The Herald Sun Footy Podcast20 first round Bombers and the race for pick one
Did you know the Bombers have 20 first round picks on their list? Max Stainkamph joins the show to talk about it and the dive in red and black fortunes over the past few weeks.
And this weekend sees 2024's race for 18th between North and Richmond. Who wins and who wins pick one?
The top four to out of the age with the blink of an eye. Hasn't been a pretty couple of weeks for the Bombers and the chances of breaking that now twenty year finals wind drought keeps getting slimmer. Hello and welcome to the Herald Sun Footy Podcast. I'm Andy Belaiz and I'll be joined by resident Red and Black tragic Max stain Camp to discuss a strange phenomenon on the Bomber's list. But first we've had the race for Reid and a few years ago the Cruiser Cup. But this weekend we'll witness twenty twenty four shlockbuster between North and Richmond. Who'll come out on top and why does it matter? Chris Cavnar joins me to chat about it.
He's cav.
And here on the Herald Sun Footy Podcast. I'm joined by Chris Cavnar cave Welcome, good Andy. So you know, in the past we've had what we've had the Cruiser Cup, We've had all sorts of different battles for Wooden Spoon for the number one pick, and we have one on the weekend.
Yes, North Melbourne verse Richmond Saturday afternoon at Marvel Stadium. I think I wrote about six weeks ago that I reckon that you know, circle this game in it's going to be the Wooden Spoon de Sider, and that looks like begging the case. As we know, the Tigers and rus are both only won two games for the year, separated on the ladder by one point four percentage points at the moment, so very tight. My money would be on the Ruse to win this one. I know they haven't been able to put together four quarters in recent weeks, but they're still playing some decent foot in patches and better than the Tigers I think. I mean, the season can't come to an end quickly enough for Richmond Cannett. They should get Dustin Martin back this week. Tobe Nan Curvis as well, but they'll both be underdone. Dust he's missed the past four games now, he's played two in eight weeks. We can't really expect a match winning version of him. And if the Tigers do lose it, it would be their first Wooden Spoon since two thousand and seven. So back then, Terry Wallace was still coach. Matthew Richardson was Best and Fairest winner that year. Of course, Carlton ended up with the priority pick that year, and as you say, Matthew Cruiser went to the Blues and Richmond Trent Kutch and the became a three time premiership captain. So they didn't do too badly out of that. But I guess the question is if Richmond do finish bottom, who do they pick at number one? Talking to a few rival recruiters in recent days, I think there's still a bit of a question mark on that. But Jagger Smith had twenty seven disposals for Richmond's VFL team on the weekend in another strong performance. That was his second game for the Tigers, so I wouldn't rule him out of the equation there. But the feeling seems to be still that Josh Smiley or Sam laylaor might come into calculations for that selection if the Tigers do end up with it so very interesting Saturday afternoon ahead, even though the game might not be the best one of the weekend.
Absolutely and for North I mean, even if they do win. We know that last year when they lost they beat West Coast consigned West Coast at eighteenth. They got Harley who was the absolute number one presumptive, you know, with Daylight second seemingly, but it seems that that it's less less of a there's more of a toss up now, so North even if they do beat Richmond, they won't be too dissatisfied with getting whoever they get it picked to. No.
Absolutely, I mean Harley was absolute, clear standout. He was one of the top players I've seen come through the programs and has shown this year. You know, he'd be winning the Rising Star if he was eligible. But yeah, this year, there's certainly you know, five or six players in that top bracket in the eyes of many recruiters that could go anywhere in that five or six not so much incentive to to lose this weekend.
But at the other end of the ladder, you know, other than Sydney, who are seemingly you know, stumbling at the moment, there's still a game and a half clear on a top of the ladder. It's a real log jam between you know, second and twelfth. Say yeah, and there's some really good games coming up this weekend.
Yeah, it is absolutely, And I mean five at the top eight at the moment. Inter State clubs, which is quite interesting. So b B and a lot of those they're all into state while we're on the Herald Sun podcast. Yes we can be a bit patriotic for Victoria, but no, I think there's three big games this weekend that will shape the eight. The first one's the Bulldogs and You're My Melbourne on Friday night. So the Dogs are arguably the form team of the competition at the moment. So they're on a three game winning streak. They've beaten Sydney, Geelong and Carton in successive weeks, so it doesn't get much better than that. You can't forget that these two teams did meet him round one and the Demon's actually got the points there.
They were the one by forty five points back.
It was a very comfortable win for mil It.
