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Mukul Kesavan looks at why the ICCs present system of variable tolerance limits based on bowlers speeds is untenable and unenforceable and suggests an alternative. This piece appeared as the cover story in the June issue of Wisden Asia Cricket.For those of you who thought that the laws of cricket require bowlers to bowl, not throw, you should know that the ICC allows all bowlers to chuck, i.e. to straighten their arms at the point of delivery. But not all ICC-sanctioned chuckers are created equal. In a sign of the growing clout of India in international cricket, bowlers have been classified into a kind of Hindu hierarchy, a caste system where status is based on the sacred principle of speed. Thus, a fast bowler can straighten his arm through 10 degrees (that is, crook his arm and chuck from that angle), a medium-pacer through 7.5 degrees (dont you love the specious exactness of that decimal point?) and a slow bowler, or spinner, is allowed the smallest cheat of all, a mere 5 degrees.According to Wisden Cricinfo, Tolerance levels were recently introduced by the ICC - although not into the Laws of Cricket - because research into fast bowling indicated that some degree of elbow straightening was identified in 99% of cases. The natural elbow flexion spanned from 3 to 20 degrees. What this means in plain language is that the immutable laws of cricket carry on being immutable, but the men in charge of implementing them are instructed to ignore bowlers who chuck within some theoretical limits. How might an umpire measure the degree of crookedness on the pitch, short of peering through a protractor? And how, therefore, are the tolerance limits to be enforced? Recent events have supplied us with a possible answer.After Chris Broad reported Muttiah Muralitharan to the ICC because he thought his doosra was dodgy (or dodgier than his other deliveries), Murali was wired and measured by boffins in Australia. The subsequent report tells us that Murali seems to flex his arm through 14 degrees while bowling the doosra, which is nearly three times the chucking allowance for a spinner. After corrective coaching, according to extracts from the reports published in The Hindu, the degree of flexion was brought down to 10 degrees, still twice the permitted limit of tolerance for spinners. Despite this, the report recommends that he be allowed to bowl the doosra pending further investigations and research. Which leaves matters as clear as mud.The ICC has decided to ignore the scientists recommendations. It has banned the doosra and put Murali on notice by making it clear that if he is called for bowling the doosra again he could be banned from international cricket for up to 12 months. These current levels of tolerance are based on expert advice that suggests that, beyond a certain level, bowlers will gain an unfair advantage, Malcolm Speed, the ICCs chief executive, said in a statement, explaining the ICCs position.Bizarrely, the expert, Bruce Elliott, who was approved by the ICC to do the tests on Muralis doosra, has, according to Wisden Cricinfo, strongly criticised the current tolerance limits, which he claims are based on illogical data! Wisden Cricinfo reports him saying that, ... the five-degrees [rule] is based on illogical data because theyve just tested fast bowlers and assumed that there is some relationship between fast bowlers and spin bowlers. Fifteen degrees is the right angle to select for fast bowlers and you probably should come down to 10 degrees for spin bowlers.Another member of the team that worked with Murali, Daryl Foster of the University of Western Australias School of Human Movement and Exercise Science, also questions the rationale behind the discriminatory tolerance limits in his report on Muralis action. On what information, studies or research, he asks, are the ICC tolerance figures of 10 degrees, 7.5 degrees and 5 degrees for bowlers ranging from fast to spin, based? Without knowing what the situation is with other spin bowlers, he says, it would seem unrealistic to ban Muralis doosra without the benefit of proper research having been undertaken into normal spin bowlers. Im not sure where that leaves Mr Speed or the ICC. Paddle-less, I think.This is a pivotal moment in the history of cricket and it is important that no one, neither Murali nor anyone else, be punished or proceeded against till the ICC rethinks its `tolerance limits because in their present form they are inconsistent, discriminatory and unenforceable.They are inconsistent with the basic object of the law against throwing. The law against straightening the arm at the point of delivery is meant to discourage the unfair advantage in speed, bounce and turn that such flexion gives a cheating bowler over his honest, straight-armed contemporary. So if bending and straightening their arms allows Brett Lee or Shoaib Akhtar to bowl faster, given the laws of cricket, the ICC should instruct them to bowl with straighter arms, even if this means they bowl less rapidly. Instead the ICC has taken the view that the faster you bowl, the more flagrantly you can chuck. Why should an