It's always hard to speculate about the draft and whether or not we chose the right players. The debate about best available player vs. selecting players to fill team weaknesses is a difficult issue.
My concern is that last night we drafted 3 players who areessentially the same : fast midfielders/flankers with good endurance. I would have prefered to draft like the Crows who selected 3 players over 194cm and all able to play key position. The next 3 drafts will offer no KPP so this was our last chance to realistically find a KPP. Our glaring weakness is not our midfield (its actually our strength) it will be our inability to find scoring options, a player like Talia may have offered a solution. Even with Fev we were a KPP short and without Fev that problem is even more evident assuming Henerson takes a few years to reach his peak.
Hawthorn drafted to a plan when they recruited Buddy and Roughie and they believed that tht good big men are a bigger risk than midfielders but the risk pays better odds if it comes off.

Missing on Mcguire and promoting Jacobs is baffling given that we have 3 ruckman ahead of him and he wuld have bee a good chance to slip though to preseason draft. As a potential to hold down CHB and for pick 70 surely Mcguire would have filled a need in our team more than Jacobs

Good luck to all our new draftees
GO BLUES

mate, so you'd rather crap big men than someone we ranked better?

using franklin and roughhead as your example of what we should have drafted! why not kosi and revoldt?

frankin and roughie were what picks 3 and 5? or something like that.

we had pick 12!!!!!

I was hoping for black or talia myself but clearly we rate lucas higher and at the other picks it was unlikley we would secure a quality tall.

i agree we need to atleast have a few developing on the list but now maybe they think that tiller, austin and now henderson is enough.

no use drafting for any position just for the sake of it, especially talls as they take so long to develop.

i'm hopefully we can turn a few rookie prospects into something decent, like t-brid and jamo.

Now let me see who we have on our list that could potentially hold down CHB;
Waite, Thornton, Bower, Austin, Henderson I won't even bother with Jamieson.
The only thing that is baffling is your post.

How many stoppages are there in a game of footy? 50? 60? 70?
Each time there is a contested situation (ball up, throw in) the team that assumes control has a massive advantage. Players skills are so good these days that they rarely give the ball up once they win it. That's why ball winners are absolutely crucial.

Look at our last quarter against Brisbane. Brown and Bradshaw weren't the problem. The fact that we lost control in the midfield lost the game. Key forwards can be superstars but if the ball isn't coming in or comes in slowly or under pressure, scoring is difficult. Geelong have made a career of slowing the play, pressuring the ball carrier and having mid sized defenders spoiling the high ball ball. We needed greater depth through the midfield and we've got it.
If they were the best available players, great.

_________________
Looking forward to seeing our potential realised.

People keep talking about midfield and how we've drafted too many midfielders. In many ways, you can't have too many. If they're flexible enough, you can move them to HBF to create run and start counter-attacks or you can play them forward as a Higgins, Brad Johnson type small marking forward.

If people understood the modern game they would realise that the whole HBF/HFF etc etc doesn't exist anymore. The teamsheet would be (with adjustments for the other side) 3 or 4 tall defenders, 3 or 4 tall forwards, 2 ruckmen and 12 midfielders. Some of these midfielders would be able to play more specialised roles when required like playing on small forwards requires a true back pocket type player but they would be classed as midfielders.

Since the end of the season, we've lost Stevens and Fevola. Henderson replaces Fevola as a "tall". Stevens is replaced by McLean.

In a year or 2 we will lose Scotland and Houlihan. Question marks still remain over Russell, Grigg, Walker etc. We struggled this year with players who were able to run, carry and deliver off HB once Waite went down. Johnson's a hack, Russell's decision making is still iffy, Grigg's disposal did not improve this year, Walker's shoulders may not hold (I hope they do for his and our sake), Armfield's disposal is decent but not top notch.

Our talls are all young. We have 3 talls over 25 being Waite, Thornton and O'hAilpin. Think about it. Our talls are inexperienced and are all young. If anything we should trade for a key tall with experience next year and develop the ones we have. O'Keefe, Tiller haven't played at senior level yet, Austin has barely played 15 games if that, Bower is still developing, Jamieson and Thornton are reliable. Henderson is like Austin, barely 15 games, Kreuzer as a forward. If you have too many talls, you'll not have enough spots to play them and develop them.

_________________
"A good composer does not initiate. He steals."

- Igor Stravinsky

I must admit I too was puzzled about the similarity in the types of player we picked. Talia must have been close to a guernsey at 12, but most had Lucas ranked a few spots higher. My own ranking, which is to an extent biased by Carlton's needs and not a pure ordering from best to worst, had Lucas best available and Talia next, even after pushing Talia up a bit based on the needs of the club. And Lucas does have a decent leap and could provide that mid-size forward option we lack. Davies was again around the mark (I had him ranked 45th, we took him at 43), although I had about a dozen guys I'd have taken before him but not a pick I'd say you could say was unjustifiable. Major criticism of Davies would be whether we'd have been better off going for a tall here, given Fitzpatrick, Craig, Hill and Panos were all available, although that said Hill and Panos were not picked up at all. Davies again plays tall (Hughes describes him as 191cm which doesn't accord with the official measurements but he may have grown) and he can play on taller opponents Kerr is a real Hughes speculator, as is his wont. For mine I had about 170+ players ahead of him, but in this draft especially after the first few rounds it was a real lottery. Kerr has 2 sided skill, pace and smarts and a body pretty ready for AFL. That said though, I would have thought a tall for the last pick made a lot more sense and with guys like Hill and Panos, Temel Grimes Groenewegen Casboult Coad Archer Tighe and others available I would have hoped at least one tall would have been picked up, but anyway. Not saying Kerr can't play or won't make it, he is an exciting prospect, but it was "out there" for mine and the 3 mids strategy leaves us really short on KP depth for mine. Still. ther's the PSD and rookie drafts to come I guess.

