Possible reasons behind Rich Slide

[Cruiser23]

From the article linked in the OP:

"Early beep tests (10.7) suggested a query on endurance, although that was from Rich's time at the AIS in January, 2007.

He has since increased that test to 13.01, which while passable is a fair way from the elite midfield runners. "

LOL, skipped over that

mmmm, I thinks that's a little worrying, especially for someone who is a full-time midfielder.

 

[daics cousin]

Well if none of you guys want him,i hope he slides to pick 11,we'll take him in a heart beat.

As for the blues supporters,i reckon they will take Hurley with their first pick,becuase if they don't Collingwood will.Collingwood will take either Trengrove or hurley whoever is available at pick 11 if not best available midfielder at pick 11,sidebottom,swift,blease,yarran one has to fall our way.

 

[Marc Shmurf 3]

So Rich has a problem with his endurance...

Nothing Craig Braddley and Robert Harvey cant fix...

Let's go son...

Seriously cantsee him slipping past Port though...

 

[swuzzlebubble]

As for the blues supporters,i reckon they will take Hurley with their first pick,becuase if they don't Collingwood will.

If we don't take Hurley it would be kind of understood that someone else will. Nothing can be done about that unless we can take multiple players with our selection.

 

[Jimmy_the_Gent]

So Rich has a problem with his endurance...

Nothing Craig Braddley and Robert Harvey cant fix...

Let's go son...

Seriously cantsee him slipping past Port though...

You'd have to query his work ethic. I remember when the Eagles drafted Sampi and everyone said he was lazy but we figured that would be sorted after one or 2 pre-seasons. It went well for a while until it became too much for him.

 

[bzparkes]

As for the blues supporters,i reckon they will take Hurley with their first pick,becuase if they don't Collingwood will.

Don't exactly see why Carlton would base their recruiting on Collingwood's?

 

[aaronm46]

nah pick 7 is about right for him

 

[paran]

Endurance is one of the easier aspects to fix - just get him running every day, c'so he'll be paid to do not much else. Look at Ablett and how much he improved after focusing on his fitness. 13 is pretty low, but a professional footy team should be able to bring him up to shape.

 

[Blue Dawn]

Seems the Blues could do with him as well; The big Kreuze Missile seems a little in the Josh Fraser class - not quite a ruckman or a KPF, but a good bit of both.

Cloke & Hampson are servicable at best.

If I were a Bluebagger (thank God I'm not!!), I'd be hoping Vickery slides, not Rich.

Not sure if you were in the country last month mate but there's a 206cm bloke by the name of Warnock at Carlton now too.

 

[jackoisno1]

Rich and Hurley have been top 3 contenders at the start of the year. Rich will not get past Essendon. Because Essendon need a KP player but you can get gun mids at the top of the draft. Rich could have been studing for year 12 really hard and don't forget he got heaviy tagged though out the carnival. But yes if Carlton do pick him up we could have the 2nd best midfield behind Geelong. But Hurley........ Top 3 at start of the year and for him to slide down to 6 is too good. He is AA full back and could be there for the next 10 years. But according to HBF who watches him play he plays his best footy at CHF where he takes 20 marks and kicks 8 goals.

Also Yarren every says he is lazy. He just could make it look that easy.Or you know you can train laziness out of a player.

 

[ytpme]

Not sure if you were in the country last month mate but there's a 206cm bloke by the name of Warnock at Carlton now too.

Nothing to get over excited about!

 

[Pykie]

Hille, Bellchambers.

Hille will be 28 by the start of next season.

Bellchambers has played 3 games, and Laycock was probably only given a 2 year extension because of this fact.


Bombers could do with another ruckman.

 

[BigCat2]

Also Yarren every says he is lazy. He just could make it look that easy.Or you know you can train laziness out of a player.

And people like sinepari and Norman Ross will ask you how you get that impression, or just going by heresay. They say he applies himself pretty hard. The 'lazy' bit is more to do with his class and how he can make the difficult look ridiculously easy, like Mark Waugh's shots.

