Welcome to 3 of the new draftees

[swansrock4eva]

Having said that though Liz, I think Sundqvist in particular was plain unlucky - he got injured JUST as he was making it and sadly we had enough depth to cover for him which meant he never really had a chance to make it back.

[Ajn]

Originally posted by swansrock4eva
Having said that though Liz, I think Sundqvist in particular was plain unlucky - he got injured JUST as he was making it and sadly we had enough depth to cover for him which meant he never really had a chance to make it back.

I back that on Sunquivist, thought he was a real chance...

Agree though Liz with the assessment that they haven't worked, but worth a try with the picks we used on them

Lets give them time first, out of the box thinking got us Kennelly and maybe this 15 year old scolarship kid will make it, if not lets just do what Essendon did with Michael.

[liz]

Originally posted by Ajn
Picking up someone a year early is not a bad thing.....Matthew Pavlich was went through the draft the year before he was picked up and was able to be picked up by all clubs and overlooked.

I think the idea of picking a very young player with a late pick as a bargain because he may cost a high pick the following year is a bit of a furphy. In how many cases has a player overlooked one year actually gone on to be a first round pick the following year? Those who are highly rated as juniors tend to be picked early as soon as they are eligible. That is not to say that a late pick can't become a very good player - just that if they are going to be a late pick as a 17yo they will probably still be a latish pick as an 18yo.

If you look through the list of first round picks from recent years, I reckon you'll struggle to find many top age - ie eligible the previous year.

Pavlich is almost the exception that proves the rule, except even in his case the circumstances were slightly different to current rules. When he was drafted clubs were limited to drafting a maximum of one 17yo each year. So while he was overlooked as a 17yo, we only know for sure that 16 other 17yos were rated more highly by the clubs, not that another 70-odd players were rated more highly.

It is a similar factor in why Goodes was still available at pick 43 in the 1997 draft.

[Old Royboy]

Originally posted by liz
I think the idea of picking a very young player with a late pick as a bargain because he may cost a high pick the following year is a bit of a furphy.

Havn't we've got a furphy called Adam Schneider? I thought he was taken young at #60. His first year in 2002 was a wipe-out, got sick. Bit I remember the first time I saw him play, in a pre season in 2003 at Telstra and it was obvious that we had a footballer. Keep 'em coming Rick.

[liz]

Originally posted by Old Royboy
Havn't we've got a furphy called Adam Schneider? I thought he was taken young at #60. His first year in 2002 was a wipe-out, got sick. Bit I remember the first time I saw him play, in a pre season in 2003 at Telstra and it was obvious that we had a footballer. Keep 'em coming Rick.

Not disagreeing with you. But were there any suggestions he'd have been a top 20 pick the following year? Didn't hear any at the time. Certainly didn't hear Barham claim "we took him this year because he'd have been first round the following year". The club did, however, make that suggestion with Hunt and I think also with Sundqvist.

In recent years even pundits who do seem to know what they are talking about suggested Redden was worth a late pick two years ago as he would be a definite first rounder the next. He was passed over that year, taken as a rookie the following year and realised halfway through his first season - almost unheard of.

Similarly Swallow was one touted to be a top pick as a top ager. Wasn't taken as a 17yo and then was only a mid pick when taken the following year.

[liz]

On a related note, this thread has made me realise that the Swans have a pretty ordinary record in recent years of converting very skinny draftees into players.

Scott Stevens, Daniel Hunt, Mark Powell, Jared Sundqvist, Andrew Erikson, Matt Davis, Josh Willoughby...

Who have I missed?

If you look at recent draftees who have become regulars- like Ablett, Buchanan, O'Keefe - they were mostly solid builds as teenagers. Grundy, Moore and Schmidt are still on the list and pressing their claims. Even Schneider was a little chunky.

Are there any skinny successes? LRT was much smaller when drafted than now but he was never as skinny as, say, Powell or Stevens. Malceski was (and still is) slender but wasn't a stick. Maybe Kennelly and McVeigh are exceptions, but both were top end talent, rather than late round gambles. OK - Kennelly was a gamble, but for reasons other than his build.

Is it that the club is not very good at building the physique of these players - and of handling the injuries that they get as they try to put on weight while coping with the game? Or maybe Barham over-estimates how much improvement they have in them by making too much allowance for their slight build.

Or maybe an analysis of other clubs' lists will indicate a similar story.

Whichever way, it suggests that Thornton, Phillips, Currie and Faulks have their work cut out to become senior footballers.

[Old Royboy]

Our old mate the Donk has to be our classic stick figure gamble. How many years? The jury is still considering the verdict.

[DST]

Originally posted by liz
On a related note, this thread has made me realise that the Swans have a pretty ordinary record in recent years of converting very skinny draftees into players.

Scott Stevens, Daniel Hunt, Mark Powell, Jared Sundqvist, Andrew Erikson, Matt Davis, Josh Willoughby...

Who have I missed?

