Tommy Lee

[Vazelos]

23 year old Tommy Lee raises concern.
At his age he should be demanding selection in Round 1, especially for the currency we traded for his talents.
Beau Maister is not the future yet he was chosen.
It seems Lee lacks the physical qualities Maister has otherwise you would expect him to be in there with his excellent kicking skills.

[CURLY]

Limited prepreration apparently so if thats the case no need to be alarmed.

[Vazelos]

I hope that is the case.
Plough raised it on SEN & I was thinking it during the game on Saturday.

[kimberly saint]

lets make a call after round five , iv herd he had a shitty preseason . Big investment in him but was going ok end last season i thought ? by round five if he stays fit should be in ones hopefully showing sum good signs like few of the others did sat

[gringo]

Plough is a dick head. lee spent time on the sidelines because of his shoulders. He said he was going to come back through Sandy and build up his fitness base. Hasn't had a preseason and was struggling last year with injury but still kicked about 20 goals from 10 goals from memory. For his first year of AFL footy even though he was on Adelaide's list is okay. He is a really positive voice around the club and is the joker now Milney has gone. He does a lot of directing and seems a natural leader. Don't panic he will have a longer career than most of ploughs recruits did. Give him a couple of weeks and he will be killing it again. I expect him to get his goal kick up around 3 a game this season and in a couple of years be a Gunston type. Interesting both drafted by the Crows around the same age but Tom is at about the same point he was at in his second year. Gunston already had a few games from the year previous.

http://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/ft_p ... fopt2=2011

[Con Gorozidis]

Too early to call it .
Two pre seasons with shoulder surgery so no chance to build his body and pump iron which is crucial for a key fwd.
If his shoulders don't heal or he does one again then i think he's stuffed but if he gets two injury free years we can then judge him fully .
Same goes for Spencer who had that unhealed scaphoid all last year.

[Vazelos]

Thanks for the opinion boys, for the record I am not a fan of Plough or Terry "Wallets" as they call him at Hawthorn.

[Spinner]

23 year old Tommy Lee raises concern.
At his age he should be demanding selection in Round 1, especially for the currency we traded for his talents.
Beau Maister is not the future yet he was chosen.
It seems Lee lacks the physical qualities Maister has otherwise you would expect him to be in there with his excellent kicking skills.

I'm a little concerned too...

[skeptic]

The fact that he's missed the majority of the preseason has really put him behind the pack.

Essentially he's going to need to build up his fitness regime over the next 6 weeks or so and work heavily on his upper strength over the course of the season as gains will be slow.

I would have thought he would have to play at least another 5 weeks in the VFL before he even slightly starts to demonstrate he's close to the required fitness level.

Furthermore, he's one of these players that is more a leading forward rather than a contested mark taking machine, hence his performances in the VFL have to consider this disadvantage as he does better on bigger grounds and with better delivery. Realistically, I think he's going to be one of those players that never dominates the VFL that much but still could be a good AFL. The path from VFL to AFL is not always linear.

Add to that the the coaching staff have in the past reported that he is considered a project player as his body was always a long term proposition

I think ppl need to seriously consider their expectations of Tom Lee

[matrix]

Do some research plough....Christ sake.

[Con Gorozidis]

Alarm bells for me all summer since I bumped into him in a restaurant .
He does not look at all like he has an afl standard physique.
Just looks too weak for the AFL. A real worry at this stage.
Can be improved but ball in his court I think.

[plugger66]

I dont think building him up or missing a bit of training effects his speed and thats his issue. he is bloody slow and because he will never be a pack mark will struggle in the AFL. Apart from being a great kick he doesnt have anything special at all. And I think Wallace would know a bit about footy.

Having said that its a bit early but he is down the order you would think epecially with some pushing for Longer to play. Know more at the end of the year.

[PADDLEPOP1001]

All interesting comments let's hope he comes good!

[bigcarl]

I dont think building him up or missing a bit of training effects his speed and thats his issue. he is bloody slow and because he will never be a pack mark will struggle in the AFL. Apart from being a great kick he doesnt have anything special at all.

It's a worry that you should say this Plugger because you are often correct about this type of thing. Let's hope that you are wrong for once.

[CURLY]

I dont think building him up or missing a bit of training effects his speed and thats his issue. he is bloody slow and because he will never be a pack mark will struggle in the AFL. Apart from being a great kick he doesnt have anything special at all. And I think Wallace would know a bit about footy.

Having said that its a bit early but he is down the order you would think epecially with some pushing for Longer to play. Know more at the end of the year.

Terry and Shifter had him going at pick 11 to Carlton in their mock draft on the FutureStars programme.

