The 15 players under Victoria’s new AFL coaches with the most upside
Alastair Clarkson has a lot of work to do – but one of his most important jobs is working out Tarryn Thomas. Can he do it? Plus, the three other Roos who could take next step.
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On Monday morning the tenures of Brad Scott, Alastair Clarkson and Ross Lyon all began at their respective football clubs.
The experienced trio have had their boots on the ground for a few weeks but this is go-time – a four-week pre-Christmas sprint to upskill playing groups that everyone would concede have underperformed in recent years.
So who are the top 15 players across those three clubs with the most room for improvement?
Some haven’t reached their potential, some are just babies in football terms but have so much to give.
How do these three coaches crack the code with a list of players who vary from overall No.1 picks to summer rookies to the kind of taggers that Ross Lyon has always found room for in his side.
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1. Tarryn Thomas (North Melbourne)
The beauty of Clarkson’s relationship with Thomas is that it is a perfectly clean slate.
He doesn’t have to relitigate what happened in 2022 and the reasons behind it.
He just has to find what motivates Thomas – winning, stardom, team success, fame, fortune – and tap into it to turn him back into the player he was at the end of 2021.
Last year was a disaster amid trade rumours as he suffered an early internal injury, starved of opportunity at half forward, looked disinterested in a game where it was later revealed he was mourning his grandmother’s death, then played only one senior game after round 12.
Thomas has the perfect mid-forward blend – hard as a cat’s head, silky, a strong overhead mark, a lovely kick for goal.
He caps off a Roos midfield that includes Ben Cunnington, Jy Simpkin and Luke Davies Uniacke but he needs to want it.
2. Max King (St Kilda)
As a key forward four years into his career King is set to take the game by storm as a 60-game forward with every gift a future Hall of Famer needs.
He has the football world at his feet.
But as a pure goal kicker his last two rounds tell you everything you need to know about his inconsistency.
Five points against Brisbane in a game that cost St Kilda a finals spot, then five straight goals against Sydney.
Everyone has a different story about whether or not Matthew Lloyd was overruled when he tried to help him in 2021 with his goalkicking.
Under Ross Lyon every single person at the club needs to be on board with who is in charge of King’s set shot routine, whether it’s an external figure like Lloyd or an internal expert like Jarryd Roughead.
3. Harrison Jones (Essendon)
Jones had Essendon pulses racing with his potential in that 20-goal breakout year in 2021, full of moments where he hit the ball at full velocity with long arms outstretched and a defender trailing in his wake.
But amid ankle and foot stress fracture issues this year he managed only 10 games for 13.5.
He can be anything as a third forward and with Peter Wright, Jake Stringer and Sam Weideman the potential key targets he has a chance to slide into some excellent match-ups and become Wright’s foil for the next 150 games.
Could be an Essendon 200-gamer.
4. Jaidyn Stephenson (North Melbourne)
There is a train of thought that Stephenson just caught lightning in a bottle in that Rising Star year and has been on a steady irreversible slide since then.
Avoiding accidents fooling around doing tricks on a bike in his backyard this summer would be a good start under Clarkson’s new regime.
He will never be Glenn Archer as a physical shirk-no-issue beast.
He will never be Robert Harvey for sheer consistency.
But at his best he has significant endurance, the capacity to win the footy at will and the skills to hit teammates in stride.
Can Clarkson find the alchemy to find the exact position for him, to engender in him the belief to put his body on the line when required, to extract from him enough meaningful cameos each season to become a Roos fan favourite?
5. Zach Reid (Essendon)
Essendon fans shouldn’t be impatient with Reid’s modest progress so far.
He is on this list because of his significant upside in a team that is screaming out for a player of exactly his defensive gifts.
The Dons didn’t launch at a Griffin Logue type despite being smacked around on a weekly basis by the best key forwards in the game.
Instead they backed in their ability to develop players like 202cm key defender Reid and Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, who played the last eight games of the year with some encouraging results.
No.10 draft pick Reid has only eight total games to his AFL career so far but in a year where no one truly believes Essendon is a finals contender what reason is there not to play him in round 1 and just keep backing him in to repeat performances like round 9’s encouraging 10-mark performance against Sydney.
6. Jack Billings (St Kilda)
Billings is only 27 and for Ross Lyon is an intriguing prospect given no one has ever questioned his talent.
This year was a write-off – only eight games after injuries including a back issue that eventually needed surgery.
But he doesn’t change the course of games enough despite being exactly the kind of goalkicking outside runner that has been in short supply at St Kilda.
There are so many of these players with upside who Lyon will believe could be putty in his hands either as role players or matchwinners.
Billings’ best season was 2017 when he mixed 508 possessions with 23.36, although better accuracy would have lifted him higher than fifth in that year’s best-and-fairest.
No reason he can’t return to those heights under Ross the Boss.
7. Hunter Clark (St Kilda)
Make no mistake, St Kilda weren’t keen to keep Hunter Clark at all costs.
They just didn’t get a good enough draft pick from the Roos to consider a deal at trade time.
How many times will Ross Lyon use that as fuel to needle or cajole him across the summer?
Did St Kilda not believe he worked hard enough at his craft? That he had maxed out his talent?
Because his best is exceptional as a ball-hunting mid capable of sidestepping out of traffic where few others can find space.
