Overall, I say he's done a fairly good job. He looks to have named most of the players we identified as Top 10 inside his Top 20 or so.
Overall, I say he's done a fairly good job. He looks to have named most of the players we identified as Top 10 inside his Top 20 or so.
This is probably one of his better efforts - very difficult task.
Personally I think both Kerr & Judd are a little high, and I'd prefer Jolly & Tippett were bumped a little higher. Shame Josh Kennedy (WCE version) wasn't included, I rate him highly.
I'd expect the end of year version to be substantially different - Cyril will be out altogether (how much mileage on one good year in 2008?) with Hall & Goddard to climb a few spots.
Western Bulldogs: 2016 Premiers
Agreed that it's a tough list to compile, but sometimes Mike's just not very logical -- how does Brendan Fevola fall from no.6 in last year's pre-season top 50 to mid-30s, and how did Franklin go from the mid 40s at the end of the season top 50 to no. 3 in the pre-season top 50, jumping a whole 44 spots in three months without playing a single official game? And how did Paddy Ryder go from nowhere into the top 50 based on a handful of games before injury (and if he's better than Murph and Sewell -- who is way too low -- I'll eat my hat). Is the post-season top 50 based on revealed 2009 performance, and the pre-season top 50 based on predictions of 2010 performance? It's very confusing and he doesn't provide clear criteria for his selections.
Also, if Selwood is better than Coons and Hayes (and Bartel and Pavlich and Goodes and Hodge), I'm not watching the same game as Mike. He's a media darling, Joel is, just like Rioli.. his one touch equals two in their eyes. Waaay over-rated. Joel Selwood is at best between 23 and 30, about where Mike's placed Boydy, Steve Johnson, Simon Black, Sam Mitchell, Brent Harvey, those types of guys, who do exactly the same quality of job as Selwood does week in week out, and have done so for a lot longer than he has. He's an elite young player, not the 3rd best midfielder in the comp.
I'm not sure about top 50, but I agree with you Mofra. I like Kennedy a lot.
FWIW Mike annoys me a bit with his ubiquitousness (I don't know if that's spelled right and I'm too lazy to check), but I like that he stands by his selections and always responds with "well, that's my opinion" or words to that effect. I'm always interested to read his top 50.
"It's over. It's all over."
Tough audience.
Not really. It just shows that Franklin failed to meet expectations last year.
Coming into 2009 he was the dominant premiership key forward who had kicked over 100 goals for the year. Of course he was going to be rated in that top echelon. His season was underwhelming however, so his ranking got pushed behind all the players that had better seasons. And now Sheahan obviously expects him to regain that dominant 2008 form this season. This is just a prediction of his end of year ranking. Really this is just an expectation on where he will be at 6 months from now, not currently.