Lucas best available, AND he meets a need. Anyone who thinks prior to this draft our onball division was sorted for the next 5 years is way wrong: I think sometimes supporters see the game the way it used to be played, not the way it's played today. We still don't have Premiership depth in the onball stocks. Teams that can run and run and run and run, and have multiple options in this role, are the teams that are sitting up the top third of the ladder. Lucas will be great for us.

Davies is as much a backman as anything else. 191cm and can play tall and small. Has played through the midfield too, but if people think he's just another midfielder, they're dead wrong.

Kerr? When you get into the 5th round of a draft like this, there's no way you're going to get a KPP that's any better than a 100-1 shot of making it. There might be a kid or two out there with glaring deficiencies who might be worth a speculative punt, but that's what the rookie draft is for.

A hard running, agile, fast, ball-winning midfielder like Lucas... instead of a bit of a meat & potatoes key backman like Talia. Why would anyone have a major problem with that?

to me the Roughie/Franklin argument actually backs up what we did. Richmond may have thought, pick for need - midfield, there are plenty of talls later - and look where that got them. Pick quality - always.

_________________
This type of slight is alien in the more cultured part of the world - Walsh. Its up there with mad dogs, Englishmen and the midday sun!

Win the midfield, win the game. That's modern footy.

_________________
"One of my favorite philosophical tenets is that people will agree with you only if they already agree with you. You do not change people's minds." - Frank Zappa

Don't forget Hoops

_________________
That’s not a political statement — it’s a harsh reality, and we must act,” she said. “He is a clear and present danger to the things that keep us strong and free. I support impeachment.”

When l heard a interview with Ratts he mentioned he was changing his gameplan a bit.

Maybe he is trying the saints approach and be more of a flooding game plan which requires a lot of quality midfielders. If you look at the finals game, Carlton should of been able to lock down the game and win, but lost it in the midfield. Ratten has to change something to make the club to have lock down capabilities

Also, without Fev we dont have the option of someone kicking 6 goals in a half of football so we need to have a more defensive gameplan.

Everyone keeps implying that because of the GC and GWS teams there will be NO PLAYERS AVAILABLE in the next few drafts.

This is taken from the thread in the recruiting section:

Round One 2010:
1 GC17
2 GC17
3 GC17
4 Club 16 on 2010 ladder
5 GC17
6 Club 15 on 2010 ladder
7 GC17
8 Club 14 on 2010 ladder
9 GC17
10 Club 13 on 2010 ladder
11 GC17
12 Club 12 on 2010 ladder
13 GC17
14 Club 11 on 2010 ladder
15 GC17
16 Club 10 on 2010 ladder
17 Club 9 on 2010 ladder
18 Club 8 on 2010 ladder
19 Club 7 on 2010 ladder
20 Club 6 on 2010 ladder
21 Club 5 on 2010 ladder
22 Club 4 on 2010 ladder
23 Club 3 on 2010 ladder
24 Club 2 on 2010 ladder
25 Club 1 on 2010 ladder

Assuming we finish about 8th, we'd get selection 18 as our first pick. Here are the players taken from 18-25 this year as an example of what we were looking at:

18. Luke Tapscott
19. Ben Griffiths (tall)
20. Nathan Fyfe
21. Ryan Bastinac
22. Gerrick Weedon
23. Koby Stevens
24. Jake Carlisle (tall)
25. Aaron Black (tall)

This is obviously extremely arbitrary, but my point is this; before everyone tears their hair out about the draft remember that just because it's compromised doesn't mean that there will be absolutely nothing to choose from. Some of those blokes will end up being great footballers.

In regards to this year, I'm happy with our selections as I'd rather a player the recruiters want that one they feel they 'need'. And if we end up with a few midfield types who aren't getting opportunities or don't make it at Carlton in the next few years there's a couple of clubs starting up in the Northern states who will have both the money and the list space to give them second chances - and we can make sure we're handsomely compensated for them.

And we may still trade into this draft and the next one as well.

I was thinking the same thing.

We will have a pick in the first 22 picks next year.

If it's a strong draft like they're predicting, there might be another Mitch Brown (Geelong's or WC's) available late first round.

If we have pick 18 or later, that selection might justify drafting for need and reaching for a tall.

That argument won't stop a few supporters getting their panties in a bunch and acting like passing on Talia was the first sign of armageddon.

That is a key statement

_________________
T E A M

I may be stupid, but what me you all think that GC will draft 10 KPP in next years draft?

I mean considering the modern game I would think that they may pick 2-3 talls and the rest mids or traded for experienced players to fill immediate needs eg Rucks, backs.

I am of the school of thought that you play safe with your early picks and be more adventurous with your later picks and picking quality is always safer than picking for need.

we get a f/s within the next couple of years who appararently looks the goods

You reckon? Armfield's disposal is disgraceful, especially his kicking skills.

Kane Lucas is a gun and happy we drafted him.
Rohan Kerr is highly speculative and could pay huge dividends if it pays off - not disappointed with this pick so late in the draft
Marcus Davies another highly speculative pick which could pay dividends built like a tank and 188cm - hopefully he grows another 2-3cm and get to 190-191cm and play across CHB. He likes to run with the ball alot like Waite and this is only a good thing.

Love your thinking 4th Chook

_________________
Everyone looks good in Navy Blue