I've been following knightmare for years now and appreciate his work however his opinion is not the be all and end all. The guys that write for Bound for Glory (mainly sports journo students that watch most TAC footy games) say knightmare rarely attends junior games and provides misleading info all over Bigfooty.Con Gorozidis wrote:Very interesting is that Knightmare has Hopper, Mills, Keays in his top 5. All academy players. He rated Keays as better than PArish if we are looking for a fast line breaking and versatile mid.
If we nominate Keays with our pick 5 it would force the Lions into an awkward situation if they have already used their pick 2 on Schache. They will only just have enough points remaining to take him.
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/k ... t-40703313
Brisbane - Ben Keays (QLD – BRISBANE ACADEMY – MID/FWD)
Height: 185cm, Weight: 82.3kg, DOB: 23/02/1997
Recruited from: Brisbane Lions
Range: 1st round – 2nd round
Profile: Strong marking, goalkicking midfielder.
Knightmare has him 4th on his overall rankings.
So my theory is that if we nominate him it at 5 - it forces Brisbane to use their pick 20 on him and knocks out their pick 20. This moves us up one spot in the 20s.
From my personal observations of knightmare I find he's partial towards academy players to the extreme. It's like he's Eddie Maguire's mouthpiece. He totally overrated them.
Mills is certainly a gun and prolly the best mid in the draft. Hopper is a bull but has his limitations. He's very inside. Keays has made his reputation dominating division 2 national champs, has good runs on the board but his competition must not be dismissed. He's definitely a first round prospect though.
Last year it was said that Parish would've gone pick 1 as an underager and ahead of Petracca, Brayshaw, Paddy etc. you would like him. He's a tough country lad that busted his finger early in the year and played out the game. He ended missing a month after that injury.
Another thing I will say about knightmare is he always undervalues outside mids and ones that don't have a lot of size. He didn't rate Josh Kelly one bit in his draft year.
I'm not trying to rag on knightmare (even know I prolly have) I'm just saying also look at guys like Brett Anderson and Cal Twomey for reference. They are the best in the business imo.