honest, straight-armed trier like Javagal Srinath end a career with poorer stats than, say, Shoaib Akhtar, simply because he took crickets laws seriously?The workhorse medium-pacer is only allowed a 7.5% ceiling of crookedness: did the ICC stop to think that the reason hes bowling slower is because his action conforms more closely to the definition of a legitimate delivery? And conversely, did they consider the possibility that the reason why Brett Lee and Akhtar terrorise batsmen with pace and bounce is that their bowling actions depart more radically from the prescriptions of the Laws of Cricket? Cricket cannot discriminate between fast bowlers and slower ones without standing the letter and spirit of its own law on its head.I have thought for some time now that the bounce Glenn McGrath extracts from just short of a good length owes something to a straightening arm and I was delighted to find support for this view in a recent article by Simon Hughes in The Daily Telegraph. Heres the quote: [Courtney] Walsh was never called for chucking and neither was Glenn McGrath. Yet McGrath gets some of his pace from a hyperextension of the elbow which varies in extent [emphasis added]. Shoaib Akhtar is a similar case. In fact most fast bowlers flex their elbow slightly at some point in delivery. I would go so far as to say virtually all of them inadvertently throw the odd ball. If Law 24.3 was applied ultra-rigorously, there would not be many fast bowlers still playing.Oddly enough, McGrath is regarded as the exemplary fast bowler, Akhtar and Lee are hailed for injecting excitement into the modern game, while the wretched Muralitharan is reviled around the world by Australian umpires, Indian spinners (retired), Michael Parkinson, and now Chris Broad. Why?In the recent past, crickets administrators and commentators have developed a conservationist policy towards fast bowling. I remember hearing the otherwise sensible Ian Chappell say during Indias last tour but one of Australia that he hoped umpires werent too severe on the likes of Lee and Akhtar because they brought so much to the game. Almost as if the ICC had been listening, this view has been enshrined in these absurd tolerance limits. In an earlier time men like Charlie Griffith and Ian Meckiff had their careers ruthlessly cut short once they were called. The reason for the difference between then and now is straightforward: before the introduction of the helmet, fast bowlers who chucked were life-threatening; now, pace Chappell, we are free to see them as a source of cricketing sex-appeal and excitement.But even if we were to go along with this decadent, later-Roman point of view, we need to be consistent. Murali brings as much to the cricketing table as McGrath or Akhtar or Lee. He is the most destructive spinner in the history of cricket, bar no-one, not even Warne. He turns the ball a yard into the batsman, then turns it away at will with his doosra, the most amazing delivery since Bosanquet invented the googly. What perverse logic allows Akhtar to bend his arm through 10 degrees and stay legal while the same degree of flexion in the case of Murali brings him to the attention of Broads beady eye?Murali can either be embraced as part of a general redefinition of the legal delivery, or, if the ICC chooses to enforce Law 24.3 strictly, he can be excommunicated along with the epidemic of crooked-arm artists who have taken over the contemporary game. What the ICC cant do, is to make Murali pull over while allowing Lee and Akhtar the run of the fast lane.Instead of making Murali the lightning rod for the controversy over chucking, why not test all contemporary bowlers who represent their countries in Tests or one-dayers and publish the degree to which they straighten their arms? Should such a study reveal that the likes of Lee and Akhtar and Harbhajan Singh are chronic arm-straighteners, there will be enough boards with a dog in the fight for the ICC to have a robust debate about the tolerance limits as they are presently framed. Cricket will avoid the spectacle of one bowler being hounded on account of his success and we might actually get a principled discussion on what is an epidemic of illegality.If indeed most fast bowlers chuck, and if the ICC doesnt want to rigorously enforce its own laws because this might render them extinct and make crickets theme park less attractive, then the only durable solution is to change Law 24.3 for all bowlers, not just express chuckers. The laws of cricket dont (and shouldnt) lay down that speed is more significant in the matter of defining a legal delivery than swing or bounce or spin. The law seeks to lay down a general and universal rule for a legitimate delivery. If the ICC now feels that 10-degree flexion is permissible within this definition, then this should apply to all bowlers so that all of them, slow, medium and fast can exploit the possibilities of chucking equally. Daryl Foster who worked with Murali to reduce the illegal flexion he used while bowling the doosra, suggests exactly this in his remediation report:It may be that 15 degrees of extension be allowed to all types of bowlers no matter what speed they bowl