Was, yeah, but I guess a lot's changed since Clayton Olivill was best on ground that day. He's not informed at the moment. Max Goran was very good. Christian Petrarca was very good in that game, so there's a few things that have changed since then. And the Demons have actually lost their past five games against current top eight sides and have only gone three and five since round thirteen, so not going so well. I think I think the Dogs will get the win there at Marvel Stadium. Second big game Collingwood Carlton on Saturday night. I think the build up to this will all be about Scott Pendlebury's four hundredth game, and rightly so. But this is a huge game for both sides. The Blues looked like a top four lock, you know, months ago probably, and now they've lost three of their last four.
So yeah, and colling are stumbling in themselves.
I mean they had they really got going, have they.
Yeah, they had a win against Richmond which just kept him in the finals hunt. But if they lose this, they're basically out, aren't they. So these two teams again met in round nine and Collingwood won by six.
Points, So who knows?
There?
Can the Pies get up for Pendlebury?
They kind of, and they need to, don't they to keep their final chances alive. If they were to lose to Carlton and PARTICU, if they were to lose by a big, relatively strong margin, the percentage is poor, that doesn't help them and it really would start to make their chances even more so.
Yeah, exactly that unravels are a lot for them then if they but if they win they're still right in it and the Blues are on the edge of the top eight if they lose, So that's going to be a huge game. Really excited for that. And then the third game that I reckon this weekend is pivotal is the GWS Hawthorne match in canber on Sunday. So the Hawks were a nine on the ladder at the moment. They're really coming with a bullet. They've won eight of their last nine games if they win this. They played Carlton, Richmond and North Melbourne in the final three weeks and.
The percentage is growing, is getting better margin, So yeah, they are looking they can beat GWS. You'd be penciling them in for a top eight spot.
Yeah, and the way Carlton's going at the moment, and then they'll they'll beat Richmond and North Melbourne in the final two weeks you were thought so.
Have gone for them.
But equally the Giants need to kept winning to get that top four chance as well. So some massive games coming up this week and there's been some quiet games the last in recent weeks, but I think starting to really ramp up with finals just around the corner now.
And it is great that there's so many teams still in the hunt because it just makes it makes footy continue to be interesting. It could have some years the eight set and you know there's three or four games every weekend that are inconsequential. But jeez, it's great that there's you know, I wish my team was further up the ladder, so don't we all, But it's good that you know footy is exciting most games.
Yeah, no, absolutely, yea August is here, so it's it's a home stretch now.
My gosh.
Yeah, two months to go. Thanks cav as always and here on the Herald Sun Footy podcast. Well, I'd be disingenuous if I were to cry any real tears for the Essendon Football Club. But there are supporters out there of the Bombers who are feeling pretty down at the moment after the past three weeks. Max Stainecamp is one of them. He's one of my colleagues here at Harold Sun.
Max.
I am sorry because we are friends and your Bombers are just falling apart at the wrong time.
Of the year.
There are dozens of us Andy, dozens of us who are just like I, as somebody who consumes football media as a job and watches football as a job. I haven't watched Essendon in the last two weeks. I haven't watched a minute of live Essendon and don't particularly want to. I instead of organized to help a friend move house in the rain on Saturday at the time Essendon's game was on, deliberately to avoid watching us capitulate against a Kilda. And that's I'm not an expert, I'm not a marketing guy. That's probably not a good sign for your football club.
No, no, when you don't even want when you have lost all hope, and when four weeks ago your team was in the top four, that's pretty sad. But you've come armed with some stats because and they're relatively damning stats of they're not good the Bombers. And it's around first round draft picks. Everyone you think about when you think about a team stacked with first round draft picks, you think GWS, you think the Gold Coast. Do you think Melbourne who were poored you know, ten years ago, or North who were at that stage this year at the moment, but it's the Bombers who absolutely, I mean, yeah, just take it away, because this is.
Incredible wealth of draft talent. I like, have a brief think listener about how many first round picks you'd think Esston Dialon have on their list that they've drafted and that they've brought in. If the answer was twenty, well done, you got it smack bang on, because they have a best eighteen and change of first round draft picks on their list. Now, obviously they haven't drafted all of these as you've mentioned, players like Peter Wright and you know, dry Cordwell Will said a field have all been brought into the club, and there was that brief stretch where to get those players, and they're traded away most of their first round draft picks, but you know, even the one they do have, you know.
The last couple of years, a lot of high profile ones.
And it's just astonishing that a team with that much draft choice and draft capital that's not going through a rebuild, that's not only just got all of them in, is just kind of not getting anywhere near it on the field. And you know, there's a lot of conversation about whether or not that's a coaching problem, or if that's the players not buying in or an effort problem, or like a system problem or a skills problem, but it just shouldn't happen, really.
Yeah, And when you look at that look down that list of twenty, there isn't really one who is an out and out you know, I mean not every team can have a Marcus Bontonpelli, but there's not really one in that in that list who is an out and out start.
No.
