Rating The Draft 2018

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

To be fair you can’t really rate a draft until they have played a couple of years at least . We should be rating the 2015 draft now .
We are speculating to rate a draft the next day.

No, not really. With live trading current and future picks, plus father/son and NGA bids and working out how to exploit the rules to advantage there's a hell of a lot of strategic decisions to be made in real time. What we did at the draft with pick swapping was easily rateable, and we were excellent. Getting West for pick 34 and Khamis as a Cat B rookie was Aldo excellent, especially how we structured in real time around them. How the players develop is another question, which I think is your point, and it's a fair one. But the way the draft is now, we can rate how our team did. Our team was outstanding.

[Sedat]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Interesting looking back at the Stringer trade 12 months prior, and there was much gnashing of teeth when we threw in the future 2nd round pick to Carlton in order to get that extra 1st round pick last year (which got us Ed Richards). Carlton ended up trading that pick away as part of their trade week shenanigans this year. In the end, Stringer helped us nab both Richards and Schache, and the future 2nd rounder we gave up was replaced by Dahl compo which we used on West and gained a future 3rd rounder next year. So the net result was effectively Stringer and Dahl for Richards, Schache, West and a future 3rd rounder. Looks pretty good now.

[hujsh]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

To be fair you can’t really rate a draft until they have played a couple of years at least . We should be rating the 2015 draft now .
We are speculating to rate a draft the next day.

In some ways that's true. In other ways there are a lot of captain hindsights who come out in a couple of years time. You can still make assessments based on the information available and in some ways I think that's more fair for judging a draft than looking at it from the future.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Looking at the years of our draftees:

Smith, U/18 All Australian
West, U/18 All Australian
Vanders, U/18 Vic Country
Cavarra, 2018 VFL Team of the Year
Hayes, 2018 VFL Team of the Year

Khamis, U/18 All Australian
Young, played VFL and was Stingrays Premiership Player 2018
Sweet, SANFL Premiership Player 2018


This by no means indicates their ultimate success, but the club should really pump up their headline achievements. Their collective achievements to the casual observing member would sound pretty exciting.

[Twodogs]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

No, not really. With live trading current and future picks, plus father/son and NGA bids and working out how to exploit the rules to advantage there's a hell of a lot of strategic decisions to be made in real time. What we did at the draft with pick swapping was easily rateable, and we were excellent. Getting West for pick 34 and Khamis as a Cat B rookie was Aldo excellent, especially how we structured in real time around them. How the players develop is another question, which I think is your point, and it's a fair one. But the way the draft is now, we can rate how our team did. Our team was outstanding.

Good old Aldo. He was great.

I liked it when he carved the swastika in that bloke's forehead.

[boydogs]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

So I think most of us would have thought a key forward/ruckman might have been a good selection for us and probably a key defender and a small forward

Sweet, Khamis, Cavarra?

So we landed Smith and West which will address our midfield talent and depth, we then landed a pacy mid sized defender in Vandermeer which was a bit of a surprise to me to have him selected so early particularly in a spot we have some depth in, then it was Ben Cavarra who might have also been selected a bit earlier than ideal and we finished off the night by adding Will Hayes to the senior list when maybe a rookie spot might have been a better option.

Hard to say whether players were taken early, you don't know if someone else would have picked them up in you left them until later

We also traded some picks which indicated we were working off a pre determined list of players

The first pick trade was to upgrade 57 to 41 for a downgrade of 30 to 34 that didn't matter to us as we were using it on West

The second one seemed like keeping the value in the pick given Khamis wasn't selected earlier

Don't see how either could indicate we were working to a player list

[kruder]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Its an interesting one if self driven motivated players who had to work so called harder than others was the secret formula then we would have won more then two premierships. I think its been a little overkill on this, sure we needed a change and its nice for the supporters to hear stories like Cavarra and Hayes( really hope they both succeed) but when it comes down to it no matter how hard you have worked sometimes your just not AFL standard. It's reality.

Smith West and Khamis I'm really bullish on and If they become best 22 players then I think we have have had a win. The remainder apparently they are hard working fingers crossed it's the right ingredient....

[Bornadog]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Its an interesting one if self driven motivated players who had to work so called harder than others was the secret formula then we would have won more then two premierships. I think its been a little overkill on this, sure we needed a change and its nice for the supporters to hear stories like Cavarra and Hayes( really hope they both succeed) but when it comes down to it no matter how hard you have worked sometimes your just not AFL standard. It's reality.

Smith West and Khamis I'm really bullish on and If they become best 22 players then I think we have have had a win. The remainder apparently they are hard working fingers crossed it's the right ingredient....

You also need your soldiers and that is what the others are. Smith and West I expect to become your A graders, and if one of the other recruits reach those heights, then it is a bonus.

