for those who defend this trade i have to ask.
tell me why its such a good trade based on performance stats and skills.does hampson after 7yrs tick any of these boxes.
just to finish. how many plauyers are there on team lists. lets say roughly 800. every yr we get an influx of how many new faces? 100 players say!! it would be close give or take 10 or so.
so 70 80 odd of the new faces every yr comes thru the nd and we are turning our noses up at top 30 picks because they are apparently no good. unbelievable.
Ok I'll have a nibble.
Firt of all I have not so much defended the trade, but argued that pick 30 odd is generally overvalued, so i dont belive that we have risked as much as some do.
I've put forward why i feel that way and if anyone can put forward a better method to quantify the value of the pick that does not rely on a subjective valuation of players, I'm all ears.
On Hampson, I haven't seen a lot of him to have formed a solid opinion either way, but from what I have, i do have concerns over his kicking. I wont get excited over what i have seen against us, where he has had some good performance, as it seems that half his highlights package is against us.
By the same token i wont read too much into "only played x games in X years " and "couldnt get a game at Cartlton" Blah blah blah. we saw similar thoughts used against Maric, and it was proven to be arse logic, (who FWIW, couldnt get a game behind Jacobs, who couldnt get a game behind Hampson). No one predicted he would come down with a groin problem like he has, which now means we have probably seen the best of him, nor will we get the length of service we would had hoped.
What i can glean about hampson;
He had a reputation for not holding marks. a couple of years ago it was discovered he had poor eye sight, which was subsequently fixed with laser surgery. Last year he was equal 6th in the league for contested marks per game.
Combine that with leading the league for % of taps to advantage and you have two qualities you want in a ruckman. He is fast for a big man, and does have a good leap.
another issue that supporters have with him has been his consistency, and intensity at times. as we have seen many ruckman don't start playing solid consistent footy until 25. As for intensity, is that just his make up, or is it a confidence thing? As it is not all the time that he lacks intensity, it it is possible that this is just a confidence thing.
He will be 26 when the season starts, so if he is going to play consistent footy to an appropriate level, we should start seeing it pretty much straight away.
One way or another we will know pretty quickly with shaun, as opposed to having to wait 5-6 years for a young ruckman.
For mine the concerns are his injury history and his kicking. On the injury front his two knee injuries were both impact injuries rather than indicating some structural weakness, but the question is have these injuries impacted his speed and leap?
Is his kicking due to the injuries? we have seen how injury has affected maric's kicking and how Jacksons kicking improved after getting over leg problems. In 2012 hampson kicked 15.4, but no other year has he come close to that conversion rate
Again, we should know soon enough.
