Jack Redden’s Player Value – 1241 points
Brisbane value in = 1000 points (Pick 17).
West Coast value in = 1241 points (Jack Redden).
Verdict – Fair trade (West Coast gains 241 points of pick and player value, or 1.241 points back for every point given up).
Of all of the promising Brisbane midfielders, Jack Redden may be the one most commonly forgotten about. Behind the sheer class of Rockliff, the prior achievements of Beams, the Rising Star of Rich, the Irishness of Hanley and the potential of Aish, Redden occasionally gets lost in the mix but not for a want of trying. If there’s one beacon on the hill for the Lions, it’s that the strength of their midfield should be able to drag them up the ladder, eventually.
Alas, at the end of the season Redden declared that he wanted out of the Gabba, continuing the seemingly never-ending exodus away from the AFL’s most northerly team. And, as a matter of routine, the Lions have geared up around youth and picks moving forward.
At 25 years old, Redden still has a lot of footy ahead of him, and he certainly has a lot of talent. He’s a big-bodied midfielder – hard tackling, winning clearances and not turning it over much. While he has struggled to get on the park a little bit in recent years, he was extremely durable early in his career. We’ve valued him based on his recent average of 18 games a year and an expectation that he has about half his career output ahead of him.
While HPN isn’t sure that West Coast needed another midfielder of this type, when players like Redden come on the market you kinda have to snap them up. In return, Brisbane got another decent draft pick, to hopefully build towards their long-awaited return to the pointy end of the ladder in three to five years.
Best/Worst players chosen at Pick 17
Best:
James Kelly (273 games), Harry Taylor (180 games), Scott Welsh (205 games)
Worst:
Billy Morrison (0 games), Ezra Bray (0 games), James Davies (3 games)