The Press Box - Episode 30
The Examiner’s Josh Partridge and Ben Hann unpack and discuss the sports news across Northern Tasmania.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello and welcome to Pressbox episode number 30.
00:11 I can't believe we've got this far.
00:13 Today it's just us two, myself, Ben Henn
00:15 and here's Josh Partridge.
00:17 We've got rid of the other two
00:19 because quite frankly, the show is better without them.
00:21 (laughs)
00:23 I'm sure I won't hear the end of that one.
00:26 Yeah, so Rob is out for today
00:28 and Brian's obviously still on five-way duty.
00:30 So it is just us two.
00:32 It's gonna be an AFL draft special.
00:34 We're gonna keep it to, you know,
00:35 something that we know and have covered very extensively
00:38 over the past week and over the past year, Josh.
00:41 We're gonna start off with, well,
00:43 what a historic night for Tasmanian football,
00:46 three first round draft picks.
00:47 - Yeah, I mean, it's a fantastic night
00:49 and you could just sense how big it was.
00:52 Like every, the local football community
00:54 was going crazy on social media
00:57 and all the friends and family of these kids
00:59 were just so happy to see them
01:01 finally realise their AFL dreams and pick two.
01:04 That's unbelievable, isn't it?
01:06 I mean, only behind, as you just said,
01:09 one of the greatest players to ever play the game
01:11 as what you hope Harley Reid will be.
01:13 But yeah, to have Colby go pick two is phenomenal,
01:16 not just for Tasmanian football, obviously,
01:18 but for him as well.
01:19 I mean, it's a massive show of faith
01:22 from the Kangaroos to pick him in such a high spot,
01:24 isn't it?
01:25 - Absolutely, look, Colby has had a lot of media attention
01:28 on him as of all the top draft picks.
01:31 Now, since we are recording this on a Tuesday,
01:33 I should just mention,
01:34 so we won't be able to do much on the round two
01:36 of the draft, so we'll just be focusing on round one.
01:38 Colby was talking to Dwayne Russell on SEN,
01:43 I should say, today,
01:44 and it came to a pretty familiar topic for him.
01:48 He's been asked a lot of questions about,
01:50 when Tasmania have its own football team,
01:53 are you excited to be joining them effectively?
01:55 Just assuming they all want to go back.
01:56 But he's been pretty fervently saying,
01:59 "No, no, wherever I go, I want to stay there,"
02:02 hopefully for his whole career.
02:04 This is what he said today.
02:05 Quote, "I just got drafted to the club,
02:08 "and honestly, ideally, I'd be in North Melbourne forever,
02:11 "so I'd be really happy if people squashed that
02:14 "and just let me enjoy a new start to my life
02:17 "and being in a new state."
02:19 - As a North Melbourne fan,
02:21 that's got to be music to your ears, doesn't it?
02:23 I mean, the Tasmania thing's overhanging everyone
02:26 at the moment, but to have a new recruit
02:27 come out and say that, and from day dot,
02:30 he's been saying, "When I wanted to realise my AFL dream
02:33 "as a 13, 14-year-old, I knew I had to move."
02:35 So for four or five years, he's been preparing for this move.
02:38 He's been saying that his mum's been teaching him
02:41 how to cook and all these little small things,
02:43 like he wants to be a shinboner for life now.
02:46 He wants to get set in North Melbourne
02:48 and really just live his life there.
02:52 - It'll be really interesting to see what role he plays
02:54 early doors, I think.
02:55 North Melbourne, even though they haven't gone the best
02:58 this year in the last couple of years,
02:59 they've still got a really strong midfield.
03:01 They've got the likes of Luke Davies, Uniac,
03:03 and those boys in there,
03:04 but it's going to be really tough for him
03:06 to walk straight in.
03:07 So the talk, maybe he could go off a halfback
03:10 and play similar what Oshizle did,
03:12 earn his way into the midfield like that,
03:13 or something similar.
03:15 What do you think, Ben?
03:16 - Yeah, I think he's probably going to have a role
03:19 from day one, in my opinion.
03:21 It's pretty stacked midfield now for North Melbourne
03:24 in terms of they've really drafted heavily in that position,
03:26 but he might already be one of the best ones there,
03:30 such as his talent.
03:31 Yeah, look, I don't see how it isn't a great selection.
03:37 I mean, they picked him over Jed Walt.
03:38 Obviously that was the bidding process for Jed,
03:41 but that shows you how highly he's regarded,
03:44 that they even thought to do that
03:46 because of how highly sorted he is as a talent.
03:49 Yeah, I think he's going to get heaps of opportunity
03:53 at North and I think it's only going to go well for him.
03:56 At least that's the hope for us anyway.
03:59 Moving right along, it didn't take too long
04:01 before we had a second Tasmanian drafted.
04:05 Only a pick six for the Western Bulldogs in the end,
04:08 after, as we've talked about,
04:09 the Jed Walters selection for Gold Coast.
04:12 I'm going to just quickly come out and say
04:15 I think Hawks have come out with the first
04:18 pretty big miss of the night.
04:20 Not saying Nick Watson's necessarily going to be
04:21 a terrible player by any stretch.
04:23 I just think Riley Sanders is one of the very best
04:27 in this draft and I honestly can't for the life of me
04:30 understand how he's gone at pick six.