Ironically, the one that's closest to Marcus pont and Pelly, Zach Merritt, was a second round pick anyway, so he was kind of a diamond in the rough of sorts through that draft year. You know, you look at, say, you're Darcy Parishes and a few others that just haven't quite you know, feel like they should be more. Even though Parish can be a sensational footballer on his day, often goes missing this year, has been injured, and some of the fresher guys they're brought in have also, you know, failed to hit the mark in the same way that the lot of early draft.
Picks in the last few years have and the ones that they've brought in from other clubs as well. You know, you look at I mean last year it was Gresham. He hasn't really hit the mark previous years, it's been Sam Wiederman, who obviously has been a fail for the Bombers. Peter Wright want to Crichton metal but hasn't really reached those heights again. I mean, the list is long, as we've said, but.
As you look at even like a Jake Stringer is on his day fantastic, but you know, last couple of weeks has gone missing. And you know, the joke among Bombers fans is that once Jake Stringer signs the contract, he becomes an ineffectual player. And you know, I'm wondering if he's signed one in secret a couple of weeks ago and just hasn't told anyone yet. But even like Ben McKay is a first round draft picked way back when it's not so much that you know you've brought in first round draft picks and you know often you recycle them and you look at, you know, examples like even a Josh Shacky is, you know, someone you brought in as a d S fan, low budget, low expectationally, not bringing in for too much. But Ben mackay is on one point four million dollars this year, and yeah, that stings a little bit more when he's you know, you put so much stock in him and he hasn't delivered quite to the extent that you'd hope.
Yeah, it's an interesting contrast, isn't it. Because there are clubs that bring in first round draft picks, and you mentioned before Aaron Francis is one who was taken by the Bombers as a first rounder, didn't quite work out, went to Sydney for low capital, still on the list. Probably hasn't worked out at the Swans either, But you know, and with Melbourne with a Josh Shacky or with the Jack Billings who was brought in for low capital, low money. So he's there, but is he exactly that sort of first round pick outlay that a club needs to make.
No, he's not. No.
And I think Paddy Dowe is the perfect example of recycling, you know, one man's trash and man's treasure on that front, certainly, I'm wondering how many cases Essendon will have that in a couple of years where there have been rumors that Elijah Sartis is looking for a new home after playing a few games as the sub pick five in a twenty twenty two, or a lot of conjecture around that Mattias Philip who was thrown up as that's you know, that sort of player, as a more dynamic player, when I'd already had a lot of midfielders and they kind of went back to the well of inside midfielders and then haven't found a spot for him and might lose him for very little. The twenty twenty draft as well. Awful year to load up on draft picks in the first round, which you know obviously that makes life very difficult. But you look at Nick Cox, still very unsure as to what to make of him. You look at Archie Perkins, who feels like he's the backwards a bit this year, more than you know in a year when people thought he'd take that next sleep and possibly break out, and sack Red perpetually injured. So it's hard to judge some of them, but it's still, you know, when you look at it, half the list is off the first round of a draft, and that's incredible.
It is, I mean, the silver lining for say next year, And of course we have to preface it with the Bombers can still make the finals. They may not, but they still can. They're still in the eight as we speak.
I think it's just.
How soon can be introduce world card for a me and follow up question, do they count as finals wins?
No, you'll still think. I think Essenon is bound to what take it into This is the twentieth year. I think Eden is the Melbourne in a final elimination final in twenty four so this is twenty years since a finals win. But we were talking two months ago even we were talking about how other teams can replicate Sindon's trade hall, draft point hall from last year. You know, we were people were talking Adrian Dedorro and the football club as genius is for what they were able to do with bringing in Gresham and Mackay Goldstein exactly. Yea, but so next year who knows? And I think you says to Essendon supporters, you need to say that this time in most recent years, But yeah, that it'll be interesting to see how other teams stack up and whether Essendon at twenty is has the most because you'd think that if not, then they'd.
Have to be right up.
They would have to be. Yeah, I haven't run the numbers yet, look out for the full numbers later on in the week, but yeah, not North Melbourne might be closed as you mentioned Goldfast and GWS, but it's it's hard to think of two many other clubs that, even though the first round does go for thirty sevens, it seems like each year. Yeah, it's still quite astounding.
Absolutely well, yeah, we'll keep an eye out for all eight en clubs, but i'll the bombers.
I'm sorry, Max, Thanks you, Tom, No.
Thank you Andy.
That'll do us.
On today's Herald Sunfooty podcast, I'm Andy BelAZ and my thanks to Chris Kavanaugh and Max Danekap for joining me today. Make sure you keep an eye out for all the Scott Pendlebury four hundred game coverage through the week, trade buzz from a huge moneyball on Wednesday morning, Mick mcguan on Thursday, all the game coverage over the weekend, and then as always, Robbos can't mistackle on Sunday night. I'll catch you next week.
