National Draft Pick #17 - Michael Apeness

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Freo Shark said:
Abit alarmist, hes only missed a few games from normal short term injuries - if whats been said around the traps is accurate.

He is apparently over his back complaint.
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I have all the hope in the world for Gumbleton, if we get the #2 pick Essendon have been wanting him to grow into for our 55th pick we will be laughing. The reality of the situation is that the physical demands of AFL is a big step up from the VFL and some bodies just aren't capable of making that jump without falling apart. O'Brien was an example of ours who just couldn't maintain AFL workloads. Until he has shown he can do it then we can't expect him to.

I only want to temper expectations over him. He isn't going to walk into the team next year as a Jonothan Brown or Nick Reiwoldt clone. If we get the same out of him as Essendon has for the last two years it won't be a lot, anything close to 30 goals from 15 games will be amazing.

I really hope we get 100 games out of him, it would go down as our greatest ever trade steal.
 

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pokerspiv said:
Why do you keep thinking Gumbleton is going to be injured? He's 25 and has been injury free for 2 years. He passed our medical exams.
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I don't but I'm with Quokka because I work on probability. Odds are that both Gumby and Pav are penciled in for simultaneous front line duties. In this I would expect about 80% availability (injury, resting, qualify for selection) so in a season with finals I would expect that we will need about 10-12 games to be covered by an other.

Maybe we will play a few of those games with an extra mid/medium forward but there are some where we will be looking for a taller option. I think that we will be looking at Apeness, Tabs, Bradley or Hannath for about 6-8 games.
 
Rob said:
It's actually a massive tick that he would get upgraded, because it means a draft pick downgrade of about a hundred. Instead of using a national draft pick of about 70 for the spot on the senior list, we replace Taberner on the rookie list with our last rookie draft pick.
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Rob makes a very good point here. We clearly plan on Taberner getting multiple games in 2014. Otherwise we would have left him on the rookie list.
 
Tayl0r said:
I have all the hope in the world for Gumbleton, if we get the #2 pick Essendon have been wanting him to grow into for our 55th pick we will be laughing. The reality of the situation is that the physical demands of AFL is a big step up from the VFL and some bodies just aren't capable of making that jump without falling apart. O'Brien was an example of ours who just couldn't maintain AFL workloads. Until he has shown he can do it then we can't expect him to.

I only want to temper expectations over him. He isn't going to walk into the team next year as a Jonothan Brown or Nick Reiwoldt clone. If we get the same out of him as Essendon has for the last two years it won't be a lot, anything close to 30 goals from 15 games will be amazing.

I really hope we get 100 games out of him, it would go down as our greatest ever trade steal.
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Agree to an extent but I dont think the majority of people in here are expecting him to be the second coming.

Essentially its whether the glass is half full or empty? I'm half full kinda guy.
 
Palmervich said:
Mate coming from someone with a "back complaint" you don't just get over it, you learn to manage it.
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Take it up with Bondy and Lloyd, I'm just saying he appears not to be suffering from it the last couple years from what has been said.

He has done a medical so I would imagine we would have some idea how fragile he is.

All I'm saying is dont right the fella off just yet.
 
I'm not exactly sure what the actual complaint was? Anyone??

I think it wasnt actually a back complaint as such - just manifested itself thru back issues. I stand to be corrected on this.
 
I think it was a back problem initially that then caused other problems like issues with his hamstring etc. Again could be wrong there. It was certainly back surgery back in 2011 that seems to have really improved things anyway.
 
Freo Shark said:
I'm not exactly sure what the actual complaint was? Anyone??

I think it wasnt actually a back complaint as such - just manifested itself thru back issues. I stand to be corrected on this.
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Didn't he have a herniated disc for years that went unnoticed? it was finally picked up 2 years ago and operation on and hasn't been a problem since.
 
Nickos66 said:
Didn't he have a herniated disc for years that went unnoticed? it was finally picked up 2 years ago and operation on and hasn't been a problem since.
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I think the disc problems were operated on before 2011 but there was scar tissue that was causing problems in his hamstring that was removed IIRC.
 

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Palmervich said:
Mate coming from someone with a "back complaint" you don't just get over it, you learn to manage it.
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Unfortunately this. The last couple of years whilst he has played he has looked quite stiff - as though his spine was cabletied to a piece of rebar. Last yr against North a seasoned Essendon poster made the comment that Gumby in the warm up looked like a man with a crook back. One game against Geelong last yr he looked very good for the first half took some big pack marks on Lonergan that had Cometti gasping for air ( remember Buddy could barely get a kick on Lonergan) but then Enright bumped into Gumb just before half-time and you could see it changed him for the rest of the game. A real shame as could have been anything after the glimpses he showed in 2010 but I still have some hope things could change for him with a change of scenery and body management and if it does with a bit of luck there will probably be a cup for Freo.

Personally I suspect he doesn't have structurally anything wrong with the back but more a case of regularly tightening. If nothing else works get him to Chris Martinovich on Duoro Rd I heard some guy from Kalgoorlie who had a crook back went everywhere to no avail then finally to Martinovich who fixed him up - the guy brought Chris a new car!
 
His one year deal seems about right. He'll get his chance to show whether he can get on the park and survive the rough and tumble of back men roughing him up.

Good luck to him!
 
DOCKERZ said:
I felt like Tabs didn't have much of a chance to show his best last year, it seemed like any game he played in was either very wet, or in the Geelong case, we played crap (minus Barlow and Mundy etc didn't help).
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Yep, it's almost like we handpicked him to play the worst conditions/games possible for a young developing key forward. Not reading much into his AFL ventures just yet.
 
The more I see of this kid, the more I'm convinced he's going to be a better pick up than McCarthy - From a Key Foward perspective. This guy looks all kinds of awesome. Can you imagine being the poor sod in a couple of years time who has to back into the hole when he is steaming full tilt out of the goal square? All I can say is better you than me sunshine.
 
even our full forwards are going to be hard running, hard tackling pressure players. you can see how he's a step up from pav already in that regard, although pav has been trying to bring pressure acts into his game, it's not a natural instinct for him.
 
sherrif said:
Cheers Yakka. How good was that tackle. Those highlights seemed heaps better than anything I saw of Mccarthy.
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Definitely. Apeness has the potential to be a player who people look back on in a few years and say 'why wasn't he a top 5 draft pick?'. I think that the fact that he was forced to play a lot of time in the ruck this year is the main reason why he wasn't a top 10 pick. The rugby switch probably didn't help either.

Contested marking beast with huge upside and physically ready as a 18 year old.
 
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