How important is the next draft?

[GVGjr]

With the 2 new teams slated to come in soon and potentially gobble up a number of early draft selections is it fair to say that this years drafts shapes as an important one for all sides especially us?

You really wouldn't want to be in Essensdons or Melbournes position of trying to rebuild via the draft over the next few years.

There are some very exciting players available this year and it perhaps more than most years we need to get every selection right.

Thoughts?

[dog town]

Just throwing it up for discussion but can a case be made for going the other way? Cashing in on the massive demand for draft picks this season and picking up ready made players. It would be a big gamble but if you were ever going to rip sides off and really boost your list then this would be the year. I suppose its a matter of weighing up how close we are to a flag and whether it would help us get closer. Food for thought though.

[LostDoggy]

Drafting is important every year. Bad luck with Ayce COrdy hurting his shoulder and missing the rest of the year at the Falcons, but it might mean we can pick him up with a second rounder.

[LostDoggy]

Just throwing it up for discussion but can a case be made for going the other way? Cashing in on the massive demand for draft picks this season and picking up ready made players. It would be a big gamble but if you were ever going to rip sides off and really boost your list then this would be the year. I suppose its a matter of weighing up how close we are to a flag and whether it would help us get closer. Food for thought though.


Never ever give away draft picks for ready made players. Doesnt matter how close you are to a flag, six teenagers every year is the only way to go.

[GetDimmaBack]

Fair point, Dog Town.
However, dunno that I want to go past Ayce Cordy - sounds like he's the goods.

Other than that, we seem to have a lot of good kids at the moment and it could be handy to pick up a couple of ready made depth players, especially defenders.
Anyone in mind?

[LostDoggy]

Fair point, Dog Town.
However, dunno that I want to go past Ayce Cordy - sounds like he's the goods.

Other than that, we seem to have a lot of good kids at the moment and it could be handy to pick up a couple of ready made depth players, especially defenders.
Anyone in mind?

Depth players?? Why would we want depth players. Stkilda has depth players, Freo has depth players, thats why they are no good. We want to win premierships, thats why we recruit kids.

Plus we have depth players in the back. Lets be honest, Addison, Callan, Wight, Williams, Hargraves arnt superstars

[Bumper Bulldogs]

Just throwing it up for discussion but can a case be made for going the other way? Cashing in on the massive demand for draft picks this season and picking up ready made players. It would be a big gamble but if you were ever going to rip sides off and really boost your list then this would be the year. I suppose its a matter of weighing up how close we are to a flag and whether it would help us get closer. Food for thought though.

Good point however Lets go for young guns this year and the next two years after that we could trade some experienced players for draft picks as they would require a few senior guys to complment their early draft picks. eg Mitch Hahn a QLD boy.

[hujsh]

With Ayce we should be set. Should we be able to maintain our players fitness form and their contracts we should be a strong team for a while when these teams are pillaging the draft.

[bold-dogg]

Don't agree at all, DogTown, in a strong draft, the very best footballers coming through, we'd want to be in it.
But it might put us in a spot of bother at the end of the season.
The recruiting dept. might press for 5 picks.
Last years draftees are on 2-year contracts, I think. But I can't think of 5 players out of our first 35 that we can easily dispense with.
If West is fit he shouldn't retire.
Of McDougall, Skipper and Street, a case could be made that they are necessary KP back-ups. Two of these will prob. have to go for draft picks. Who else could go? Maybe Wight, maybe Eagle, but that would be a loss.
A couple of injuries and we could be using the same ruck as in '06, with Hargrave at CHB.
Would hate to lose Ray in a trade. Has special skills and could be anything.
Eade's already pruned the list right back. It's pretty good at the moment and improving, but we'd still want to use our first two draft picks.
I see the AFL is considering changing the rule that you must delist at least 3 players each year.

[Sedat]

You'd imagine we'll have our first pick somewhere between 11-16, which might potentially be required to get Cordy. That leaves us with our first live pick at around 28-33 (or 30-35 depending on how many clubs are eligible for PP's at the start of the 2nd round). We look like being a fringe player in this year's ND unless we trade away some genuine talent to get closer to the pointy end of the draft. With Freo likely to finish bottom 4, and their drastic need to add pace to their midfield, Ray would become an attractive home-grown proposition for the Dockers to consider. Having said that, Harvey will be lynched if Freo trade away yet another top 20 pick. But they look like they could lose Mundy, who would command a top 20 pick, so they could still eye off some sort of deal for a player that ticks the requsite boxes like Ray does and keep a relatively similar draft position.

FWIW, I think there is a good spread of young talent already on our list, so I would be loathe to prune the list too aggressively. If we keep identifying quality youngsters that fill a hole on our list, I'd like to improve via the draft this season - we did some deft trading for quality senior players in the last 2 drafts that have helped fill a void but unless there are Hudson and Aker like bargains in abundance during trade week, I'd like to see more quality youth brought to the list.

[Dry Rot]

FWIW, I think there is a good spread of young talent already on our list, so I would be loathe to prune the list too aggressively.

Any Willi watchers want to comment on our young potential forward KPPs? Do we have any Westoffs or Tippetts in the wings?

[The Bulldogs Bite]

I think we need to draft more quality young kids this year, rather than trade for established players - unless of course they're exactly what we need, and would benefit the side significantly. At the moment we have a nice crop of young players coming through. Everitt, Harbrow, Hill & Stack are or have showed good signs at different stages and hopefully they can continue to improve. They need to take some bigger steps in '09, but it looks promising. Grant is hard to judge and won't be ready for 3-4 years, but Ward looks a beauty. O'Keefe has done well at Willy too, whilst the rest are still playing reserves. The point is, I think we really need another solid draft to consolidate our squad for the next 6 years. If we're able to pick up another 3 quality players from this year's draft we'll be placed very well. It's important to get it right, particularly with the new teams coming in, and it's undoubtedly the most important draft in arguably the history of the football club. We need to aim for sustained success; this CAN be achieved.