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Hille will be 28 by the start of next season.

Bellchambers has played 3 games, and Laycock was probably only given a 2 year extension because of this fact.


Bombers could do with another ruckman.

It is NOT our no1 priority. We can always draft a project ruckman at pick55. We need midfielders and a KP back

 

[Winmar2Lockett]

Another rubbish John Anderson article.

He's the worst journo in the country outside of Patrick Smith & Peter Roebuck.

At the start of the article I thought to myself 'I wonder if he'll somehow work into this a piece about Geelong's recruiting genius?'

Silly me.

He's a tool & proves it in every article he writes & the way he presents himself on the Fox Sports show he somehow gets on.

"Rich has got short arms so he will drift"!

Should have stuck to writing with crayons.

 

[Jackfrost]

My 16yr old sister who plays abit of basketball on the weekend gets over 13. How a player who trainins 2-3 times a week and plays as a midfielder only gets that range raises question marks.

She sounds hot!!!!

 

[Johnson#26]

How in any reasonable logic can the size of a player's arms dictate where he is taken in a Draft? That is rubbish. He clearly gets by, as does every person who plays football at any level. Absolutely ridiculous to suggest, and furthermore, I doubt very much so that players 'slip' in recruiter's minds, for they have played no footy since September, and the Draft Camp has been and gone. If anything, it has to be more so recruiters getting hunches for players who have considerable upside. That's it, that's all.

 

[Lach72]

She sounds hot!!!!

Lol!

 

[Johnson#26]

Endurance is one of the easier aspects to fix - just get him running every day, c'so he'll be paid to do not much else. Look at Ablett and how much he improved after focusing on his fitness. 13 is pretty low, but a professional footy team should be able to bring him up to shape.

Exactly. Skills and fitness are easy to repair/readjust (although kicking actions/techniques are extremely difficult to change, hence the argument that Kennelly and Clarke are such good kicks due to possessing completely developed minds prior to learning how to kick the Sherrin).

Height and pace is what nabs many.

 

[slugger]

Hille will be 28 by the start of next season.

Bellchambers has played 3 games, and Laycock was probably only given a 2 year extension because of this fact.


Bombers could do with another ruckman.

Yeah...well...if the season starts mid-June. I'd reckon he's got 4 years left.

We do need another for backup, but lower end of the draft or rookie will do me.

 

[beatlesmith]

I reckon his name has got stale. He hasn't really done anything since last years WAFL grand final, including a quiet championships. This will effect the clubs alot less than punters and journo's who typically are more influenced by form and DC results.
Most talented mid. Won't get past pick 4.

 

[Big Vee]

This is amazing this thread, I've been watching him for about 6 years and he is the best junior footballer I have seen.

About this year, think of Dan Rich at the end of 2007 as a 17 year old.

Under 18 All Australian
Won the Under 18's with WA
WAFL Premiership Player with Subiaco.
Certainty to be drafted.

At this time he now has to tread water for a year. Do you blame him if he's been a bit lazy at times in 2008. He's been waiting to unleash when he gets on an AFL list for 12 months now.

 

[Ysaye]

This is amazing this thread, I've been watching him for about 6 years and he is the best junior footballer I have seen.

About this year, think of Dan Rich at the end of 2007 as a 17 year old.

Under 18 All Australian
Won the Under 18's with WA
WAFL Premiership Player with Subiaco.
Certainty to be drafted.

At this time he now has to tread water for a year. Do you blame him if he's been a bit lazy at times in 2008. He's been waiting to unleash when he gets on an AFL list for 12 months now.

He is certainly one of the best junior footballers I have seen, and based upon his WAFL performances the best WA midfield prospect since Daniel Wells.

I for one am hoping all this talk about us selecting Hill over him is all bluff....

