Malcolm Blight: This year’s Rising Star pack has two standout players at opposite ends of the park — one a young Crow
HALL of Fame Legend Malcolm Blight says two young players stand out from the Rising Star pack at opposite ends of the park, once again proving draft order need not be the ultimate indicator of future success.
- Power debut an ‘absolute dream come true’
- Voss Jr lines up for Lions
- Eagles coup as McGovern signs on
- Crows shining Knight
- Cornes: The one big area Port is falling short
AFL players are judged at the end of their careers — games played, premierships, best-and-fairest titles, All-Australian honours.
But if you are a recruiting chief or list manager at a club, you must have greater vision than the dressed-up gypsy reading the crystal ball at the Royal Show. And within 12 months — with the AFL Rising Star award — everyone is eager to judge the game’s best rookie … and wonder why your club’s recruiting scouts ignored the best first-year player despite calling 10 picks earlier in the draft.
Last year, the Rising Star was Essendon half-back (and occasional midfielder) Andrew McGrath, and he was the No. 1 pick in the preceding national draft. Well done, Bombers.
This year’s Rising Star could be — perhaps should be — a player who went at No. 17 in the 2015 national draft and waited longer than any other first-round draftee from that year to earn his AFL start: Crows’ defender Tom Doedee. Nice work, Adelaide.
The Rising Star is in its 26th season. It is a significant award today — and appropriately honours former AFL Commission chairman Ron Evans. The leaderboard each year also is a fair guide as to which clubs have nailed finding that 10-year, 200-game star who today is described as the “franchise player”.
In 25 years, the Rising Star honour board has signalled the arrival of four eventual Brownlow Medallists — starting with the first Rising Star, Nathan Buckley at Brisbane in 1993 (followed by Ben Cousins, Adam Goodes and Sam Mitchell). There are eight Rising Stars who have played in premiership teams, taking on significant roles too.
And, remarkably, Collingwood has not had a Rising Star winner. But that could change very, very soon.
AFL boss Gillon McLachlan yesterday sent out the invitations to this year’s Rising Star presentation, at Melbourne’s Docklands on August 31. If the voting slip had to be filled in today, my call would be — 1. Jaidyn Stephenson (Collingwood); 2. Doedee (Adelaide); 3. Ben Ronke (Sydney).
Doedee is a win in patience and belief at Adelaide. After waiting two years to break into a well-settled defence, Doedee has left fans with less anger from the defection of Jake Lever to Melbourne. Doedee’s numbers — averaging 18 disposals with five marks in his 17 matches — are a fair return for a player working in the third defender’s role. His reading of the play, particularly for his intercept marks, is impressive.
Stephenson is an “unusual” player. At 188cm, he shows pace that is often beyond players of his size.
He has kicked 28 goals in 14 games — including the breakout five against Adelaide in his fourth game — to make it difficult for any of the Collingwood players on the comeback path, such as Jarryd Blair, Jamie Elliott or Alex Fasolo, to think they are just marching back into the Magpie line-up.
Doedee v Stephenson? It is much like the Glenn Jakovich v Wayne Carey debate from a generation ago. Forwards have it tougher.
They have to approach the ball and turn back to find space to goal. Defenders have the game in front of them — and keeping running forward to advance the play.
The game favours defenders ahead of forwards on a 55-45 split. Forwards are asked to do more to win the ball — and make their possessions count. So Stephenson gets the nod.
There are some impressive young tyros to consider in this year’s Rising Star pack. And we wonder why one club’s recruiting scouts allowed some players to fall even to the rookie list, such as Ronke, who was call No. 17 in the 2017 rookie draft.
Richmond, the premier that is supposed to be penalised in a draft system that favours the poorest performing teams, found a gem in Jack Higgins at No. 17 in last year’s national draft. Remarkably, the statisticians at Champion Data rated the modern “pressure forward” as the No. 1 pick based on his win of the Morrish Medal as the best player in the TAC under-18 competition and winning the Vic Metro MVP from the national under-18 titles. Yet, Higgins went at No. 17.
COMPLETE THE SURVEY BELOW AND YOU COULD WIN AFL GRAND FINAL TICKETS
The Rising Star is a fair pointer to future stars based on a season of football. But the draft order need not be the ultimate indicator at all.
Adelaide put Lachlan Murphy on its rookie list with pick No. 38 in the summer when the Crows noted in the pre-season that they had a capable AFL player.
So why was he ignored by AFL recruiting scouts earlier when he won the Northern Knights under-18s best-and-fairest title while playing just 10 games in 2016?
Draft projections might be just as mysterious as that crystal ball gazing “Mystic Meg” offered at the Royal Show. But not in doubt is how the AFL Rising Star does point to future football royalty.
Watch every match of every round of the 2018 Toyota AFL Premiership Season. SIGN UP NOW >