Rookie draft

[penga]

Simon Phillips anyone?

[ugg]

Simon Phillips is 174/67 according to this . Hope he's put on a few kilos since! Seems to be a small crumbing forward.

Edit: an article from punt road end forums
small thread on bigfooty

[penga]

I'm happy with that... The draft, I mean. Four young talls. Projects but still tall.

[caj23]

I'm with you Penga, think we did realy well with the talls. I don't know much about the others but Wall and Currie sound like good prospects

[ugg]

Simpkin

[Bear]

Originally posted by Sanecow
Unless you are Saddo.

Saddo built up muscle ok, but just not strength!

[Charlie]

Originally posted by ugg
Simon Phillips is 174/67 according to this . Hope he's put on a few kilos since! Seems to be a small crumbing forward.

Edit: an article from punt road end forums
small thread on bigfooty

Also... http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=214852

[chammond]

On known form, you'd have to say that Wall and Prior are the stand-outs and have a good chance of making the grade.

The rest could be described as 'speculative at best' . . . which I guess is what the Rookie draft is for.

[SimonH]

In terms of talent, Simpkin is at the good end of speculative: getting both the highest goal-kicker (30-odd) and most courageous awards at Geelong Falcons this year. Had been training with Carlton prior to the draft, which 10 years ago would have been a worry, but these days I trust that all Mexicans have been well-and-truly vetted for the 'go home' factor. In terms of size: geez, how badly do we need another 181cm, 78kg player? The answer to that question must be, 'More than we need a 174cm, 67kg player' (Simon Phillips). At least if they both specialise up-forward they'll only be roughly 3rd and 4th in line, as opposed to young midfielders who are about 23rd in line.

Speaking of which, pity the 176cm, 74kg Kieren Jack. I know we don't want to dissuade talented kids, but... unless there's a mass walkout or a bomb goes off at training, we've gotta be talking long, long term prospect here. Maybe a chance to get a game come 2009 if the cards fall well?

Generally, though, a good rookie draft for us: Adam Prior seems to have what it takes to fill a ROK role, if he can just take it to the next level.

As for the 4 big (or biggish) guys: with Sydney's recent record in picking and developing players, we can expect that 1 of the 4 relative talls will 'make it', and if we get really lucky, 2 would be a fantastic result. The jury would have to be out on Sam Rowe on performances thus far, but Paul Currie, James Wall and Ed Barlow have all done plenty enough to earn a punt. James Wall came tenth out of 73-odd kids in the beep test at band camp, which is close to unbelievable for a guy of his size.

And another thing: it seems that, amazingly, this rookie draft spells the end of the road for Andrew Hayes. I don't mean 'amazingly' in terms of his ability to make it (I don't know 'bout that), but he was training with the club, he continued to be listed on the 'rookies' page of the official website after all of the other delisted rookies had been deleted: all pointers seemed to be towards us picking him up again.

[chammond]

Originally posted by SimonH
In terms of talent, Simpkin is at the good end of speculative: getting both the highest goal-kicker (30-odd) and most courageous awards at Geelong Falcons this year.

His goal-kicking ability certainly caught my interest, until I saw him described as a 'very courageous midfielder'. We've got plenty of courageous midfielders, and we're not short of small/medium goal-kickers either. He'll need to be sensational to get promoted from the rookies to fill either of those roles . . . does he look like Aaron Davey by any chance?

[NMWBloods]

We don't have many goalkicking midfielders though.

[mocaholic]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
We don't have many goalkicking midfielders though.

Whilst I agree that this is always nice, what we do have is a good, functioning forward line to kick the score.

One who can play mf and kick a few sausage rolls (another Willo, Schneids, Buchy - set shots aside - for eg) though never hurts.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by mocaholic
Whilst I agree that this is always nice, what we do have is a good, functioning forward line to kick the score.

As a preference I would prefer to get a midfielder who is fabulous at getting the ball inside 50 and finding all of our dangerous forward targets. Next best is a midfielder who can add another goalkicking option.

Either way, I think we need to increase goal production next year.

[Lucky Knickers]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
As a preference I would prefer to get a midfielder who is fabulous at getting the ball inside 50 and finding all of our dangerous forward targets. Next best is a midfielder who can add another goalkicking option.

Either way, I think we need to increase goal production next year.

YES YES AND YES!

[Charlie]

The Swans have committed for two years to five of these rookies (Simpkin, Wall, Currie, Phillips and Barlow), so they must have high hopes for at least a couple of them.