04:33 He was the best player in the under 80s
04:37 national competition.
04:38 He averaged 35 touches and kicked goals
04:41 on almost every occasion.
04:42 Yeah, I'm really struggling to see
04:46 what Nick Watson has over him,
04:49 but so to it.
04:50 Whether the Hawks loss is the Bulldogs game?
04:53 - Yeah, well I'm just going to start things off
04:55 by saying that I picked pick six.
04:57 I didn't know who had pick six at the time,
04:59 but I said that Riley Sanders would go with pick six.
05:02 Could be a very similar situation to Colby.
05:05 I mean, the Bulldogs have such a good midfield.
05:09 They just bat so deep.
05:11 You've got the likes of McCray, Bonson-Pelly, Smith.
05:16 What's the other, Treloar, Libertore.
05:19 It's endless.
05:20 So it could be hard.
05:23 He mightn't start right in that midfield,
05:24 but once again, as you said,
05:25 I think they'll be able to find and create a role for him.
05:29 They want him in the 22 to start things off, I'd say.
05:31 - Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
05:33 And that's probably, yeah,
05:35 the difference between the two players
05:36 is that one of them's going to a team
05:38 that has won five games in two years
05:40 and the other one is going to a team
05:42 that in 2021 was a grand finalist
05:44 and was everyone's shock team that missed the finals
05:47 and probably had the best player in the AFL just about.
05:49 So they are coming to do it
05:51 with two very different environments,
05:52 but two equally capable players.
05:55 The third one in the historic night was James Leake.
05:59 Now, some might say he was a bolter,
06:03 some might say he slid.
06:04 It's really hard to know with James.
06:06 He was interviewed by all 18 clubs famously.
06:08 Look, I think you start the year,
06:10 if you went James Leake's going to pick seven
06:12 into the Giants, he would have gone,
06:13 oh my goodness gracious.
06:14 - I would have never repeated it.
06:17 - He's gone to a team that the start of the year,
06:20 starting pretty slowly,
06:21 probably weren't going to make finals.
06:22 And then, you know, next minute they're losing by one point
06:26 to the eventual premiers in a preliminary final.
06:28 What an exciting time to go to the Giants for James.
06:31 - And that's the thing, they're loading up
06:32 and they want players that are going to win
06:34 their next premiership for them.
06:35 So them showing this big deal of faith in James,
06:38 which they did, they traded to get James.
06:41 They had pick 18 and St Kilda did a little deal with them
06:45 and went, we'll go ahead of you.
06:47 And the Giants got James from that.
06:49 They really wanted James Leake in their side.
06:51 And fantasy drafts kind of said
06:53 that he might be going earlier,
06:54 might be going with pick eight around that mark
06:57 to the Giants, but people knew that the Giants
06:59 were interested in James and they've shown the faith
07:01 in him now by picking him like that, haven't they?
07:03 - Absolutely, yeah, I think he's exactly the sort of player
07:07 that can compliment their system.
07:09 The versatility, Jeremy Webley, the Devils coach,
07:12 spoke on it quite a lot today with me.
07:17 Sort of spoke about how he reckons he's going to start off
07:19 as that halfback role, that one he played to start
07:21 with the Devils one, I think probably most of the AFL
07:23 knows him to be, but he would not be surprised at all
07:26 if he used that versatility and plays as that swing man
07:29 to go up forwards or even potentially
07:31 even through the midfield.
07:32 He just could play anywhere in the footy field.
07:34 It makes him such an invaluable piece.
07:38 - We'll have a quick look at our predictions.
07:41 So you mentioned there before, we'll start off with Colby.
07:43 I had him pick three to North Melbourne.
07:46 I'm going to claim that as a win for me.
07:48 - Take it.
07:49 - You had him pick four, not quite off,
07:51 but you got one back on me with Riley Sanders.
07:54 So even though you didn't pick a team,
07:57 I'll give you the bulldogs, you got the pick right.
07:59 I picked him to get a Hawthorn and I'm spewing,
08:01 and that must be how it sounds anyway,
08:03 for my own benefit that he didn't go to the Hawks.
08:06 - James Leakey is the biggest steal of the draft,
08:08 in my opinion.
08:09 I thought he was going to be low at 13.
08:12 I thought, oh, he might not last that long,
08:14 but he's going on a seven.
08:16 Yeah, what a steal at 17.
08:18 - Yeah, and as you said, talking to Leakey,
08:20 he knows that he's played his highest level of footy
08:23 in that halfback role.
08:24 So he knew that potentially when he goes into the program,
08:27 that's what he's going to be doing,
08:28 but he really wants to go forward and kick goals.
08:31 I mean, who doesn't?
08:34 He said that he really enjoyed playing through the midfield
08:37 and playing as a forward like he did as a kid
08:39 before coming into Lonnie and doing the defender stuff.
08:41 So yeah, once he applies his trade and defense,
08:44 I wouldn't be shocked in the next couple of years
08:46 to see him go forward and do what he wants to do.
08:49 - Yeah, absolutely.
08:50 I reckon that's all we have, Josh,
08:52 unless there's anything else.
08:53 Well, that's all for this episode of the Press Box.
08:55 We'll guys see you for the next one.
08:57 (upbeat music)
08:59 (upbeat music)
09:02 (upbeat music)
09:05 [BLANK_AUDIO]