St Kilda was frank in the trade period about their reality – they just don’t have enough good players to compete for a flag.
So Clark can be part of the solution by driving his new assistant coaches Robert Harvey and Lenny Hayes absolutely insane, demanding they help him become another in the long line of great St Kilda mids.
Or he can be at another club this time next year.
8. Marcus Windhager (St Kilda)
Doesn’t Rossy just love a tagger.
The Steven Baker-Ryan Crowley types who give everything to the cause.
And we mean everything.
Windhager could scarcely have been more impressive on a string of star midfielders in his debut season and now has Lyon as a coach surely keen to take those dark arts of tagging to another level.
9. Callum Coleman-Jones (North Melbourne)
With any kind of delivery that resembles the competition average Nick Larkey will continue his emergence as an AFL star.
And Cam Zurhaar once more endured a miserable first month of the season then roared home with a 30-plus goal year.
So there is a chance for ex-Richmond tall Coleman-Jones to emerge as the third tall in Clarkson’s forward line as a David Hale-style ruck who kicks 15-plus goals a year.
We rarely saw it in his first year for the Roos _ he played 10 games for five goals and 101 hit-outs _ but at just 23 he has so much time as an AFL ruckman to realise his potential.
10. Nic Martin (Essendon)
Quick question — if you could take only one of Nick Martin or Archie Perkins at Essendon which would you choose?
Perkins is a top-10 pick and Martin a bolt-from-the-blue summer rookie but his first AFL season was utterly glorious.
Five goals against the eventual premiers in Geelong, 21 games in total, an average of 19.9 possessions and 19.15 for the season.
Brad Scott is adamant he won’t take the flair out of the attacking game while prioritising defence and gets another exciting mid-forward to add to the rotation.
Can Martin cope with the increased attention? Is that his ceiling or does he have another level to acquire?
11. Sam Weideman (Essendon)
Brad Scott didn’t exactly swing for the fences over the off-season as he ensured the Dons kept their draft hand rather than using those early picks on established key forwards and backs.
But Weideman was a canny low-risk, high-upside acquisition from Melbourne who at his best has a significant role to play.
His 4.3 against Essendon in round 1 surely peaked the Dons’ interest and he kicked three goals against Richmond and three against the Western Bulldogs.
The problem was he could kick three goals in the other seven games for the Demons this year.
His strong VFL form as a ruckman has been well advertised so can Brad Scott find enough ruck minutes for him given Draper (12 goals in 2022) has at least shown he can snag a goal drifting forward?
12. Archie Perkins (Essendon)
The No.9 draft pick missed the top dozen in the 2022 best-and-fairest but still finished with 16.13 in a solid sophomore season that had cameo moments rather than four-quarter efforts.
He would feel his career is well on track but hopefully he is one of the Essendon youngsters who has smashed himself over the summer to develop the kind of fitness he requires.
As in the gut running to play 100 minutes as a pure mid if the opportunity presents and yet be equally ready to lead the team in forward-50 tackles if his opportunities come forward of centre again.
So much at Essendon rests on whether high draft picks like Nik Cox, Reid, Ben Hobbs and Reid can progress from exciting young punks into dominant AFL stars.
They certainly have the talent.
13. Tom Powell (North Melbourne)
North Melbourne will hasten slowly with No.3 overall draft pick Will Phillips to ensure he fully recovers from his case of glandular fever, so let’s cut him some slack.
In the meantime don’t sleep on No.14 Tom Powell to rediscover his place in those Emerging Star lists.
His best in his debut year was off the charts – 23 touches against eventual premiers Melbourne, 25 against Fremantle – as a well-rounded inside mid.
Last year as everyone at the Roos went backwards he still played 18 games but averaged only 14.6 touches and 56 ranking points.
There are many mouths to feed in the Roos midfield but look for Powell to thrive in Clarkson’s system after a confusing, calamitous year at Arden St in 2022.
14. Andy McGrath (Essendon)
McGrath finished 12th in Essendon’s best-and-fairest after missing four games mid-year with a groin strain.
He knows he is capable of better.
The deputy vice-captain and No.1 overall pick will surely have some fascinating conversations with Brad Scott about how to best enhance his gifts given he has often been the first one pushed to half back or out of the centre square.
Playing often as a half back this year he averaged 2.3 clearances and 87 ranking points, well down on his 4.9 clearances and 96 ranking points in his best year in 2020 playing midfield.
Scott might tell him he needs big-bodied mids like Jye Caldwell and Jake Stringer in the midfield but look Lachie Neale’s transformation from a busy ballwinner to a dominant champion.
McGrath is 178cm tall and Neale 177cm.
15. Jack Higgins (St Kilda)
The open question is how much joy Jack Higgins got from a 2022 season where he was pilloried for selfish play and left so many chances on the table in a 30.25 season where he missed the top-10 in the best-and-fairest?
What a confusing season given any small forward with 50-plus shots on goal is doing so much right.
At his best at Richmond he was such an instinctive player who derived such enjoyment from being out there with his mates.
So Ross Lyon’s balance will be invigorating Higgins and backing in his assets while still ensuring he plays with rigid disciplined adherence to structure that is a highlight of Lyon-coached teams.
That is some challenge and yet its exactly why Lyon has landed at Moorabbin: to extract every bit of improvement from players like Higgins.
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