at, beyond which it will be termed an illegal delivery.The working assumption behind the graded tolerance limits seems to be that the arm straightening that occurs within those limits is involuntary, and that because of the biomechanics of bowling fast, the sins of fast bowlers are more involuntary than those of others. This is a dangerous assumption because it takes us into the murky terrain of intention (did the bowler mean to chuck?) and the uncertain authority of a fledgling science.In his replies to a series of questions put to him on the rationale behind the tolerance limits, David Richardson, speaking on behalf of the ICC, says repeatedly that the tolerance limits had been put into place not to accommodate fast bowlers who straightened their arms, but to acknowledge the biomechanical realities of bowling fast. The levels of tolerance are set so as to accommodate a degree of straightening which might occur due to the stresses placed on the body during the delivery. Even a solid metal bar, if rotated fast enough will display a degree of movement. The metal bar analogy is meant to be the scientific clincher: if natural laws of motion can bend rigid, inanimate materials, the living tissue that makes up the human arm must be susceptible to them.The problem is, metal bars dont often have elbow joints. All other things being equal, all metal bars will flex to exactly the same degree when rotated at a given speed. The same isnt true of human arms. Here, the degree of flexion will depend on individual arms: some will be doublejointed, some thick and muscular, others thin and sinewy: by definition, other things cannot be equal. The ICCs own evidence indicates that even among fast bowlers who havent been called or reported for unfair actions, some flex their arms through nine degrees and others not at all. If theres even one fast bowler who doesnt flex his arm, arm-straightening, arguably, becomes a choice, not the inevitable result of a scientific law. So why not make the zero-degree men the norm? Why be permissive and offer the latitude of 10 degrees?Good question, replies Richardson, but you have to draw the line somewhere. The bottomline is that in the case of fast bowlers, anything under 10 would not be noticeable to the naked eye.Really? Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar have both been reported for dodgy actions earlier in their careers and cleared. They have been bowling fast with impunity for a while. Does this mean that they currently flex their arms less than 10 degrees? If they do, then Richardsons claim that sub-10-degree flexion is invisible cant be right because the kink in their actions is clearly visible to the naked eye - to nearly every spectator who has ever watched them bowl. And if they do flex their arms more than 10 degrees, why havent they been reported again? Have they been tested since the tolerance limits came into effect? If the ICC is already in the business of commissioning scientific studies to frame bowling guidelines, theres no reason for them to wait till an international bowler is reported.Science isnt going to provide self-evident answers. The research shows that some fast bowlers can bowl without flexion while others straighten their arms. Science doesnt speak with one voice in the matter of spinners either. According to Richardson, the ICCs study showed that the stress or forces on the body of the spinner were not sufficient to warrant any degree of straightening. Diametrically opposed to this finding is the expert opinion of Daryl Foster as reported in The Hindu:We contend that because the speed of his (Muralitharans) upper-arm rotation is as fast, and in some cases quicker than, fast bowlers, his level of acceptability for elbow extension should also be set at the 10-degree mark.The ICC needs to understand that it cant apply to science for warrants to enforce discriminatory laws. The laws of cricket, like other human laws, cant lay claim to the ultimate truth; but they must aspire to fairness. Good laws have two prime qualities: they are uniform and they are enforceable. ICCs tolerance limits meet neither criterion.In India, for historical reasons, Muslims are governed by a separate personal law which, among other things, allows Muslim men to marry upto four women concurrently. Indians of other communities - Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and so on - are legally monogamous. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of Muslim Personal Law, it has created in Indian politics endless controversy and grievance, real and imagined.For cricket to create the equivalent of a Muslim personal law for fast bowlers - Im allowed 10 degrees to your five - when the traditions of the game dont mandate such differentiation, is mad. Fortunately the law itself hasnt yet been changed, the statutes of our game dont formally recognise this sectarian distinction, and there is time for the ICC to take on board some heartfelt Indian advice: dont go there.If the ICC intends to abide by the letter and spirit of the original law, there is an alternative course. The council should declare that it is willing to bend the law fractionally to accommodate research that shows that large numbers of bowlers find it difficult to bowl without straightening their arms. It should nominate a three-, fouror five-degree limit, a single-digit figure that is derived from the low end of research findings. Notice that the sentence doesnt read bowl fast without straightening, but simply, bowl without straightening.The ICC should demand that every bowler come in at or under this minimum deviation from the straight-arm norm. It should make it clear that as the apex body of the game its main concern is with making all bowlers conform to the law rather than with stretching the law to fit some bowlers. Any fast bowlers who find it impossible to bowl at 98 mph without exceeding the three-degree cutoff will be welcome to decelerate till their bowling arcs fit the ICC template. Any spinners whose doosras (or for that matter, their pehlas) require a suspension of disbelief greater than three degrees (or four, or five, so long as the limit is low and general to all bowling species) will be sentenced to long hours in solitary watching videos of Bishen Bedi in his delivery stride from every angle that the archives can supply.If the scientists are to be believed, many bowlers wont make the cut, but the integrity of cricket was never going to come cheap. Should the ICC not have the stomach for the uproar that will follow, it can go the more permissive route and peg the tolerance limit at 10 degrees for everyone. It will change bowling as we know it by encouraging the Lees, Akhtars, Harbhajans and Muralitharans at the expense of more orthodox bowlers, but it might give cricket a chance to find a new equilibrium. What wont work are discriminatory tolerance limits - that way lies endless bickering and litigation. Different strokes for different folks is a plausible motto for a commune but a bad prescription for cricket.Mukul Kesavan is an essayist and novelistClick here for highlights of the latest issue of Wisden Asia Cricket. To subscribe to the magazine, Click here.Tim Wakefield Red Sox Jersey . Barcelonas entertaining victory ensured the defending Spanish champions retained their share of the league lead with Atletico Madrid two rounds ahead of their meeting in the capital. Real Madrid needed a late goal by substitute Jese Rodriguez to earn a 3-2 victory at Valencia to stay in third place and three points behind its title rivals. Jhoulys Chacin Red Sox Jersey . LOUIS -- The New Orleans Saints looked like a team playing out the string. https://www.cheapredsox.com/261z-christian-vazquez-jersey-red-sox.html . The head of USA Boxing came out swinging Tuesday with an open letter to Tyson -- a former Olympic hopeful himself -- that accuses the former heavyweight champion of trying to poach fighters who might be candidates for the U. Brandon Workman Jersey . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Tim Wakefield Jersey . Duchene scored two goals and had an assist, helping the Colorado Avalanche beat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Friday night to match the best 10-game start in team history.The annual AFL Draft Combine is an opportunity for AFL clubs to interview, observe and test the best up-and-coming talent on the track with athletic testing and on the field with skill testing.All AFL clubs have data on each player from earlier in the season and in previous years. The testing and measurements taken at the combine include but are not limited to height, weight, arm length and hand sizes. This gives clubs a feel for a players potential for improvement and also provides context behind why a particular player may be terrific in one area of their game but struggle in another.Athletic and skill testing, while insightful, should not have much if any effect on the draft stocks of the players in attendance, but rather it should be viewed with an understanding of those results in the context of what the player shows on game day.Draft combine record holder in the 20m sprint and repeat sprint Joel Wilkinson (former Gold Coast defender and briefly an NFL prospect with the Arizona Cardinals) was unable to practically apply the speed he demonstrated on the track, in game, providing little offensive run.By contrast, there will be other players who will test poorly, either due to injuries they may be carrying or they may seem faster in game due to their quick footy brains. Cyril Rioli is a perfect example of testing results deceiving and not telling the full story. In his draft year, his speed testing was surprisingly average. His 2.96 second 20m sprint would not have placed him inside this years top 10 while his 8.89 second agility time is rated below average. But then as soon as he steps onto a footy field, his speed is undeniable.There are countless exceptions with the other forms of athletic testing and also the skill testing. For skill testing, ex-Blue Clem Smith is a recent example where the result from the testing is completely contrasting to what he showed in the under-18s. He finished inside the top 10, a result entirely opposing anything recruiters had seen of him during the year in what for Smith was clearly one of the weaker elements to his game from