If you look at recent draftees who have become regulars- like Ablett, Buchanan, O'Keefe - they were mostly solid builds as teenagers. Grundy, Moore and Schmidt are still on the list and pressing their claims. Even Schneider was a little chunky.

Are there any skinny successes? LRT was much smaller when drafted than now but he was never as skinny as, say, Powell or Stevens. Malceski was (and still is) slender but wasn't a stick. Maybe Kennelly and McVeigh are exceptions, but both were top end talent, rather than late round gambles. OK - Kennelly was a gamble, but for reasons other than his build.

Is it that the club is not very good at building the physique of these players - and of handling the injuries that they get as they try to put on weight while coping with the game? Or maybe Barham over-estimates how much improvement they have in them by making too much allowance for their slight build.

Or maybe an analysis of other clubs' lists will indicate a similar story.

Whichever way, it suggests that Thornton, Phillips, Currie and Faulks have their work cut out to become senior footballers.

Interesting observation liz, but I would suggest that if you looked at other lists their success rate with tall kids with slender bodies are pretty similar.

In relation to our perceived use of late draft picks to go after bottom age draftees in the hope we get a bargin, it would be interesting to note if we have drafted younger than most clubs in recent years?

I just get the feeling that it has been a passion of ours to go young in the middle or late draft to see if we are able to snatch a bloke who with another year of development at junior level may have been taken earlier a year later.

DST

[SimonH]

Originally posted by liz
On a related note, this thread has made me realise that the Swans have a pretty ordinary record in recent years of converting very skinny draftees into players.

...

Whichever way, it suggests that Thornton, Phillips, Currie and Faulks have their work cut out to become senior footballers.

Firstly, you can forget about 17/18 yo ruckmen-- there's scarcely been one born that isn't skinny. Although I can't agree with Old Royboy that the Donk was a stick-figure punt; IIRC he played seniors the year after being drafted, so was unusually well-developed for a ruck.
Regardless of their size, the real problem is that our 3 or so ruck draftees/rookies this decade (Mott, Ericksen, Shaw, and would anyone be madly optimistic enough to call Leigh Brockman or James Wall a ruck?) have come up for nought so far in terms of getting us a regular (50 game+) player.

Secondly, you're generally right, but there have been two skinny-arse successes. Malceski is definitely the skinniest sensation. Willoughby was 176cm and 70kg when drafted, whereas Malceski was listed as 186cm and 72kg-- massively more Kate Moss-like. Jarrad McVeigh was another who made Willoughby look chunky, at 184cm and just 70kg. In fact, proportionate to height, they were both less well-built than the 174cm/67kg listing that Auskick Phillips had.

I suspect that the 'ordinary record' thing for skinny dudes might not be that different from the 'ordinary record' of any random sampling of young draftees. The weight conditioning that all players now do, means that almost nobody turns up fresh from the draft with a body shape that's ready-to-play. Builds like NOG and Moore are far more the exception than the rule in AFL these days, and middleweights like Buchanan, ROK and Schmidt had to add a bit of bulk before they could truly mix it (Schmidt, e.g., is 6.5kg up on his drafted weight).

Going back a bit further, I could pretty confidently say that a kid called Micky O'Loughlin turned up from SA at a weight quite a few kilos short of what he needed to hold his own in the big league.

[liz]

Originally posted by SimonH
Regardless of their size, the real problem is that our 3 or so ruck draftees/rookies this decade (Mott, Ericksen, Shaw, and would anyone be madly optimistic enough to call Leigh Brockman or James Wall a ruck?) have come up for nought so far in terms of getting us a regular (50 game+) player.

Probably not to Brockman or Wall, but Meiklejohn is maybe the name you were searching for. He didn't have any stick qualities. Sadly he didn't have any marking qualities either. Rowe is another who is solidly built for his age, though probably is too short to be a front line AFL ruck. And I agree with your comment on Doyle. He's got bigger - considerably bigger - but he was no Erickson.

[Bloody Hell]

Originally posted by liz
Probably not to Brockman or Wall, but Meiklejohn is maybe the name you were searching for. He didn't have any stick qualities. Sadly he didn't have any marking qualities either. Rowe is another who is solidly built for his age, though probably is too short to be a front line AFL ruck. And I agree with your comment on Doyle. He's got bigger - considerably bigger - but he was no Erickson.

Mott was rather large through the mid riff as well. If he could kick straight may be different...he had the weight.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by liz
Probably not to Brockman or Wall, but Meiklejohn is maybe the name you were searching for. He didn't have any stick qualities. Sadly he didn't have any marking qualities either. Rowe is another who is solidly built for his age, though probably is too short to be a front line AFL ruck. And I agree with your comment on Doyle. He's got bigger - considerably bigger - but he was no Erickson.

Bingo. Knew I was missing someone. Interestingly, Meiklejohn is still only 22 and was cut at the age of 20; showed less patience with him than with many young ruckmen even though (or perhaps because) he was big enough to earn a senior spot. Doing alright for Port Magpies in the SANFL.

[caj23]

I rated Meiklejohn about the same as Chambers. Could get a few tapouts but offered absolutely nothing around the ground