dangerfield
7. Henderson
9. Ebert
10. S.Selwood
11. Rance
13. Lobbe
An unmitigated disaster imo in relation to the opportunities, instead of the genius of picking up Danger at #10. And if we hadn't traded #5 Myers would have been taken there. Another example is Port taking Moore last year at #9, right after Butcher at #8. Whilst I personally would have taken Moore at #9 without batting an eye, most wouldn't and Port may have reasonably expected Moore to slide right through to #16 in other circumstances. GC trading into future drafts has been a very smart move in this sense imo.
So, I think #14 this year will end up being a little bit better than #14 in most years.
Great post, I've been thinking the same. With that many picks in the top 13, Gold Coast can afford to be a bit choosy and perhaps have a bit more of an eye towards needs than just best available, especially with their later picks. I think there's a very good chance that we'll pick up a player which Rendell rates between 6 and 8 on his list. Whilst the top 5 seem pretty well set, the next 15-20 picks appear very much up in the air. Despite its being compromised, this still sounds like a very strong draft and I think we might end up with a very good player at 14.