 

[pinkus maximus]

Have a read of this, it's Wisbey's profile of Shannon Hurn pre-draft (taken from the WC board). Eerily similar to what people are saying about Rich

Shannon Hurn (Central District)

187/96 mid-age right foot HBF/Midfielder

*STYLE LIKE: Hodge/M Voss

*MY RANKING (not meant to reflect appropriate draft pick to use): 1

*PROBABILITY OF AFL CAREER: Definite. Ready year 1.

- Within an AFL team list, could prove capable of SUSTAINING a ranking of 1-5.

*HURT FACTORS (Offensive/Defensive/Negative): H / M / L

*TRADEMARK:

- Confident, balanced one-grab mark or spill-gather through good reading of the play behind the pack. Then a thumping 60m accurate pass, with little apparent effort, to a well-spotted target at half-forward.

*SUMMARY ASSESSMENT, RECOMMENDATION:
(NB: Hurn has a long history of O.P. / groin problems. This assessment assumes that the medical prognosis is that he will be able to overcome them or be able to manage them to such a degree that his ability to perform at his best will not be significantly affected. If not, all bets are off).

- "Big stage" big-bodied utility seemingly biding time. The time to unwrap the pressy has arrived though. My #1 but probably go around mid 1st round.

What you are buying is

1. Excellent disposal with a very high hurt factor
2. Footy smarts, poise, mental toughness
3. Someone who will get his own ball, win more than his share of 50/50 contests, yet also routinely provide a linking option with a very high hurt factor.
4. Balance, physical strength / physicality, strength over the ball
5. (Virtually) plug 'n play readiness for AFL
6. Ability to play on someone fairly tall or fairly short and virtually anywhere around the ground.
7. Leadership.

- In coming up with current AFL names with whom to compare Hurn's style, I mention both Hodge and Michael Voss. On what Hurn has shown to date, the logical style comparison is with Hodge's current style. However, I believe Voss presents the more accurate comparison in terms of how Hurn will play down the track and what attributes he will display then. (FWIW, I suspect both Hurn and Hodge will play most of their careers in the style of Voss).

Hurn has played much of the past 2 years as HBF. I can see him in that role at AFL but my ranking of him so early is based on an expectation that he will ultimately be a big-bodied midfielder, albeit not necessarily the First Dibs type that his body shape might suggest. In his only full game onball in the '05 U18 Champs, he collected 24 disposals, including 8 in Q1 and 7 in Q3.

- Has been underdone and in less than fighting fit condition in recent years because of O.P. and failure to do a pre-season program due to cricket (a sport in which he has also been labelled an elite talent). The history of groin problems is a concern but I have based my assessment on the assumption that he can get free of such problems or that they can be managed without significant loss to his effectiveness.

Looked overweight in '04 due to O.P. but looked serious AFL potential at various times in '04 as a 16yo, despite not having played that year until about just before the Champs. I thought he might have kicked on in '05 to a greater extent than he has so I'm a bit disappointed but not too concerned. He does seem to have had a pattern, presumably connected to lack of pre-season, that he starts to find his best form just as the season is almost over.

I have made much concession for his history of groin trouble and poor preparation in that he hasn't yet even done a genuine footy pre-season.

To be honest, there have been various times this year when I have questioned whether I have been making too much concession in that, on face value, he has frequently been too picky and choosy about whether he will bother chasing or attacking the ball. (I mean in the context of putting in extra effort, certainly not softness). He is one of those natural footballers who appear to play in cruise mode a fair bit and give the impression they have another gear if needed. Hurn pushes himself hard when it suits but he plays as if he feels a need to conservatively ration his efforts.

