Welcome to the Bulldogs Joel Freijah

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These are the draft pick hits that Sam will be judged on... need to nail more of them.
It's Milesi's doing.

Milesi reports to Sam, but, operationally, Milesi leads the draft talent identification.
 
These are the draft pick hits that Sam will be judged on... need to nail more of them.

naw, nailing first rounders (or not) is way more significant.

Its why Scott Clayton in hindsight was a flop - he burned so many top picks on average players

Tom Williams - pick 6
Jarrod grant - pick 5
Andrej Everitt - pick 11
Christian Howard - pick 15

just miss after miss with our best picks
 
naw, nailing first rounders (or not) is way more significant.

Its why Scott Clayton in hindsight was a flop - he burned so many top picks on average players

Tom Williams - pick 6
Jarrod grant - pick 5
Andrej Everitt - pick 11
Christian Howard - pick 15

just miss after miss with our best picks
Tom Williams wasn’t a miss. When he was on the park he was A Grade and one of the only defenders who could hold down Buddy in his prime. Unfortunately his body was more broken than not 90% of the time.
 

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Tom Williams wasn’t a miss. When he was on the park he was A Grade and one of the only defenders who could hold down Buddy in his prime. Unfortunately his body was more broken than not 90% of the time.
Agree. And apart from Jordan Lewis at pick 7 there wasn’t really a lot left in that 2004 draft.

Unless you fancied the likes of Lynden Dunn (who??) Matt Rosa or Nathan van Berlo who all played around 200 games but were never top echelon. Their main claim to being a good draft pick was their serviceable longevity. Handy foot soldiers but not stars of the game.
 
naw, nailing first rounders (or not) is way more significant.

Its why Scott Clayton in hindsight was a flop - he burned so many top picks on average players

Tom Williams - pick 6
Jarrod grant - pick 5
Andrej Everitt - pick 11
Christian Howard - pick 15

just miss after miss with our best picks
Christian Howard was a Dalrymple pick. Not Clayton.
 
Christian Howard was a Dalrymple pick. Not Clayton.

right. Kind of fits - Clayton seemed to prioritise athleticism , and Howard was not that.

As for Williams, we can agree to disagree - he was an athlete first. Pretty new to footy before being drafted, which made him a huge risk to be taken so early. He eventually turned out to be serviceable when fit, but pick 6 material? Spending that kind of currency on someone with so little experience was irresponsible. Ok, it was shit draft (after Lewis), but that doesnt excuse it in hindsight. A good recruiter would have taken Lewis and hoped for Williams to drop to 2nd round at least - which he probably would have.

Anyway, the point remains - nailing the most valuable picks is how we need to judge our recruiters
 
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right. Kind of fits - Clayton seemed to prioritise athleticism , and Howard was not that.

As for Williams, we can agree to disagree - he was an athlete first. Pretty new to footy before being drafted, which made him a huge risk to be taken so early. He eventually turned out to be serviceable when fit, but pick 6 material? Spending that kind of currency on someone with so little experience was irresponsible. Ok, it was shit draft (after Lewis), but that doesnt excuse it in hindsight. A good recruiter would have taken Lewis and hoped for Williams to drop to 2nd round at least - which he probably would have.

Anyway, the point remains - nailing the most valuable picks is how we need to judge our recruiters
You can't "hope" that who you sincerely think is the best talent at the time would last, especially if you legimatley think he'd be better than lewis.

Only three players (Lewis, Monfries, Lydenn Dunn) in the top 25 or so had meaninfully better careers than him. Even players that had worse or equal better careers than him did so with better injury luck than Williams.

Of course it looks bad with Jordan Lewis next pick but surely in terms of identifying the best football talent at the time, given the lack of other talent that was considered top 20-25 worhty, the fact that Williams was identified ahead of them can actually be considered right?
 
You can't "hope" that who you sincerely think is the best talent at the time would last, especially if you legimatley think he'd be better than lewis.

Only three players (Lewis, Monfries, Lydenn Dunn) in the top 25 or so had meaninfully better careers than him. Even players that had worse or equal better careers than him did so with better injury luck than Williams.

Of course it looks bad with Jordan Lewis next pick but surely in terms of identifying the best football talent at the time, given the lack of other talent that was considered top 20-25 worhty, the fact that Williams was identified ahead of them can actually be considered right?

Williams had about 20 games of footy in the bank when he went into the draft. There was hardly any form to 'identify' other than his athletic profile. Total roll of the dice by clayton to spend pick 6 on him. Pick 6 is a great pick. It gave us access to Lewis for instnace. (admittedly the ohantoms had him anywhere from 7 to 20)
 
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I think we're all forgetting the vitally important point that picking Williams allowed us to not have the uberflog that is Jordan Lewis at our football club.

Clayton was doing us all a favour, for the greater good.
 
I think we're all forgetting the vitally important point that picking Williams allowed us to not have the uberflog that is Jordan Lewis at our football club.

Clayton was doing us all a favour, for the greater good.
Uberflog yes. But he would have been OUR uberflog.

There have been a few exceptions (eg Aker, Stringer) but in general we're a pretty forgiving lot when a player wears the RW&B and can footy a bit. If Lewis had played 300 games for us I reckon he'd be a club legend.

