All the Gold Coast recruiting talk has centred around Gary Ablett so far but if I was building their list and I had my pick of any player in the competition, it would be Selwood. When you are starting a new club, the big things you need to build are culture, leadership and resilience. He looks to me to be the sort of bloke who’d handle that better than anyone in the competition - better than Ablett or Buddy Franklin. The important thing is to start with the best possible type of person who can set the tone for your club. Plus, he will only be 22 when the Gold Coast starts up in the AFL so he could potentially play the bulk of his career with the new club.
Jarrad Waite
There is a temptation with players like Waite to fill every hole on the ground but that can be a sure-fire way of burning them out, particularly if they've had a year out of the game. It’s the Drew Petrie syndrome in that, as good a player as Waite is, eventually you want him to play just the one spot to get some continuity. He can play half-back, wing or forward but given Carlton’s issues in front of goal, they should use him forward permanently. He is a dangerous match-up and athletic and can be the perfect floating forward type the Blues are looking for post-Fevola.
Geelong’s guns
The Cats have only lost seven of their past 70 games and you can tell. It looked as if there was a stage in the third term on Friday where they said ‘we’ve had enough, let’s win this game’. All the usual suspects put their foot down and resulted in their team kicking nine in a row. Before round one, the AFL captains' survey had most skippers predicting them to slide. I find that staggering considering what they’ve done in the past three years. They had a slow start to the pre-season but they will still win a heap of games and will be right amongst it.
Michael Barlow
I can’t remember seeing a better rookie debut than this. To have 20 touches in the first half of your first game is outstanding. Barlow, Alex Silvagni, Cameron Hitchcock, Ben Howlett, Jarrod Kayler-Thomson and Carl Peterson are all mature aged rookies who played the first round this year and we are going to see a bit more of that in footy now that the Gold Coast and Greater West Sydney are mining all the teenagers. Recruiters are going to be lateral in their thinking and it makes you wonder how many guys are still floating around in the state leagues who are perfectly capable of playing at a higher level.
Nick Malceski
You can see he has finally got his confidence back after undergoing revolutionary knee surgery in 2008. He is moving laterally and he has got the penetration back in his kicking. The Swans have got him and Tadhg Kennelly back up and running and I think they are on the way up. They’ll win more games than they’ll lose and showed a lot of promise against St Kilda on Saturday. They’ve got a strong forward line too and have a few good mature-aged recruits in Mark Seaby, Shane Mumford, Daniel Bradshaw, Ben McGlynn and Josh Kennedy. The Swans are a new-look team and will shock a few people this year.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