However, there are 4 things I've always felt strongly about re Hurn:-

1. That he is a definite AFL long-termer of quality, ultimately possibly in the Voss mould.

2. That we weren't going to see the best of Hurn until he reached AFL. Has "fitted in" his footy aspirations with his cricket aspirations and vice versa and that must have compromised both, with each distracting his focus from the other. He has now decided that he will pursue footy as his career focus but I have always got the impression during his time in the SANFL that he has been playing somewhat "within himself" (i.e. doing what he has to do each game to get through the season, rather than trying to seriously test the upper limits of his ability). I am certainly not suggesting he is not team-orientated or hasn't been trying - just that he seems the type whose performance rises as the standard of competition he is up against rises. An accumulation of a lot of snippets I've observed in him over the past 3 years makes me believe that he has another gear we were unlikely to see him ROUTINELY slip into until he was on the AFL stage. In that respect I liken him to Goodes, who really played just the one seriously good game before being drafted, was in less than peak fitness, but looked like he had more to offer once he got onto a bigger stage. Buddy Franklin and Gary Ablett Jnr are other examples. From this year's batch, I believe Mitch Clark is the same. I'm not comparing player's character here - just the need to be on the biggest stage in order to bring out their best. On that basis, I'm not reading too much into Hurn's form per se to date (not there has been much wrong with it). My high opinion of his potential AFL capability is based primarily on an accumulation of "the best of" over 3 years.

3. That, rather than be treated as an early developer with limited scope for improvement compared to his peers (CSI), he should be seen as an early developer PHYSICALLY, but with a very healthy CSI due to history of groins and "off-season" cricket focus (whereas the sole focus all calendar year for most of his peers is footy).

4. That his underlying (potential) pace is very much better than his reputation suggests and that he has routinely shown to date. (Pace is the major issue many people have with Hurn. I don't share the concern).

- Centrals have been the outstanding SANFL team for some years. It is a very hard team for a kid to break into and an almost impossible team for a kid to get a finals berth with, such is their depth of mature talent. Despite trying to accommodate his elite talent in both cricket and footy, Hurn was named in Central's '04 Seniors GF team (extended interchange), despite still being 16yo until just a couple of weeks prior. He managed 5 senior games that year, despite groin problems causing him to miss the early part of the season and seeing him not be able to play his first full game until about just before the U18 Champs. And all that despite no proper pre-season and despite "carrying O.P." all year. This year the pattern was similar except that O.P. didn't significantly delay his season start like it did in '04.

To achieve what he has managed to do in recent years despite not being in "footy shape" means his CV compares more than favourably with that of Ryan Griffin (who I have always rated the best AFL potential I have seen since at least 2001) and Cooney (who has already established himself as an AFL match-winner). I concede Hurn is a different type to them (although I believe he too will become a genuine AFL "ruck-rover" type in time) and nor am I comparing abilities but Hurn's "qualifications" at draft time compare favourably with theirs at the corresponding time.

I can understand why most people do not rate him as highly as I do. If I was going purely on '05 form per se, I would not have him so early either. He would also not be worthy of #1 (or even #2) had he been in any other draft in the last 5 years.[/b] I usually try to offer as much "evidence" / rational argument as possible to justify my opinion on a player. I acknowledge that, in assessing Hurn, there is a fair element of gut faith based on strong visual "impressions" involved. It is harder to offer as much factual support for my Hurn ranking than for most other players because his development path has been different to most:-
1. lack of pre-season preparation
2. O.P.
3. being so good at 16yo, he was thrust into higher levels of footy (and earlier) than virtually all other kids in recent years and often coming off the bench.

The most comparative guide is the U18 Champs. He has gone in underdone both years yet still done well. There is no single game this year where his 100 minute form screamed out "AFL" but accumulated AFL-quality snippets, especially for someone so under-conditioned, makes me confident he will be a very good AFL long-termer.

In case that sounds like a cop-out and that I am relying on The Castle's version of "the vibe", I would point out that

1. in the last U18 Champs game of '04, he had 14 disposals in the 2nd half alone (mainly as HBF)
2. in the last U18 Champs game of '05, he had 24 disposals incl 8 in Q1 and 7 in Q3 (mainly as "ruck-rover") and took 10 marks.
3. in 11 SANFL Seniors games '05 he averaged 9 disposals and 4 marks, despite coming off the bench and playing HBF in a team who saw the ball on their forward line more often than in their backline.