his junior career.While it is interesting to see how players compare in the testing, it should ultimately be looked at with an understanding of those results in the context of the games the players have put forward during the season, to provide more meaningful insight into why players are strong in particular areas of the game and not as strong in others.Who didnt test?Hugh McCluggage, Will Brodie, Tim Taranto, Will Setterfield, Todd Marshall, Daniel Venables, Jy Simpkin, Alex Witherden, Jack Graham, Brad Scheer, Luke Ryan, Josh Daicos, Hamish Brayshaw, and Elliott Himmelberg all sat out due either to soreness or injury.Testing resultsClean hands test (score out of a possible 30)Ben Jarman (28) Oliver Florent (28) Ryan Garthwaite (28) Callum Brown (27) Jarrod Berry (27) Will Hayward (27) Patrick Lipinski (27) Sam Powell-Pepper (27) Jack Bowes (27) Isaac Cumming (26) Joe Atley (26) Myles Poholke (26) Jonty Scharenberg (26) Harry Perryman (26) Jack Maibaum (26)Kicking test (score out of a possible 30)Jordan Ridley (27) Isaac Cumming (26) Jarrod Berry (25) Ben Long (25) Sam Walker (25) Josh Williams (25) Ben Jarman (24) Tom Williamson (24) Dylan Clarke (24) Kym LeBois (23) Willem Drew (23) Josh Battle (23) Jake Waterman (23)Goalkicking test (score out of a possible 30) Sam Powell-Pepper (30) Harry Morrison (25) Joe Atley (25) Josh Williams (25) Jonty Scharenberg (25) Ryan Garthwaite (25) Zachary Sproule (25) Tim English (25) Liam Baker (25) Ben Jarman (24) Tyson Stengle (24)Beep test Jarrod Berry (level 15.1) Oliver Florent (15.1) Griffin Logue (15.1) Harry Morrison (14.12) Dylan Clarke (14.12) Sam Powell-Pepper (14.7) Liam Baker (14.5) Tom Williamson (14.5) Patrick Lipinski (14.5) Jordan Gallucci (14.5)20 metre sprintJacob Allison (2.87 seconds) Ben Ainsworth (2.90) Josh Rotham (2.92) Josh Williams (2.93) Bailey Morrish (2.93) Taylin Duman (2.93) Esava Ratugolea (2.93) Will Hayward (2.94) Tony Olango (2.94) Shai Bolton (2.95)Agility Tom Williamson (8.15 seconds) Jack Maibaum (8.19) Sam Powell-Pepper (8.24) Harry Morrison (8.26) Oliver Florent (8.26) Matt Guelfi (8.29) Isaac Cumming (8.29) Ben Ainsworth (8.36) Jack Scrimshaw (8.39) Andrew McGrath (8.38)Standing vertical jumpJordan Gallucci (89cm) Esava Ratugolea (76) Will Hayward (73) Griffin Logue (71) Bailey Morrish (71) Shai Bolton (68) Callum Brown (68) Josh Rotham (67) Max Lynch (67) Jacob Allison (67) Jack Bowes (67) Tom Williamson (67)Running vertical jump (left foot)Andrew McGrath (96cm) Shai Bolton (94) Cameron Zurhaar (92) Brennan Cox (92) Tony Olango (91) Jordan Gallucci (91) Oliver Florent (90) Bailey Morrish (90) Will Hayward (90) Esava Ratugolea (89) Tom Williamson (88) Harry Morrison (88)Running vertical jump (right foot)Griffin Logue (91cm) Bailey Morrish (91) Esava Ratugolea (89) Jordan Gallucci (86) Andrew McGrath (85) Ben Ainsworth (84) Tom Williamson (83) Jack Scrimshaw (83) Declan Watson (83) Mitchell Hinge (83) Jack Bowes (82)Repeat sprint total (six x 30 metre sprints)Jordan Gallucci (24.36 sec) Andrew McGrath (24.44) Bailey Morrish (24.83) Jarrod Berry (24.99) Ben Ainsworth (25.01) Kym LeBois (25.08) Griffin Logue (25.09) Shai Bolton (25.10) Myles Poholke (25.20) Jacob Allison (25.30)3km time trialJarrod Berry (9min 46sec) Tom Williamson (9:50) Dylan Clarke (9:52) * Mark OConnor (9:56) Griffin Logue (9:58)What do the numbers mean?Griffin Logue was one of the standouts during the athletic testing. The 193cm, 92kg key defender from Western Australia excelled. He finished equal first in the beep test and running vertical jump, top five in the standing vertical jump and 3km time trial and top 10 in the repeat sprints.Logue may push as high as the top 10 in this years AFL draft and has intriguing potential. Some see scope in Logue to develop into a big-bodied midfielder in the future. His endurance results, in addition to his evident burst of speed when going for 50/50 balls in games, suggests if he can win the ball and make good decisions with it in traffic, that this is a potentially realistic and intriguing vision of development.In the skill testing, every year there is a selection of players who surprise in finishing in the top 10 of that particular category. Ben Jarman though, not surprisingly was a standout with an equal-top score in the clean hands test while also featuring inside the top 10 in the kicking and goalkicking tests. Jarman was always clean with his disposal during matches while also showing composure under pressure. Jarman at 175cm is a capable forward and midfielder who is expected to be selected in the national draft, as a father-son selection by either Adelaide or Hawthorn. He looks likely to feature somewhere from the second round onwards.One of the most interesting players in this years draft is Esava Ratugolea, a 194cm, 95kg key forward and relieving ruckman, who tested well. He finished second in the standing vertical jump, third in the running vertical jump (left foot) and also inside the top 10 in the running vertical jump (right foot) and 20m sprint. Ratugolea is thought to be of interest to clubs in the latter half of the draft with his raw athleticism and the application he shhows on the field, throwing