[The Adelaide Connection]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

I think a lot of us who follow the junior players prior to the draft might have been a touch underwhelmed by some of our selections.
We look at the list, identify the gaps and then look for players that might be available around our selections

So I think most of us would have thought a key forward/ruckman might have been a good selection for us and probably a key defender and a small forward plus of course knowing we had Smith and West right in the mix with early selections to address some midfield quality and depth.

We had these on the wish list because Redpath, Roughead and Campbell were gone from a key forward and ruckman perspective, we lost Dahlhaus as a midfielder and small forward and we lost Adams and Collins as key defenders. I think we were also a couple of genuine midfielders light this year as well.
Having picked up Lloyd and Duryea it sort of offset the loss of Clay Smith and Biggs but we still had some gaps to address

The club seems to have placed a premium on players with great attitudes this year which is of course always important but we probably found it even more necessary this year after a couple of lean seasons with a few distracted players.

So we landed Smith and West which will address our midfield talent and depth, we then landed a pacy mid sized defender in Vandermeer which was a bit of a surprise to me to have him selected so early particularly in a spot we have some depth in, then it was Ben Cavarra who might have also been selected a bit earlier than ideal and we finished off the night by adding Will Hayes to the senior list when maybe a rookie spot might have been a better option.

Please don't take that as a knock on the players or the clubs approach but we did pass up some talented players to grab the guys we did.

We also traded some picks which indicated we were working off a pre determined list of players.

With Fremantle we traded picks 30 and 57 and received picks 34 and and 41 which looks decent on paper but I think in the process we overlooked a few players that might have addressed some gaps in the playing list

Pick 30 became pick 32 and Fremantle nabbed Luke Valente with it who is highly regarded for his leadership and can play a few positions.
The pick 34 we received from Fremantle became pick 37 and we used that on Vandermeer. In between those picks Briggs a ruckman, Williams a forward/ruckman and Berry who I think we were interested in were selected by other clubs
Briggs would probably have been matched by GWS and maybe we didn't rate Williams but either one of them would have addressed gaps in the list. There was also the likes of Bytel, Taylor, McFadyen, Koschitzke and Woodcock available.

After selecting both Vandermeer (37) and Cavarra (45) we traded pick 46 to North for a pick in the 3rd round next year which is a sign that best available was not our focus and we intended on using our last pick on Hayes. North promptly used that on Curtis Taylor.

We can't knock the players we selected and all of them come to us with first rate attitudes and I'm confident they will be fully focused but I think the notion of addressing gaps in the playing list was superseded somewhat by the need to get players with very specific traits and attitude.

I think we did well and it's now up to the club to develop the players to be their best.

A well-balanced response and can I also say that I have loved reading your posts and that of others who have seen a lot of the players over the last few years.

I don't think a true opinion can be formed until the dust has settled on almost all of the class of 2018's careers. But I think, like you, we passed over some excellent players that would have really ticked the boxes for our needs in favour of a few lesser known (at least to us) quantities.

It should be noted that I am way less learned than the folk in the think tank and that actually get paid to do the decision making, but after a few days to reflect these are my lingering thoughts:

Positives:
1, Getting Khamis as a category B rookie was highway robbery and we should be doing backflips
2, All of the draftees look exciting in their own right. Vandemeer is certainly the one on the senior list that made me fall off my chair when his name was called (on account of the players available and having never heard of him) but his highlights are impressive and he could have the Ed Richards about him.
3, West and Smith look like jets
4, Banking a pick for next year and orchestrating a switcheroo to upgrade a late pick for free was excellent and the pick could be a very good player/some much needed points for father/sons
5, Cavarra has the attributes and senior footy on the board to be our version of Puopolo. He is also a great story and sounds like a solid bloke.

Question marks:
1, Why didn't we shift Webb to the rookie list? The bloke is a long way off playing at best and surely the AFL would have allowed it. Not only that, we now have a vacancy on our rookie list. This would mean that we could have A) taken a player at 46 (Curtis Taylor? Koschitzke? Noah Answerth?) or B) Taken a player at 71 (Boyd Woodcock?) and still been able to hang on to one pick as insurance for a Khamis bid.

2, We will never know but it seems like we tried but couldn't get the job done on an early pick swap that would have, from all reports, still netted us Smith but pulled GWS's 19 that ended up being O'Hallaran (a bulldog supporting kid we were well and truly into).

3, Why haven't we taken our full quota of rookies? Are we still checking some out that can be added as part of the new rules? Could Lochie Dawson or Josh Chatfield (NGA's) be in the mix? Another ruck prospect?