*DISPOSAL:

- Routinely reliable kick, long (his strong preference) or short, and with an extremely high hurt factor.

- Thumping kick and usually accurate. Passes 55-60m regularly each game, very often accurate and often pin-point accurate. And that's regardless of pressure. Over a very long distance he is the most accurate kick I can recall for some years and in the Buckley category for reliability. When you can have a hurt factor as high as that implies, you don't need many kicks to have impact. In this era of flooding / scrumby, I can't stress the benefit of this attribute of his enough. Someone who will regularly clear the ball 60m downfield with a power kick TO POSITION gives his team a big advantage in trying to create goal-scoring opportunities before the opposition can transfer their numbers from one end of the ground to the other.

His ability to pin-point a team-mate in a one-on-one is uncanny. In my early observations of Hurn I noted how often that, when forced/choosing to kick to a one-one-one, the kick luckily just went a bit away from the reach of his target's opponent and into his team-mate's hands. The pattern soon emerged that luck had nothing to do with it. Hurn just has a regular ability to judge and weight his kicks so well that, even when there is virtually no margin for error, he often gets it spot on. And that's even over 55-60 metres, not just dinky little kicks that some players are quite good at.

- Kicks off 1 or 2 steps too frequently (set kicks). I'm not concerned re AFL as I think it's just part of the arrogance he chooses to display at lower levels but it is a habit I'd like to see him get out of.

- Getting depth is one thing. Power is another. Kicks with power obviously have a greater hurt factor than kicks that have a long hang-time. Hurn's whole game is power, including his kicks and feeds.

- Routinely reliable by hand. Very quick hands, power, accuracy, vision. Often high hurt factor.

- Healthy mix of kicks to feeds and appropriate mix of long to short.

*DECISION-MAKING, SMARTS:

- Natural footballer. Smarts. Quick brain. Reads play and ball extremely well.

- Cool, balanced, poised. Never seems to get flustered.

- Excellent vision. Routinely looks for options and spots up quickly.

- Tends to play off the pack / off his man / out the back, at least at this stage. As HBF, plays behind too often. As onball, plays predominantly as Predator rather than First Dibs. I have a prejudice in favour of players who are more pro-active / First-Dibs, or predators who are slippery, run-the-lines types. I find enough in Hurn, especially the hurt factor of his kicking, to appease me.

- As a HBF, he routinely backs his own judgement. Occasionally he gets caught out but his judgement is usually good. Using his SANFL Seniors games as a guide, he doesn't free-wheel per se but stays close to his man until he is confident how the play is about to unfold and, at that point, he has no hesitation in leaving his man and running into space to create a linking option or backing his judgement to run and attack the oncoming ball before his opponent does. Quarterback ability is as good as anyone's in this draft.

- Very good evasive skills and traffic management capability. I like arrogance in a player, but he still has to play within his capability. Hurn sometimes doesn't. This year he has too often treated opposition players with contempt. eg just assumed he could power through them and brush them aside along the way. The number of times he got through the first opponent only to get blocked by the next was disappointing. He won't regularly get away with that approach at AFL but nor do I expect him to try to as much, in that I believe (well, trust really) he is smart enough to show more respect to AFL opponents.

*HANDS:

- Generally clean, all levels. He is not routinely clean though at this stage. I don't know to what extent groin problems affect the number of discretionary times he goes for ground ball or the "routineness" of his clean hands at ground level.

*OVERHEAD MARKING:

- A major strength. Combination of big leap, excellent judgement of flight and timing, strength and balance, and strong hands makes him very reliable overhead, especially from behind. He attacks his marks and holds his ground.

