AFL Draft: Three Player Comparisons I Don’t Like and Three I Do

Well, the AFL draft is over.

And the good news is that it was exactly the right length and made perfect sense. A coherent, well-packaged, enjoyable product for all footy fans to consume gleefully!

Unrelated, I loved Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and really think that the NBA midseason tournament is an enjoyable product and exactly like the Champions League for basketball, despite the fact that it’s the same NBA teams playing on more colourful courts.

Pre-draft I wrote a piece noting three player comparisons that would really worry me if I were a fan of the team who drafted the player, not because the player that they were compared to isn’t good, but because of the archetype.

Well now, after two equally necessary nights and a first round that only spanned 29 picks for an 18-team competition, the draft is over, and I have more thoughts about the AFL player comparisons to the newly drafted players.

I have limited myself to the top 10 picks of the draft and found three player comparisons that I believe bode well for the draftees’ AFL futures, and three that would trouble me if I were a fan of a team that just drafted the player.

At the outset I want to note that I have not watched a second of football that any of these players have played, other than highlights. Not one. I’ve watched more Selling Sunset than I have these players.

This is purely a question of whether I think that the player comparison bodes well for the players’ long-term future in the AFL and/or whether the value makes sense for the sort of player that the draftee is touted to be.

I have used Kevin Sheehan’s top 40 prospects as the comparison article.

Three comparisons I like.

1. Harley Reid – #1 to West Coast (Dustin Martin)

If we’re in the trust tree, dear reader, I thought Harley Reid was a key forward prior to this week. In my preparation I have seen that he is, in fact, a forward half midfielder/forward hybrid in the form of Dustin Martin.

That’s a pretty lofty comparison.

But the position that he plays, I believe, is the most valuable in footy as I outlined in my trade value column and the positional value rankings that I published pre-draft.

Even if he doesn’t turn into a Dusty level player, which would be like expecting the next vaguely mafia related movie to be Goodfellas, drafting an explosive, goal kicking and creative mid/forward with the first pick strikes me as a wise use of a valuable resource.

2. Zane Duursma - #4 to North Melbourne (Isaac Heeney)

I like this comparison for very much the same reason that I like the Reid comparison. Heeney, like Martin, is a weapon in the forward half though in an entirely different way.

There is a fear that any Heeney comparison is just resigning that player to the life of being a tweener forward, not quite big enough to be big but not small enough to be small. The anti-Goldilocks, if you will.

But the write-up on Duursma is more based on the ideal of Heeney than Sydney’s deployment of him as almost exclusively a forward, but with midfield bursts. Duursma appears to be capable of running through the middle more than Heeney has in his career while being big and strong enough to be a marking weapon forward of centre.

At number 4 it doesn’t seem like an overpay.

3. Daniel Curtin - #8 to Adelaide (Steven May)

In the key position ranking piece, I wondered whether key defenders would start getting drafted more highly given the way that the 4 preliminary finalists were constructed around star key defenders.

Picking Daniel Curtin at 8 seems to align with that. If, like May, Curtin can be the sort of defender around whom you can build a defence then this seems like a shrewd pick. You just hope that Curtin can keep his hands to himself.

Adelaide isn’t screaming for another cultural issue.

Obviously, this is a need pick for Adelaide, but two things can be true: Adelaide needed a defender; and footy is valuing key backs more highly.

Three comparisons I don’t like.

Note: I already wrote about Zach Merrett and Mark Blicavs so I’m not giving myself the out.

1. Jed Walter - #3 to Gold Coast (Charlie Curnow)

Charlie Curnow is a superstar, there’s no doubt. He’s also small for a key forward at 194cm. He’s able to make up for it with his superhuman athleticism in the air and on the ground, but he is rare in that regard.

Is Jed Walter that rare?

This seems to me like it has the potential to be like the issue for every NBA draft after 1994 where whenever a tall, bouncy shooting guard came out, he was compared to Michael Jordan.

Just because you’re about the same size doesn’t mean you’re the same guy.

I worry that Walter is a small key forward like Curnow but doesn’t have the Curnow traits to make up for the lack of size.

2. Caleb Windsor - #7 to Melbourne (Nic Martin)

What? A top 10 pick is compared to Nic Martin? That Nic Martin? The winger? There’s not like some key forward from the 80s named Nic Martin?

Is there a joke I’m missing here? No? Okay.

Maybe Windsor stayed up and partied with Simon Goodwin in their pre-draft meeting? Indulged some of Goody’s mid-life crisis behaviours? Maybe his dad owns a car dealership and got him a good deal on a Mercedes convertible?

I appreciate that Melbourne needs some speed but they’re also getting older, and a Steven May replacement was taken with the next pick. It seems like they might have fallen into the trap of drafting to fix the shortfalls of the past, instead of looking to the future.

3. Nate Caddy - #10 to Essendon (Taylor Walker)

Hopefully not Tex’s politics, though I do note with interest that Caddy is blonde.

The issue I have with this comparison is basically the same as the one that I have with Walter being compared to Curnow. It’s a small key forward.

Tex is great because of his guile and absurd kicking. He’s not an incredible pack marker, he leads cleverly and gets to the right spots because of his preternatural instincts and then can finish it off with his great kicking.

Just because you put songs and quippy dialogue into movies doesn’t mean you’re Quentin Tarantino. Just because you’re small for a key forward and you kick it well doesn’t mean you’re Taylor Walker.