Bigfooty's phantom drafts summaries of Ellis:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#18 North Melbourne – Brandon Ellis (VIC – Def)
Height: 181cm, Weight: 83kg, DOB: 03/08/1993
Recruited from: Calder Cannons
Style: Heath Shaw
Range: 10-35
Profile: Good user of the ball. Has a bit of a weapon of a kick down back. Provides great rebound from defence. Wins the hard ball and really attacks it. Good reader of the play. Tackles hard. Shrugs tackles with ease. Has a stocky type build but interestingly tested very well in the sprints. Has been a big performer both throughout the year for Calder Cannons as throughout the U18 champs so should be a fairly immediate player based on production this year and body type + size. Interestingly had a very good draft combine and tested incredibly well in all categories.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=843582--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#16 Fremantle - Brandon Ellis (181cm defender - Calder)
Tough, nuggety looking player who I'm assured will test very well athletically at the combine. He is a versatile player, and really you could play him in whatever position you wanted. Played mostly off half back, will no doubt be a part of midfield rotations too. I can see him developing into a handy small/medium defender in the mean time. AFL Comparison: Heath Shaw.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=883264---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# 16 Fremantle – Brandon Ellis (Calder Cannons / 181 / 83 / 93)
Ellis is one of my favourites and followed closely all year. Love watching this kid because I think he just oozes class and will step up into an AFL environment and make a really seamless transition. He just looks like a footballer and I suspect recruiters love his poise, strength on his feet, safe hands, kicking and decision making. He just doesn’t seem to make mistakes. Could well go into the middle as well in later years as he tested really well in sprint (albeit I never seem to think he looks quick), agility and endurance. In fact his endurance suggests he could play midfield so that may have him rising into mid first round. Lovely pick because he is that Chris Newman type who sits behind the footy and just controls the back half.
AFL Comparison – Chris Newman
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=885853------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pick 28 – West Coast
After shooting for the stars at 23, WC go with a meat and potatoes guy here in Ellis. Ellis is Beau Waters without all the injury problems. A rock at the back on which the team can rely. Ellis could go a fair bit higher in the real thing and I am sure that WC would be very happy to get him here.
Brandon Ellis
DOB 3/8/93 Ht 181 Wt 83
Ellis is a powerfully built HBFer who should be able to step in and play AFL right away. He has all the physical tools to let him start from round 1 next year. He is physically mature and has an excellent engine as evidenced by his 15.4 in the beep test (4th overall) at Combine. He understands his position well and was a bit of an unsung hero for Metro at the Champs I think.
Time and again at the Champs he was the one at the back tidying up the mess. He covered an enormous amount of ground and was able to sniff out when there was a problem and got to the right place to clean it up. This was particularly evident at the end of games when everyone else seemed to be tiring. Defensively I think he reads the play very well and positions himself to influence the play. Going forward I am not so sure about his play reading ability.
In attack I think Ellis does not read how play is going to develop particularly well. He makes plays to guys who whilst open have few options open to them or who were open to make a play a short time before but by the time they receive the ball the chance has been shut down. That is not to say he takes bad options at junior level but I do have some concerns that these poor reads will be exploited more at AFL level. His option taking is usually fairly conservative and he works it out of the back half most often with short chip passes.
His kicking style is a little awkward particularly on the left but he is pretty good at hitting his targets off either foot most particularly with his short to medium range kicks. He has reasonable penetration with his long kicks and gets surprising distance with his non-preferred. He can sometimes overestimate his length and underestimate the time it will take to get there but I really don’t see much wrong with his kicking at all. He has pretty quick hands for a HBF in the contest and he can get a bit of zip on his handballs. Again he can go a little bit beyond his range with the handball on occasions forcing the receiver to wait but overall he is one of the better long handballers in this draft.
Athletically he is excellent except for one thing and that is his pace off the mark. From a standing start he is very slow but once he gets things moving he actually has a pretty good top end speed. In the sprints at Combine he was in the bottom 10% over the first 5 metres but he picked up speed on most others over the remaining 15 metres and ended up with a reasonable time of 3.05. This good top end speed was also borne out in the 30m repeat sprint where he managed a very good time to place him in the top 13% of those tested. That’s pretty good for a guy with significant pace concerns. In addition to the very good endurance tests he also was just outside the top 10 in the agility and both the standing and running jumps. The agility and jumping were great for a guy with his build and are important when assessing his ability to hold his own as a defender at AFL level.
Defensively he is not often a tight marker but that is a function of the way junior football is played. With his skill set I think he could play as either a HBFer at AFL level or could move into the midfield as a tagger who can win his own ball. Down the track I could easily see him being one of the better taggers in the game. At the moment he is a hard at it style of player but is not probably as physical as his physique would suggest. He can throw his weight around but he is not a big hitter in the tackles nor does he overplay the physical contests. He will try to break tackles but he does not get through them all that much but credit to him he is not caught holding the ball much even when he is caught. I like his tenacious style and the dependable nature of his work in the defensive half and I think whoever picks him could get a reasonable player who goes about his job quietly and does the little things which will help teams win.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=890556
