Brisbane Lions still weighing up who to take with the No.1 pick in Friday’s draft
ONE of Cam Rayner, Andrew Brayshaw, Luke Davies-Uniacke or Paddy Dow will be the top pick in the draft. Get the lowdown on all four from Lions recruiter Stephen Conole.
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CAMERON Rayner looked at the Collingwood recruiters and pointed to the Ferrari.
Asked to describe himself as a car, Rayner’s eyes lit up when he saw the luxury vehicle on a piece of paper.
“There was a list of cars on a sheet and I said a Ferrari, because I can go quick — but run out of fuel pretty quickly as well,” Rayner said.
“They laughed as well, so it was pretty funny.”
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The truck or the van didn’t cut it for Cam, and fair enough. Most experts rank the player with the “Dustin Martin blueprint” the best in this year’s national draft talent pool.
Why?
“Certainly, when he’s forward of the ball he’s consistently a dangerous match-up,” Brisbane Lions chief recruiter Stephen Conole said.
“And he has genuine match-winning ability. He’s a powerful player and he’s had an outstanding season.
“We’ve said before we’re targeting midfielders and I think Cam has the ability to go through the midfield.”
Conole is the man with the key to Friday’s draft in Sydney. He holds five selections inside 45 including picks one, 15 and 18.
Pick one alone is still causing headaches with the Lions undecided five days out.
“At the start of the year quite a few of the recruiting group were away together and even then we were saying, ‘Who would be the early favourite for the No. 1 pick?’” Conole said.
“There wasn’t one person standing out. It’s been somewhat like that for the whole year.”
Darcy Fogarty and Jaidyn Stephenson were the frontrunners back then. Now both could slip out of the top 10.
Clubs believe the No. 1 race has been cut to four players.
In order of likelihood they are Rayner, Andrew Brayshaw, Luke Davies-Uniacke and Paddy Dow with Carlton, Fremantle and North Melbourne next in the draft queue.
Dow is the country kid from a 150-acre fruit farm at Swan Hill.
He plays taller than his 184cm. He has a bit of Patrick Dangerfield’s speed. And a touch of Luke Parker’s threat near goal.
“I’ve got the ability to burst from a contest and give it to the outside runners, and then play forward and kick some goals too,” Dow said.
He is also a contested king. Playing for Vic Country, 60 per cent of Dow’s possessions were won on the inside.
The Kangaroos fan pores over his vision in a school classroom with Andrew Mackie, the Geelong great who is helping Dow improve his running patterns.
Dow kicked seven goals against Wesley College this year and then won 35 disposals, six clearances and kicked two goals in a TAC Cup match.
That was his last. Dow was booked for a shoulder reconstruction after his right shoulder, which first popped out three years ago, went again in that final quarter.
Conole said Dow was a midfielder who “can get in and out of traffic” and praised his ability to juggle footy commitments with Vic Country, Bendigo Pioneers and Geelong Grammar this year.
“He’s a player with some serious upside once he gets inside a full-time system,” Conole said.
Davies-Uniacke shook off a late-season lull with a mighty TAC Cup elimination final performance.
With Dandenong Stingrays trailing Eastern by 50 points at halftime, “LDU” turned Victoria Park into his playground as his team saluted by 13 points.
The Rye lad looked untouchable when he amassed 33 disposals and played with strength and power. Each long kick inside 50m looked damaging.
“Towards the end of the TAC Cup I wasn’t playing bad footy, but wasn’t playing good footy,” Davies-Uniacke said.
“I was stuck in the middle and I wanted to prove a point. I wanted to showcase that I am one of the top prospects.”
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Davies-Uniacke has honed his kicking with Nick Dal Santo through the AFL Academy and Luke Power when Power visits his Rye holiday house.
Interestingly, the keen surfer’s mum owns a house in Brisbane, where she once lived.
Conole said the big-bodied midfielder had “high game impact” when deployed at the coalface.
“He’s powerful and quick, he’s got a really good step and his ability to win footy inside and then get involved back outside is really high-end,” Conole said.
And then there is Brayshaw, a future AFL leader who captained Haileybury to an undefeated premiership this year.
Brayshaw is regarded as the bolter. He only played two Vic Metro games and then surged to the line. He captained an All-Stars team on AFL Grand Final day and topped off his charge with a brilliant draft combine.
Brayshaw won the yo-yo endurance test, placed fourth in the 2km time-trial, fifth in the goalkicking test and 10th for agility.
But Conole said Brayshaw was no bolter. The Lions have been hot for him since Round 1.
“People keep talking about his backend to the year being very strong, but his first half of the year was quite exceptional,” Conole said.
“He played some really good footy for the Dragons, he moved into his school footy and was similarly impressive.
“And then he had the quad injury and it’s easy to forget how solid he was in the early parts.
“He came up off a six-week lay-off to play the final two championship games and he moved back into that effortlessly.”
Brayshaw is the blue-chip pick. He is Mr Consistent after he recorded more than 20 disposals and 100 SuperCoach points in all 10 TAC Cup matches this year.
From a character perspective, he is seen as Andy McGrath 2.0. He would give Lions coach Chris Fagan a Jordan Lewis-type.
And that matters.
“We’ve got some fundamentals we need to tick off on,” Conole said.
“We need to be confident that the player coming into the Lions is a player we’re comfortable bringing in.
“Someone we think has attributes not only to assist us Saturday to Saturday, but also to be a good member of the club on a weekly basis through areas such as training, development of the group and retention.
“It’s definitely a package, it’s not just one key area.”
No. 1 is starting to appear a battle between Brayshaw and Rayner, with heads bobbing at the line.
The Blues are also unsure on what to do at No. 3 and 10 but rivals believe they are warming to Dow at No. 3 and Fremantle to Davies-Uniacke at No.2.
But if Brayshaw goes No. 1 that could all change as one of Rayner, Dow or LDU would reach the Roos at No.4.
The Lions watched Rayner run a sluggish 2km time-trial on Friday, clocked at just under eight minutes and much slower than Brayshaw’s 6min 14sec at the combine.
The Ferrari again ran out of petrol tickets.
“It’s an issue, there’s no doubt it’s an issue,” Conole said of Rayner’s fitness.
“But he’s a competitive kid and there’s no query from us with his work ethic.
“I’m sure when he gets into the system it’ll improve, it obviously not at the level of Patrick Dangerfield type, but he needs to close the gap somewhat, no doubt.
“He’ll get to a level where he’ll be able to play some real, serious AFL footy.”
Some believe Rayner is a snug fit at the Gabba.
They say he’ll put bums on seats and become a deadly offensive weapon alongside Charlie Cameron and Dayne Zorko.
Rayner rocked up with a “Dusty” haircut for Vic Metro this year after a dare from his older brother, Lockie.
He was nicknamed “Hollywood” in the under-9s by a junior Hillside coach because of the goalkicking shows he put on.
As an under-16 Rayner kicked 14.6 in a match and last year he slotted 12 goals in successive TAC Cup games.
So how do the Lions decide? Is it the dazzling Rayner? The maturity of Brayshaw? Or someone else?
“It’s been a huge process,” Conole said.
“We’ve watched hundreds of hours of vision. We have multiple areas of our footy club involved.
“We research medicals, psychs, we speak to clubs, schools (and) where applicable employers.
“We’ve covered off on a lot of different areas on all these players to make sure that when we build the picture it’s as clear as it possibly can be.”
Originally published as Brisbane Lions still weighing up who to take with the No.1 pick in Friday’s draft
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