*ATHLETICISM:

- On face value, he sometimes looks to lack pace - and that is his reputation. However I feel he has fairly good underlying pace and much improvement in him pace-wise:-
1. He has been afflicted by O.P. the past couple of years.
2. Due to cricket requirements, he is yet to do a proper pre-season.
3. Due to 1 and 2 he is in far from peak condition. Plenty of scope to be chiselled down and harden his body shape.
4. In '04, even with O.P. he looked at various times to have at least fairly good pace, and perhaps better pace than he has routinely displayed in '05.
I am confident his pace, once he is over O.P. and fighting fit, will be at least fine. I have maintained all along that I suspect he will be at worst a 3.05sec 20m type. At DC (SS) he not only recorded a best 20m time of 3.04 but recorded exactly that same time in each of the three 20m runs, so it is not as if he fluked pulling out a time quicker than he could normally reproduce (as happens with some kids). And he did that just a few days after playing in a GF. Kids whose team finish their season early have up to a month extra to concentrate on athletic training specifically for the tests.

Even now Hurn is a balanced runner with heaps of power in his legs. Going on '04 and the above factors, I am not even inclined to list pace among the query aspects for him, although I concede that most people would. His legs are built such that he will never be quick per se but he pace even now sits almost exactly on the average mark for his size.

- Very good leap. Given his build, you don't expect big leap. I've seen him sit on opponents' shoulders on a number of occasions.

- Offensive agility is very good. Defensive agility is good. Recovery agility at this stage is iffy but I suspect will be fine once (if?) he doesn't have to worry about groin problems.

- Generally good reflexes.

- Not surprisingly, his current endurance is probably a bit below capability, although surprisingly fairly good, given his difficulties.

*INTENSITY, ETHIC:

- Courageous. (eg Has no problem backing back into a marking contest).

- One could easily get the impression that he is sometimes not big on intensity or work-rate or accountability. There is some basis for that impression in that, for example, he doesn't always chase when he should and he has a low tackle count and he does sometimes choose to give his opponents some rein. However, I am making a lot of allowance for what he may or may not have been capable of due to groin restrictions and lack of optimum fitness base.

On various occasions I have seen him display desperation, just not quite routinely in recent times. Ditto with chasing, 2nd efforts, etc.

What can go unnoticed is his work-rate in routinely covering quite a lot of ground to push into space to offer a potential linking option. I have seen him on various occasions run hard over 40m to present an option and also run hard to block.

*CONSISTENCY:

- I think he has much more to offer than what we have seen but there isn't much wrong with what we have seen in terms of form and consistency, albeit not overwhelming in either respect. eg Played 2 games in '04 U18 Champs, averaging 17D comprised of 12K and 5H. Played 3 games in '05 U18 Champs, averaging identically to '04 (17D, 12K and 5H).

*AFL VERSATILITY:

- Probably best suited to on-ball (probably off-the-pack Predator).

- Ideally suited to Loose Man in Defence quarter-back.

- No reason why he couldn't play other roles down the flanks and even pinch-hit elsewhere depending on match-ups.

- As an indication of his U18 versatility, his U18 Champs game against VM last year saw him play HBF on the tall Travis Cloke, then wing on the speedy Bain, then HBF on Barling then CHB on the tall Dowling then BP on the short rover Jarrad Moore and he was among the best on ground in that game (21d) - as a below-age kid who couldn't start his season until a month prior to the Champs.

*CSI (COMPARATIVE SCOPE for IMPROVEMENT):

- Is an early developer so his CSI may appear, in face value, to be limited. However, he is so very underdone due to O.P. restriction and lack of pre-season preparations each year that I believe he actually has significant scope for improvement compared to many of his peers.

*QUERY:

- Ability to get groins sound and keep them sound.

- Popular opinion would suggest I should also include pace here. Hurn will never be a Judd but I am of the opinion that Hurn will ultimately play in a manner similar to Voss in his prime and with similar pace or better.

 

[Tundrawolf]

Have a read of this, it's Wisbey's profile of Shannon Hurn pre-draft (taken from the WC board). Eerily similar to what people are saying about Rich

Uncanny Pinkus. Rich could be Hurn's doppelganger (style-wise at least)