2024 Draft Watch

[Mofra]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

Cody Angove in the frame for a later pick?
Tiny, but quick and can play as that genuine HF who can hit the scoreboard

[Mofra]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

Ollie Hannaford seems like a value pick late int he draft.
180cm forward, just kicked 5 last weekend but doesn't seem to be on too many club radars. Seems quick out of contests and just seems to find a way to stay involved. I think he started the year pretty slowly though

[Countrydog5]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1195410/cal-twomeys-phantom-form-guide-top-draft-prospects-august-ranking

From a very surface level watch of some footage, I think Xavier Lindsay or Harry Oliver would suit us really well around our 1st / 2nd picks. Lindsay especially seems to have something special about him that suits the modern game with his precision kicking and offensive mindset. Would partner Sanders beautifully long term. Oliver is a tough one to gauge his range, but I think i'd be comfortable moving up a few spots to grab him if we didn't think he'd reach our 2nd rounder. He's just got that competitive nature about him, would be an ideal Doc replacement and is a neat kick.


Very perplexed with who'll we take this year, but after picking Freijah out of the rough last year I fully back our team to snag us a player that suits our team needs well.

[Mofra]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1195410/...august-ranking

From a very surface level watch of some footage, I think Xavier Lindsay or Harry Oliver would suit us really well around our 1st / 2nd picks. Lindsay especially seems to have something special about him that suits the modern game with his precision kicking and offensive mindset. Would partner Sanders beautifully long term. Oliver is a tough one to gauge his range, but I think i'd be comfortable moving up a few spots to grab him if we didn't think he'd reach our 2nd rounder. He's just got that competitive nature about him, would be an ideal Doc replacement and is a neat kick.


Very perplexed with who'll we take this year, but after picking Freijah out of the rough last year I fully back our team to snag us a player that suits our team needs well.

Love Oliver, I'd take him in a heartbeat. If he's there in the mid teens and we have a pick there from Bailey Smith we just have to consider him.

[GVGjr]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1195410/...august-ranking

From a very surface level watch of some footage, I think Xavier Lindsay or Harry Oliver would suit us really well around our 1st / 2nd picks. Lindsay especially seems to have something special about him that suits the modern game with his precision kicking and offensive mindset. Would partner Sanders beautifully long term. Oliver is a tough one to gauge his range, but I think i'd be comfortable moving up a few spots to grab him if we didn't think he'd reach our 2nd rounder. He's just got that competitive nature about him, would be an ideal Doc replacement and is a neat kick.


Very perplexed with who'll we take this year, but after picking Freijah out of the rough last year I fully back our team to snag us a player that suits our team needs well.

Good call CD. I really like both Lindsay and Oliver as potential senior players. Given our need to unearth small defender their ability to be composed with the footy in the hand would be good traits for us to draft.

[Axe Man]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

AFL 2024 draft guide: Where every club sits ahead of November

Where does your club sit ahead of November?s 2024 AFL draft? Our experts have taken a close look at the players every club could be taking in our ultimate draft guide.

WESTERN BULLDOGS

Indicative Draft Order: 33, 44

The Bulldogs bagged two first-round picks last year in gun onballer Ryley Sanders and key forward Jordan Croft, but don?t currently have a first-round pick this year. That selection (currently pick 13) is in the hands of the Gold Coast Suns, having been handed over as part of the deal to climb up the order and grab Sanders. The Bulldogs are well stocked across most lines, so there?s a good chance they will take a ?best available? approach when they enter the draft late in the second round. Defence could be the area the Bulldogs look to strengthen, either with a key defender or a rebounding half-back. Players like Harrison Oliver, Noah Mraz, Alixzander Tauru and Harry O?Farrell are all defenders who sit around pick 25-35 mark in this draft. Oliver is a 181cm rebounder who breaks the lines, Mraz is a 198cm prospect who reads the play well, Tauru is an exciting 191cm interceptor who can also push up the ground and O?Farrell is a 196cm tall who is strong one-on-one and possesses good intercepting ability.

[hujsh]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

I want Alixzander Tauru just to see how many ways people can find to spell his name

[Axe Man]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

I want Alixzander Tauru just to see how many ways people can find to spell his name

I would be rapt with that - he's from my club - great kid and great family.

