VFL Rnd 14 - Carlton v Richmond Sun June 30 12.00pm @ Swinburne Centre

[Crippa#9]

No one doubts his ability. The key will be consistency and does he have the competitiveness to go to the next level

This is the question.

Raw ability is there but does he have enough killer in him. It was always the issue with a player like Josh Schache.

 

[I bleed Blue]

Fwiw these are the guys that could be running around as solid depth and would've given Austin more cushion if even 30-50% of them had worked out.

Sps, macreadie, Polson, Kerr, Lebois, Gallucci, JGM, Korchek, O'Brien, Schumacher, garlett, O'Shea, Shaw, Finbar, BenSos, Goddard, Bugg, Deluca, Gibbons, Philp, ramsey, honey, Moore, Phillips

I bet people dont even remember SOS drafted some of these guys. But his hit rate for mids and smalls was abysmal. This is one hell of a list of guys that Austin should have atleast 5 or so of these guys still.

Add Dow and Stocker to that list.

SPS, Dow, Stocker, LOB, Philp

3 top 10 picks plus 2 top 20 picks.

 

[teddy-hopkins]

I am loving Austin's ability to bring in quality players with later / rookie picks.

No problem comparing to SOS who had a very patchy record .... but it's just not apples to apples. SOS was looking for young roughies with high numbers of late picks. Austin can be a lot more surgical taking only 2 or 3 players in the draft.

And it is way easier to bring very young players into a successful team. Very cut-throat for those youngsters when the club is struggling.

All that said I still think Austin has done extremely well and out-performed SOS on the later picks.

 

[BigFrizz36]

Interesting with Fantasia. He has been slowly building as he has gotten a bit fitter. Looked very much like the Auskick kid running round with senior team. His third goal yesterday was from right on the 50. Early on this season he couldn't kick 45 - not even close. That might be the story of his improvement in that his body is starting to let him do the things he used to be able to do.

 

[Jimmae]

SOS was way too by-the-numbers with later picks, kept trying to pick bust proof players with no real elite skills or retreads. Couple that with some speculative moves involving significant injury histories that other clubs baulked at, and you've got a recipe for blowing up your list profile, which happened.

Moving back over to the VFL, hard to expect much from players returning from injury, first gamers and 1st/2nd year players, especially when all the pre-game planning gets torn to bits.

I'm not as confident in carrol as others are. Was for quite a while but seems to be more Nick Graham than I'd have liked.

The ability to physically impose himself consistently through a game/season is now a big problem, and it may quickly become a problem for Binns and Lemmey too.