There's a lot of resources out there for draft rankings and mock drafts however I always enjoy the coverage
Rookie Me Central provide and tend to refer to them. I can give a brief run down of some players we might be interested in and you can check their profiles in that link for more info.
Their current rankings give a reasonable estimate of what players might be available around our position in the draft (our first pick will probably be 17). However, there are plenty in the rankings I don't agree with.
Murphy Reid and
Bo Allan are far too high and I can see them slipping to the 20+ range while others like
Sid Draper and
Tobie Travaglia are much lower than where I'd rate them.
I'd still prefer a small forward/half forward with our first pick despite Bolton jumping on board. Some extra attacking power who can pull short stints on ball is still a need for us and
Joe Berry is many people's favourite for our pick as the best performed small forward this season who happens to be 17th in those power rankings.
However, the kid who has impressed me the most and has bolted up the rankings in the past few months is
Oli Hannaford (ranked 27th above) who I spoke about a week ago on another topic. His improvement this season has been astronomical and he reminds me so much of a Zac Butters. I would have no problem grabbing him with our first pick.
We could also probably use a winger or half back and Travaglia is probably my favourite in that mould. He plays similar to a Lachie Whitfield as a decent sized runner with a beautiful kick. Good overhead and not afraid to put his body on the line or tackle despite being a little slight of frame atm, he will likely be gone before our pick.
There's also a good number of key talls around where our pick lies but honestly, none of them have really jumped out at me as a stand out.
Luke Trainor was touted as a top 5 pick earlier in the season but has slid a little in the past few months and might be available at 17 but we don't really need a key defender and his work up the ground hasn't been as prolific. On the plus side is that Trainor is a very good user of the footy and moves quite well, I could see him being groomed for that Luke Ryan distributor role.
Alix Tauru has gone the opposite way, improving across the season with his impressive contested marking in defence to push into the top 20 and possible top 10 consideration.
Jack Whitlock, Harry Armstrong, Jobe Shanahan and
Jonty Faull are all big key forwards and have had good years but honestly, none of them have really taken the season like I'd hope and established themselves with a monster performance. They've all been relatively consistent and good tall forwards. All will go somewhere in that 10-25 range and we could opt for one to develop under Treacy, Amiss and Voss.
