It’s really hard to watch Rory Lobb play football and not take a shine to him. Between the three-quarter length sleeves, extender arms that reach over almost any pack, and a look that is halfway between a 30s film star and Dolph Lundgren, Lobb has a way of drawing the eye of the crowd.
And now he has a new larger audience to do it all for.
Lobb has always been a better forward a ruck. After the retirement of Shane Mumford, Lobb was pressed into ruck duties after beating Dawson Simpson in the preseason battle. This move was also likely made due to the presence of Cameron, Patton and Himmelberg up forward – an extra tall may not have fit in the plan A setup.
At Fremantle, one of Sean Darcy or Aaron Sandilands will take the primary ruck duties, with Lobb likely serving primarily as a key position forward and only as relief ruck. Immediately, and alongside Hogan when he’s fit, he provides a massive upgrade on what was there before.
In this deal, Fremantle paid a pretty fair price for Lobb. The Giants gave one top 20 pick and two in the 40s for two top 20 selection – a pretty decent split of picks by both, even if 47 was later moved on in a pick swap. GWS have between five and seven list spots free, with young Academy ruck Kieran Briggs tabbed for one of those choices. Their fifth pick falls at number 52, while their sixth is at 89. It’s fair to assume that they will go into the draft only looking to pick five more players up, and were willing to chuck both selections Freo’s way.
In any case, this was a remarkably well balanced trade.
Verdict: Fair trade.
Note: This post is part of a series of posts using a valuation method called Player Approximate Value (PAV) to evaluate trades for fairness and balance. Elsewhere, you can read much more about the method and theory behind PAV and also about PAPLEY, the projection method used to derive expected future PAVs. This method expresses both picks and players in terms of expected future value allowing them to be compared on this common basis.