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

In short:

1. There’s no guarantee the afel would’ve let Webb move over. Far from it. The extra rookie spot doesn’t impact our main list draft picks.
2. Probably 50+ trade hypotheticals didnt eventuate. This is just one.
3. We may be assessing another Cat A rookie currently, I’d say we are. Dawson & Chatfield would be Cat B rookies in any event still leaving a Cat A opening.

[The Adelaide Connection]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

In short:

1. There’s no guarantee the afel would’ve let Webb move over. Far from it. The extra rookie spot doesn’t impact our main list draft picks.
2. Probably 50+ trade hypotheticals didnt eventuate. This is just one.
3. We may be assessing another Cat A rookie currently, I’d say we are. Dawson & Chatfield would be Cat B rookies in any event still leaving a Cat A opening.

Maybe not, but I think we should have had a crack. The serious nature of the injury might have been enough to get it done and I am no doctor but i would be staggered if he was able to receive any contact whatsoever in the next 12 months.

On point 2, rumour has it GWS got wind that the Crows weren't after Caldwell and pulled out of the proposed pick switch at the last minute. Those A holes seem to really enjoy sinking the boot in to us (see Wood suspension) and it would not surprise me if they were overt in telling GWS to screw up our trade. My theory is there is still bad blood from Taliagate.

[bulldogtragic]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Maybe not, but I think we should have had a crack. The serious nature of the injury might have been enough to get it done and I am no doctor but i would be staggered if he was able to receive any contact whatsoever in the next 12 months.

On point 2, rumour has it GWS got wind that the Crows weren't after Caldwell and pulled out of the proposed pick switch at the last minute. Those A holes seem to really enjoy sinking the boot in to us (see Wood suspension) and it would not surprise me if they were overt in telling GWS to screw up our trade. My theory is their is still bad blood from Taliagate.

GWS & Adelaide can get stuffed! I think we can all agree.

On Webby, I’d hate if the test was 12 months out to obtain special dispensation. Every ACL could achieve it. Webby will be put on the LTI and we can upgrade Buku into that spot if we want to. So we kind of have what we want in any event, just in different terms.

[Missing Dog]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Maybe not, but I think we should have had a crack. The serious nature of the injury might have been enough to get it done and I am no doctor but i would be staggered if he was able to receive any contact whatsoever in the next 12 months.

On point 2, rumour has it GWS got wind that the Crows weren't after Caldwell and pulled out of the proposed pick switch at the last minute. Those A holes seem to really enjoy sinking the boot in to us (see Wood suspension) and it would not surprise me if they were overt in telling GWS to screw up our trade. My theory is there is still bad blood from Taliagate.

I don't mean to screw up your theory because I can't stand either of those clubs. But Emma Quayle is employed at GWS, she has some the best sources in the business. This is where someone like this is worth their weight in gold.

I'm happy with what we did. If we traded with GWS there was a chance we missed out on both Smith/Caldwell and I wasn't as happy with the other options if we did that. My only disappointment was that we couldn't secure an X-factor forward through the trade or draft period.

[The Doctor]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Chris D rated the draft.

We got an A+ from him. He rated Smith(3) and West(12) highly. He mentioned Buku as Cat.B rookie in his post.

He also gave Essendon an A for picking up Mosquito (who Hawthorn wouldn't match with only a mid range pick), Gown and Hams. With Jok & Dea (re listed as a rookie). I doubt any club recruiter would give them more than a C. Time will tell

[Mofra]

Re: Rating The Draft 2018

Thanks for the insights G. Re: the first trade, we were never going to use 30 (our original Dahlhaus pick 27) anyway as it was going to be spent on West so there is no point looking at the players in that range unless you would have preferred them to Rhylee.

As far as i can tell, we basically traded 30 and 57 for 34 and 41, maintaining our original 32 which by that point was 35. The new pick from Freo (34) was used to get West. This left us with our original 32 (which became 37) and a 16 spot upgrade from 57 to 41 which allowed us to get Cavarra.

If we hadn't made the trade, we would have used 30 on West, 37 on Vandermeer and fingers crossed for Cavarra at 56. We just increased our chances at getting Cavarra for no loss.

In effect, it gave us a third rounder for next year as well as we swapped our second one out to North.

We now have three 3rd rounders next year which can be a useful draft haul to trade up considering North and the Swans traded their early picks down to gain points surpluses for academy selections.
That of course depends on whether any of our four FS picks are draftable and if any of them improve to be an earlier selection (as it stands, none of them seem rated in the top 30).

The year after if I'm not mistaken we may well have two very very highly rated kids so we might try and snare an extra 2020 draft pick or two - McPherson's kid (190cm mid who captained metro u16s) and Jarrad Ugle-Hagen as an NGA prospect who could be a freak. 193-195cm as a 16 year old, probably end up as a boarder at Scotch on an athletic scholarship.