Forward rookies I agree with, we have a heap of basement priced mid pricers there as well, which we should all utilise to help the rest of the team.
Unfortunately I'm not seeing it in the midfield.....Ely Smith looks good, Luke Valente might be injured (pick him if he's not)? Gulden probably scores poorly if named, he's a 32nd draft pick, Downie is similar, Durdrin will not score well, Braeden Campbell is overpriced and might not play R1, Cockatoo is injured, Powell is an outside mid at North (not great), there are reports Collier-Dawkins has a fractured cheakbone, Finlay Macrae is unlikely for R1. I see carnage.
I feel very comfortable in Gulden being a 60 scorer, which at his price is actually startable, though I see him more as a strong bench choice. He makes 200k at 60 a game.
I really liked Downie, think he looked a strong on field rookie option. Looks and moves a lot like Josh Kelly who I think is actually a very decent comparison for rookie season (68).
Dow looked great, might just be preseason but they've invested a lot in him and it sure looked like it was paying off.
Smith's role was really strong. I'm not 100% convinced he's there round 1 or that his JS would be strong even if he is but he's a good chance at the very least.
Campbell's role was excellent and I think he should be pretty firmly in the best 22, too talented to waste time in the reserves where he already has been playing the past couple of years. Whether he can cash on the premium is a legit question but he looks capable of an 80+ season to me and I'd say he should hit high 60s with decent regularity and that should be somewhere near his low end of likely averages.
Powell is very highly regarded, someone has to get the ball at North and bad team helps the job security. I haven't seen him in action but everything I've read screams that he's worth the premium and a legitimate on-field option.
McNeil is cheap and looked to have a genuine role for the Dogs and played very well. At his price he needs to do so little to be a strong pick. He's a pure benchy at this point in time but he's a good chance.
Valente a chance if he's fit but I'm not loving him for round 1 if he can't get up for the preseason game.
Jordon has to be a chance, though think he gets squeezed out personally.
Basically though I think between Dow, Campbell, Powell, Downie and Gulden there is enough to find the ~3 starters most are likely looking for and then you need one more on top of them to finish it off. With Impey, Daniher, Cahill, Rowe, Ziebell et al the M/F guys are basically mids this year.
Does anyone know much about kade chandler good option for the forward line?
Looked really solid to me. Great without the ball and did more than enough with it to impress me. I don't think he's worth the premium over some other options though so would think the ass kind of has to fall out of the forwards to be likely to be relevant.
Probably absolute best case you'd be looking at a Jack Higgins type season down to something like a Jack Lonie type output, that's a 55-72 type range and my gut says he's probably in that 60-65 as a likely outcome. I think he offers a very similar outlook to Rowe with probably lower JS and a better team but I don't think there's a way to spin that being worth the 40k.
I know what you mean, just historically 18 year old draft picks who are taken at 30+ in the draft aren't the greatest cash cows in their first season, some have bucked that trend in the past. Often the ones who looked good but were drafted lower, like Bailey Scott, showed a bit and then capitulated.
Or at least they're not good cash cows at the beginning of their first season. they might be later in the year as they become more developed. i.e. Trent Rivers last year or Worpel in 2018. Just generally if you're taken that low in the draft you're not as immediately ready for AFL.
One thing worth noting on both of Downie and Gulden is that they're academy guys and teams don't seem to really bid on them once you're into that "they're not paying anything for them anyway" type of range.
Also being academy guys the clubs have had them on AFL training schedules and access to them for a lot longer which probably does put them slightly ahead of the curve, especially in a season where most rookies are behind.
None of that means they'll succeed but they did both look really impressive and this draft was so compromised by players not playing that I think more than ever we're going to probably have outlier rookies. A guy like Downie to me looks like he'd probably have been drafted a lot earlier if he'd played last year. Gulden is one of those "short" guys who always fall further than they should as well and are probably the most common buckers of the trend.
I hope they succeed as things are going to get really difficult if they dont