[Bornadog]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

I would be rapt with that - he's from my club - great kid and great family.

Any insight into what type of player he is? Can he make the grade?

[Axe Man]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

Any insight into what type of player he is? Can he make the grade?

There is a good Code Sports article that I can't access: https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/wa...9036aa0cd040df. I swear I did manage to read it the other week but can't find that source now.

Generally touted as a high marking intercept backman. Has also played forward for Power in recent weeks and kicked a few goals.

Scouting notes from the wildcard game on the weekend:

#31 Alix Tauru
Key Defender/Forward | 194cm | 16/11/2006

Stats: 16 disposals, 7 marks, 5 rebound 50s

Tauru was utilised at both ends of the ground, starting down back when Gippsland kicked against the wind, and being recast as a forward with it. He leant on his raw athletic traits to provide overlap run, but was also a highly effective interceptor as the loose player inside defensive 50. His hands were strong out in front and overhead, including on the lead in term four as he nearly bagged a goal.

Cal Twomey currently has him at 20 in his power rankings:

Tauru will be selected by clubs as an intercept, high-flying tall defender who loves to jump into contests and come down with the ball in his hands. After showing those traits for Vic Country, following an injury-interrupted first half of the season, Tauru has mixed it up in his return to Gippsland. He has played some midfield time, including facing up against Josh Smillie in a battle of the 193cm talents, as well as also swinging forward to show his aerial prowess there. He kicked 2.3 against the Greater Western Victoria Rebels and has genuine upside that is exciting for scouts assessing him as a likely first-rounder.

[jazzadogs]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

I'll be going to the Geelong Falcons vs GWV Rebels final this week. Any players to keep an eye on?

[GVGjr]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

There is a good Code Sports article that I can't access: https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/wa...9036aa0cd040df. I swear I did manage to read it the other week but can't find that source now.

Gippsland Power talent manager Scott McDougal was waiting for Alixzander Tauru.

Waiting for him to get over injuries. Waiting for him to have a little luck. And waiting for him to show off his undoubted talent.

McDougal is waiting no longer.

This year Tauru, 17, has arrived as one of the Power’s most exciting players and best draft hopes. Putting together a run of matches in the Coates Talent League and taking his chance for Vic Country at the Under 18 national championships, high-leaping defender Tauru, from Warragul, has grabbed the attention of AFL clubs.

When Herald Sun draft experts Chris Cavanagh and Dan Batten listed their top 50 prospects last week, they named Tauru at No. 30 and noted he had “some promising upside which could see him bolt up draft boards further’’. But go back to late May and Tauru was missing from a list of 75 hopefuls.

Tauru, 193cm, tries not to pay too much attention to such predictors – “I’m set on not getting ahead of myself and just going day by day’’ - but his friends let him know what is being written about him.

After having so many injuries in the past two years, he’s just happy to be getting a few mentions. He says missing so much football – 14 weeks last year and seven this year - was “very frustrating’’ and “pretty crap’’.

What McDougal calls his “really bad run’’ began last year, when he turned his right ankle in the Power’s first practice match. Then he dislocated a finger playing school basketball (sensibly, he tried to keep the cause of the damaged digit quiet from Power staff).

Topping things off, he hurt his left ankle late in the season.

Despite Tauru’s absences, McDougal talked him up, telling CODE Sports to “watch out for this kid next year’’. Tauru says it’s pleasing to hear the talent manager backing him.

“It’s pretty good to hear the faith, because I’m not sure I would have had the same faith in myself, going through all this,’’ he says.

Tendonitis in his right hip shunted him to the sidelines after his second game for Gippsland this year. It caused him to sit out the first match of the nationals but he played the next three, including the helter-skelter final against Vic Metro at Marvel Stadium.

Tauru says it was a great experience, if not result; a 50m penalty gifted Metro the match-winning goal after the final siren.

“We were always pushing him for Vic Country because he’s got some attributes – his tackling, his ground-balls and his marking,’’ McDougal says.

“Like, he’s an elite mark. He catches everything, running back with the flight, having a jump at it … there’s no fear in his aerial stuff.’’

Tauru was pleased with his performances for Country, where his backline coach was also his Power coach, Rhett McLennan.

“I think I did my role OK as a key back,’’ he says.