An uncomfortable truth.
 
Has a very hard edge, deceptively quicker than he looks, creates space and time with good skills.

He has all of the attributes of an inside/outside mid. He can win his own ball or can receive it.

When out of the mid rotation he has flexibility to play high back, forward, or wing.

From day 1 of pre season we should be developing him this way.

On SM-S926B using BigFooty.com mobile app
 
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🤔 Do we ask JF to restore some dignity to the recently vacated No 6 guernsey?
I certainly am a fan of him and like the cut of his jib. Another strong year and I can see him as a potential big bodied mid.
Having 27 though isn’t the worst though as Super had that.

I think Ed should get the option first.


Oh and Rockets favourite 😉
 
Even Jordan Lewis took a long time to come on. He never would have moved the needle for us in those prelim years.

If Tom Williams body was up to it he could’ve been a very good defender or forward. He had a really good patch in 08.

The 06 pick of Everett and 07 pick of Grant were the ones that really hurt. The draft wasn’t very well covered back then so I’m guessing we picked both as key forwards? And they were both inbetweeners. Really poor decision not to go best available with the first picks.

St kilda bidding on Cordy in 08 hurt aswell.

In hindsight we should’ve traded for needs and paid a higher price for a sure thing.

Pies won a flag from paying a first round pick for Ben Jolly, everyone thought that was way overs at the time.
 
Even Jordan Lewis took a long time to come on. He never would have moved the needle for us in those prelim years.

If Tom Williams body was up to it he could’ve been a very good defender or forward. He had a really good patch in 08.

The 06 pick of Everett and 07 pick of Grant were the ones that really hurt. The draft wasn’t very well covered back then so I’m guessing we picked both as key forwards? And they were both inbetweeners. Really poor decision not to go best available with the first picks.

St kilda bidding on Cordy in 08 hurt aswell.

In hindsight we should’ve traded for needs and paid a higher price for a sure thing.

Pies won a flag from paying a first round pick for Ben Jolly, everyone thought that was way overs at the time.
Darren Jolly
 
Even Jordan Lewis took a long time to come on. He never would have moved the needle for us in those prelim years.

If Tom Williams body was up to it he could’ve been a very good defender or forward. He had a really good patch in 08.

The 06 pick of Everett and 07 pick of Grant were the ones that really hurt. The draft wasn’t very well covered back then so I’m guessing we picked both as key forwards? And they were both inbetweeners. Really poor decision not to go best available with the first picks.

St kilda bidding on Cordy in 08 hurt aswell.

In hindsight we should’ve traded for needs and paid a higher price for a sure thing.

Pies won a flag from paying a first round pick for Ben Jolly, everyone thought that was way overs at the time.

I remember when Everett was drafted I was hoping we would draft Jack Riewoldt, based purely on him being Nick's cousin (so not insightful) and wanting a potential key forward. My less than scientific choice of who we should have drafted has aged well in hindsight.
 
The 06 pick of Everett and 07 pick of Grant were the ones that really hurt. The draft wasn’t very well covered back then so I’m guessing we picked both as key forwards? And they were both inbetweeners. Really poor decision not to go best available with the first picks.

St kilda bidding on Cordy in 08 hurt aswell.
I desperately wanted us to get involved in the Chris Judd trade in 07. West Coast wanted two top picks for Judd. Carlton had 1 & 3 and refused to include 1 (Kruezer). Josh Kennedy had no great desire to move to Perth (he was from Geraldton, not Perth), I really wanted to trade 5 for Kennedy, giving Carlton the picks they needed for Judd. It wasn't that I was a great recuiter, I just thought that we desperately need a key forward and there weren't any in that draft.

The following year I wanted Cordy to stick with Basketball for another year. His shoulder was already injured, he couldn't play anyway. If he had waited another year we would have had Wallis, Liberatore and Cordy all in the same year and the rules were that you had to use your next pick. We would have got Cordy for a pick in the 50's!
 
I desperately wanted us to get involved in the Chris Judd trade in 07. West Coast wanted two top picks for Judd. Carlton had 1 & 3 and refused to include 1 (Kruezer). Josh Kennedy had no great desire to move to Perth (he was from Geraldton, not Perth), I really wanted to trade 5 for Kennedy, giving Carlton the picks they needed for Judd. It wasn't that I was a great recuiter, I just thought that we desperately need a key forward and there weren't any in that draft.

The following year I wanted Cordy to stick with Basketball for another year. His shoulder was already injured, he couldn't play anyway. If he had waited another year we would have had Wallis, Liberatore and Cordy all in the same year and the rules were that you had to use your next pick. We would have got Cordy for a pick in the 50's!
You're hired!
 
I guess while Ace didn’t quite work out, we have been very lucky with the calibre of our father sons. Luke Darcy, Sam Darcy, Libba, Wallis, Z Cordy, and hopefully Crofty will be another one along with Cooney.
 
Don't forget Tim Walsh, pick 4 another Clayton special. Clayton just couldn't draft tall for some reason.

Anyone with any football knowledge knows that Freijah is the brightest star on the current crop of young guys on the list. Has all the tools in the modern game to be a great player and potential take on on ball group a little further.
 

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Welcome to the Bulldogs Joel Freijah

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