THE GOOD: THIS MID-SEASON DRAFT

Mid-season draftees can suck you in an let you down sometimes. Landing the type of player you need at the right time of the season can often mean these guys become overrated. At the end of the day, they missed out on drafts and being picked up by other means for a reason.

But this year’s pool of winter picks are on track to be pretty strong.

You don’t have to look any further than West Coast. Marcus Herbert didn’t have his greatest outings against the Giants yesterday but he has definitely added something to the way the Eagles move the ball and will earn a new deal. Oli Francou looked like a tackling machine before he went down with a season-ending knee laceration.

West Aussie Jaxon Artemis was pick No.1 and has played the past four games for the horrid Bombers and Ky Annand has slotted really nicely into Richmond’s backline after going with pick two.

Cambell Lake has kicked five goals and laid 32 tackles in eight games at the Saints and Hugo Hall-Kahan is going to play a finals series for Adelaide.

Another of the crop, pick No.12 Max Beattie, debuted for the Hawks on Saturday night and looked fantastic. He kicked a clever and important goal late in the draw with Collingwood and wasn’t afraid to bite off a bit when he got the ball further up the ground. His first involvement was a bone-crunching tackle that earned him a holding-the-ball free kick.

Beattie trained at Fremantle as they hunted for a small forward two pre-seasons ago. They landed on Isaiah Dudley, who has had a brilliant season, but Beattie could turn out to be a gun too.

THE BAD: ADVANTAGE WHISTLE

The most stupid part of officiating in this sport is not the stand rule or the ruck lottery. It’s when umpires blow their whistle to signal they are paying advantage.

You pull 36 humans off the street and put them on an oval, give them a ball and tell them to run and run. I can promise you if you blow your whistle at any point, they will all stop. It’s human nature, drilled into us from primary school onwards.

And time and time again we see a free kick awarded, one player take the ball and run, the whistle blows to signal advantage and the defenders who should be chasing the player with the ball all stop. Or, at the very least, look to see where it came from.

There was an example with eight minutes to go in the Hawks-Magpies game — a thriller that ended in a draw — where Collingwood were awarded a free kick, Dan Houston was charging inside 50 and the chasing defenders stopped or slowed at the sound of the whistle. Houston missed the running effort on goal, but it was yet another example of an infuriating and easily-fixed bit of officiating. Just yell ‘advantage’.

THE UGLY: DEAD RUBBERS

The AFL will get an excellent sugar hit out of the wildcard weekend in a fortnight. If the status quo prevails after the final round, Adelaide will face Carlton at Adelaide Oval and Collingwood will host Victorian opponents Western Bulldogs in front of a jam-packed MCG.

But the lead-in to the round, which was meant to be part of its selling point. Hasn’t quite lived up to the hype.

Carlton are now locked into 10th spot. They can’t go up and they can’t go down when they meet Fremantle — who also can’t move from top spot — on Saturday. That means St Kilda’s clash with Gold Coast on Thursday night is also meaningless.

It’s not the barnstorming weekend it looked like it might.