Hawks have almost guaranteed they'll be a quality unit for 4+ years. Geelong are likely to be there abouts too. Over the last few years we've picked up Aker, Hudson, Callan, McDougall & Welsh - that's more than enough. So far we've had wins with Aker/Hudson/Callan/Welsh, but it's not a path I'd like to see us keep taking. We're still not strong in KPP stocks, including our rucks - so personally I would like Clayton to address this again. Everitt/Williams/Grant have been taken in recent years and have good raps about them although nothing's certain yet, but we need to follow that up again this year.

It's going to be extremely important to get the mix right; eg. Do we pick the best available, or do we pick for our needs? Our forward line still requires a genuine FF/CHF and although Grant was recruited last year, I'm sure the club would be keen to add to that. With West/Aker/Eagleton nearing retirement, a case can be made for needing another gun midfielder. Additionally, our backline still leaks - should we address this?

So IMO the question is not what method we should take - that's the obvious one for mine, unless a star becomes available - but whether we draft for needs (Hawks have had success with this) or best available. Realistically this isn't a question that can be answered until the crop and time of day is known. If a very good midfielder slips down the ranking and is too good too pass on, how could we? It's easy to say 'no, we need to draft the best KPF' which is all very well, but we can't afford to miss out on a gun mid for example. So I suppose all we can do is speculate for now, and wait. In the perfect world we'd capture a gun FF/CHF, but it's likely not to be that clear cut, and so weighing up the difference between a gun mid and a solid KPP with respect to our needs is a decision that's going to be very difficult, and one for only one man to make.

[wimberga]

Say we traded our first pick for a player, and our first pick then becomed say pick 35. does that mean if someone nominated cordy with pick 5 we could still get him with what is "our" first pick but essentially our second?

[The Coon Dog]

Say we traded our first pick for a player, and our first pick then becomed say pick 35. does that mean if someone nominated cordy with pick 5 we could still get him with what is "our" first pick but essentially our second?


No, the bidding for father/son takes places immediately prior to trade week.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Will Mitch Wallis and Tom Liberatore be eligible to be drafted the same year GC17 start getting draft concessions?

[Go_Dogs]

There are some very exciting players available this year and it perhaps more than most years we need to get every selection right.

Thoughts?

Whilst I do tend to agree that it will be an important draft, possibly the most important over the next 5 years as during those years no doubt the concessions will see a lot of the young talent shipped out to the Gold Coast and West Sydney before we can get a look at it.

However...

I'm pretty comfortable with the youngsters (and amount of youngsters) we have picked up over the past 2 drafts. Lot's of players who are going to be important over the next 10 years, just to name a few, Everitt, Hill, Harbrow, Stack, Grant, Ward, O'Keefe etc. It's a good bunch of kids, and combined with the likes of O'Shea, Reid, Wood, Lynch and Boumann who could also make it, we have pretty much one of the largest groups of 1st and 2nd year players in the league.

I'm pretty content to just take the required number of kids this year (3) and make sure we turn over our rookie list if that looks like the right thing to do. No point loading up completely with kids as I think it will be detrimental to our short term future, and I don't feel that loading up with say 5+ kids in the draft will guarantee any longer term success.

I'm firmly in the 'list is looking good' category, don't make any drastic changes.

[hujsh]

Will Mitch Wallis and Tom Liberatore be eligible to be drafted the same year GC17 start getting draft concessions?

Pretty sure Libba's in U-16's this year. Don't know when they get the concessions though

(wouldn't it be nice to have some father son's in those years)

[Desipura]

If the Father son eligibility is decreased to 50 games next yr, we will have access to Joseph Groenewegen.

[Sockeye Salmon]

If the Father son eligibility is decreased to 50 games next yr, we will have access to Joseph Groenewegen.

We would if we consider him good enough. Alby Smedts son is playing for Ballarat U16's as well but I don't know how good he is either.

[The Coon Dog]

If the Father son eligibility is decreased to 50 games next yr, we will have access to Joseph Groenewegen.

No, it will be the following year if any changes come in.

[LostDoggy]

We would if we consider him good enough. Alby Smedts son is playing for Ballarat U16's as well but I don't know how good he is either.

How many did Alby play? This is his second son?

Can we draft Ben Reid now?

[Rocket Science]

Smedts laced them up 51 times for the Scrays, making his son a goer if the FS rules are relaxed on the proviso the kid looks the goods.

[dog town]

Good point however Lets go for young guns this year and the next two years after that we could trade some experienced players for draft picks as they would require a few senior guys to complment their early draft picks. eg Mitch Hahn a QLD boy.
I was only throwing it up for discussion. I have no real opinion as to which way we should go at this stage. Plenty of evidence to support a case for either way. Pretty much every premiership team I can think of has had a good sprinkling of recycled and traded players.

I think the best available method is a pretty good bet at this stage of our development if we choose to stick with drafting as many kids as we can. The game is in such a constant state of evolution that it is pretty much impossible to tell what will be important 5 years down the track. Best bet is to keep adding talented kids and back yourself in to develop them. Needs just come into it when its a close call. Thats when you can start having a look at what you need etc.

In my view last years draft appears to be one of our better efforts since Clayton's first draft with most of the kids showing something already. Very early to make that call but from the small snippets I have seen and from what I am told it appears we did pretty well.