“I think that role sort of suits me and allows me to use my attributes, my marking, my reading of the game, trying to be aggressive. I really enjoy learning the different bits about being a back and committing to that one role. I’m loving it. Bit more freedom, I think.’’

His first dash as a defender came in an Under 15 V-Line series for Gippsland. He had started as a forward but the coaches shifted him to the other end.

“I must have gone all right because I got some kind words after the game,’’ Tauru says.

He was at Warragul Industrials - the Dusties - by then, having started at Warragul Blues and Ellinbank juniors. A first senior game for Industrials came in his injury-tailed 2023 season and he was named among the best players against Dalyston.

Harmit Singh coached Dusties last year and says Tauru made an outstanding debut.

“I think he would have taken 12-plus marks playing as a forward. It was one of the best debut games from a young kid that I’ve coached over the journey. He was just fantastic, super-clean,’’ Singh says.

“We thought incredibly highly of him when we came across when he was 15. Athletically, he had some wonderful traits and the thing that stood out with Alix was his aerial ability.’’

Singh says the club almost gave Tauru a senior debut in a preliminary final in 2022, naming him emergency and believing he would have handled himself in a high-stakes match in senior company. This year’s Industrial coach, Michael Duncan, regards Tauru as a “real, real talent’’.

“I was having this chat with someone yesterday. I know he’s on a lot of draft radars and I’m not at all surprised by that,’’ Duncan says.

“There are a lot of really good kids playing footy, a lot of gun junior footballers, and I think the ones who make that next step have got some sort of X-factor, whether it’s elite skill or elite time or elite game sense. His intercept marking and his marking in general and his athleticism, I don’t think there would be a lot of kids who could match him in those areas.’’

While Tauru defended for Vic Country, more recently he’s attacked for Power, who have given him a run as a forward and midfielder, with encouraging results.

Last Sunday, he kicked 3.2 against the Northern Knights. In the previous round, he had 2.3 against the Rebels.

And in Round 15 against Eastern, he lined up against the highly-touted Josh Smillie.

“We had that planned for a couple of months, that we’d see how he’d go against Smillie, two bulls in a paddock sort of thing,’’ McDougal says.

“It went well. We got out of it enough of what we wanted to see. He just competes. His baseline is he competes in everything, midfield, forward and back. If there’s a contest, he wants to be involved in it. He reminds you of someone out of the 1980s, the blonde hair, the way he attacks the ball, sort of, ‘I’m just going for it’.’’

While Tauru defended for Vic Country, more recently he’s attacked for Power, who have given him a run as a forward and midfielder, with encouraging results.

Last Sunday, he kicked 3.2 against the Northern Knights. In the previous round, he had 2.3 against the Rebels.

And in Round 15 against Eastern, he lined up against the highly-touted Josh Smillie.

“We had that planned for a couple of months, that we’d see how he’d go against Smillie, two bulls in a paddock sort of thing,’’ McDougal says.

“It went well. We got out of it enough of what we wanted to see. He just competes. His baseline is he competes in everything, midfield, forward and back. If there’s a contest, he wants to be involved in it. He reminds you of someone out of the 1980s, the blonde hair, the way he attacks the ball, sort of, ‘I’m just going for it’.’’

He makes another point about Tauru, who attends Lowanna College in Newborough: if his marking is his “one wood’’, his tackling isn’t far behind.

Tauru does plays golf, though not with any distinction.

“I love playing, but I’m no good at it, so I wouldn’t call myself a golfer. But I’m trying to be good at it,’’ he says.

He can leave the birdies to others, but he can deal most capably with the backline and any other duties asked of him.

[lemmon]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

I can't see him being on the board for our pick, but I'm really interested in how the industry views Murphy Reid. Beautiful hands, great kick, excellent in the clinches, goes forward and kicks goals...but he's also small, slight and pretty slow. On form he probably has to go top 5, but I'd be pretty wary of drafting him.

[Mofra]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

Langford is surely the late bolter into the top 5 this year. Incredible end to the year. Does it all from the middle.

[Mofra]

Re: 2024 Draft Watch

Rumour only, but Bulldogs have apparently met with Josh Sanders.
Played a high half forward role in his last u18 game. 176cm so on the shorter side. Late/rookie pick