he had a good debut and looks at this stage to be a decent pick good on him. as a 24 yo id say there should have been some expectation that he would make a decent contribution.
good game or bad i would still argue he would have lasted to the rookie draft.
im still adamant somehow we needed to take more kids and balance our trade/draft periods out.
i hope they give lloyd a game as well got to be a better option as a sml forward than jake king. hes also 24 and i would expect him to be able to make a decent contribution.
i will say it again with some sort of longer term view in mind, we should have gone IF POSSIBLE and ive said this right throughout something like this.
trade period
chapman f/a
laidler f/a
longer and pick 25 for pick 12 and 50.
nd
25 dunston
32 hewitt
64 marsh
78 templeton
rookies of which im honest enough to say i had none in mind. what i did argue it was in the rookie draft where we take mature players if we take em.
miles
gordon
lloyd.
thomas
i put gordon and lloyd here because imo it was clear there was every chance they would last till the rookie draft.
i argued for this sort of scenario and several similar scenarios at the time. it was not going to be too hard to do it was only a matter of tweaking things a little.
it would have given us 5 juniors and 4 or 5 mature types.
but apparently after pick 12 there was no good juniors available and we didnt need to keep an eye on the longer term. i wonder if we miss the 8 this yr if people will still hold that view.