[FQF]

Speed is mostly beyond his control, as is injury. He needs to work on his fitness and his strength so that he can extract the most from his natural talent. I saw good signs last year.

[Cairnsman]

I dont think building him up or missing a bit of training effects his speed and thats his issue. he is bloody slow and because he will never be a pack mark will struggle in the AFL. Apart from being a great kick he doesnt have anything special at all. And I think Wallace would know a bit about footy.

Having said that its a bit early but he is down the order you would think epecially with some pushing for Longer to play. Know more at the end of the year.

I'm hoping that Pelchen and our recruiting department know more than Terry Wallace when it comes to spotting talent and using high draft picks. And BTW that's not a knock on Wallace, just stating the obvious. I agree, wait until the end of season on Lee. He might even need another pre-season at the end of this year to get his body right.

[plugger66]

I dont think building him up or missing a bit of training effects his speed and thats his issue. he is bloody slow and because he will never be a pack mark will struggle in the AFL. Apart from being a great kick he doesnt have anything special at all. And I think Wallace would know a bit about footy.

Having said that its a bit early but he is down the order you would think epecially with some pushing for Longer to play. Know more at the end of the year.

I'm hoping that Pelchen and our recruiting department know more than Terry Wallace when it comes to spotting talent and using high draft picks. And BTW that's not a knock on Wallace, just stating the obvious. I agree, wait until the end of season on Lee. He might even need another pre-season at the end of this year to get his body right.

They may have known more last year on him and he just hasnt developed like they would hope. Happens to at least 50% of drafties. Even high draft picks.

[Con Gorozidis]

Doesnt he have a quick 20m time from the draft testing a few years back?
He didnt look slow in the wafl. He looks soft in the body. No tone at all.
Either way - hes not improving as wed all hoped.
Needs to get a wriggle on. I get a sense hes been cruising.

[plugger66]

Doesnt he have a quick 20m time from the draft testing a few years back?
He didnt look slow in the wafl. He looks soft in the body. No tone at all.
Either way - hes not improving as wed all hoped.
Needs to get a wriggle on. I get a sense hes been cruising.

That testing can always lead to funny results. He maybe very quick over 20 in a race but when he leads for the ball he doesnt really put space in his opponent. I have no idea about the WAFL but has looked slow and Sandy and the Saints. Soft in the body doesnt stop you running and competing. And neither does tone. Seems alright to me in that department though.

[magnifisaint]

Doesnt he have a quick 20m time from the draft testing a few years back?
He didnt look slow in the wafl. He looks soft in the body. No tone at all.
Either way - hes not improving as wed all hoped.
Needs to get a wriggle on. I get a sense hes been cruising.

He has a gut

[bergholt]

Terry and Shifter had him going at pick 11 to Carlton in their mock draft on the FutureStars programme.

Carlton drafted Bryce Gibbs ahead of Travis Boak and Joel Selwood - why would their rating of Lee matter?

[saintspremiers]

Doesnt he have a quick 20m time from the draft testing a few years back?
He didnt look slow in the wafl. He looks soft in the body. No tone at all.
Either way - hes not improving as wed all hoped.
Needs to get a wriggle on. I get a sense hes been cruising.

He has a gut

From what I hear so does Mr Schneider.......and this is a recent observation.

[gringo]

Doesnt he have a quick 20m time from the draft testing a few years back?
He didnt look slow in the wafl. He looks soft in the body. No tone at all.
Either way - hes not improving as wed all hoped.
Needs to get a wriggle on. I get a sense hes been cruising.

He has had shoulder issues last year and this year which would make upper body work hard. I don't think he seems slow either. What do you expect his improvement to be. He kicked 3 or so against Sydney late in the season and presented well has 20 goals from his first 10 afl games. Hasn't had a break out 5 or 6 goal game yet but I would suggest he might find that hard until we stop going through Riewoldt 90% of the time. He isn't a KPF he's a medium sized type like Darling, Gunston etc. He seemed very driven at training and very vocal not a guy just drifting. I'm pretty confident on Lee being a very good player for us.

[Zed]

He appeared to be rated highly in the WAFL coming into the draft and the assumption was that he would continue to develop and improve - hence why his draft value was touted as a late first rounder or possible 2nd rounder. So I can understand why we showed interest - particularly as we had a dire need to find replacements for Roo and Kosi. However he appears to have neither the strength nor endurance nor the resilience required to be an AFL footballer. I seriously hope I am proven wrong however I think at the end of his AFL career the result will be that we paid overs for a guy whose real value probably was somewhere with the speculative picks of the 4th round or beyond.