himself at every contest something that some may view as mouldable.dddddddddddd.Breaking the previous draft combine record in the standing vertical jump was athletic 183cm midfielder Jordan Gallucci. Gallucci also finished first in the repeat sprint and inside the top 10 in the beep test and running vertical jumps off his right and left feet. Athletically during games, he is at his best accelerating away from centre bounces and has some hot games where he puts his athletic attributes on full display.Likely top-two pick, Andrew McGrath, a 179cm running half-back flanker and midfielder, had the highest running vertical jump off his (left foot) at the combine. He also finished second in the repeat sprint, top five in the running vertical jump off his (right foot) while squeezing into the top 10 in the agility test. McGrath has demonstrated outstanding run and carry off half-back and can be found several times each game providing meaningful run and carry with ball in hand. Occasionally when he pushes down back he has also shown some aerial marking prowess, though its his running with ball in hand that really wows recruiters.If anyone was to break a jumping record, many would have predicted Ben Ainsworth rather than Gallucci based on how high he has elevated during the season for several of his marks up forward. Nonetheless Ainsworth, a 179cm forward and midfielder, performed strongly at the combine. He placed second in the 20 metre sprint, top five in the repeat sprints and top 10 in the running vertical jump off his (right foot) and in the agility test. Ainsworth has built a strong reputation this year for his athletic leaping and strong marking up forward, but he has also at times when pushed up the field shown eye-catching acceleration with ball in hand.Dylan Clarke, the brother of North Melbournes Ryan, was another notable performer in the athletic testing, finishing inside the top five for both the beep test and 3km time trial. Clarke, a 187cm, 85kg, big-bodied stoppage specialist, is a dominant contested-ball winner and having such outstanding endurance in game means he is able to get from contest to contest. He also, much to the surprise of those who have watched him this season, finished in the top 10 in the kicking test. During the season Clarke has shown inconsistency by foot, not always hitting his intended targets.While in games he comes across as more of a burst athlete, 186cm, 83kg, strong bodied utility, Sam Powell-Pepper performed excellently in the agility and beep tests. He finished third and sixth in each of the tests respectively. He also finished inside the top 10 in the clean hands test and surprisingly was the only player to achieve a perfect 30/30 in the goalkicking test. On game day, Powell-Pepper has demonstrated excellent ground-ball winning ability, having the cleanness to hit the ball and win it at high speed. He also has an explosive sidestep and ability to change direction which also shone through with his agility test results.Having an impressive draft combine was Brisbane Academy prospect Jacob Allison, who finished first in 20m sprint and top 10 in the standing vertical jump and repeat sprints. At 194cm, 79kg, he is a tall outside runner who boasts a penetrating kick and excellent athletic ability. During games he sometimes uses his pace to break the lines and sometimes he takes leaping marks. These however are elements to his game that he should look to develop into greater weapons in the future. After making the 2015 Under-18 All-Australian Team, this year Allison has fallen out of the first round mix, dropping below his high standard of performance in 2015. Nonetheless he is still likely to feature in the national draft and may feature somewhere towards the middle of the draft.With the best time in the 3km time trial, equal best in the beep test and top five in the repeat sprints, Jarrod Berry impressed most in the endurance categories. He also placed inside the top five in the clean hands and kicking test. The 191cm utility often displays bursts of speed in game with ball in hand, breaking the lines on the outside. His kicking while sometimes damaging during games when he has time and space has often proven inconsistent when pressured. Berry has clean hands overhead and at ground level, but is not uncommonly gifted in either area of the game. He is an above average mark overhead and a capable but not freakish or super powerful ground ball winner. Berry is in the first-round mix and failing a placing late in the first round is expected to be selected somewhere in the second round.Coming second in the running vertical (left foot) and top 10 in the standing vertical, repeat sprints and 20m sprint was Shai Bolton at 178cm, 68kg - one of this years most exciting forwards. Athletically, Bolton stands out when he has ball in hand. It is surprising not to see him inside the top 10 in the clean hands and agility tests which dont do his play justice. Bolton is a one-touch player who can pick up the ball on the move at speed and break the lines, take on the game and dodge and weave around would-be tacklers like it is routine. Given his evident leaping ability from the testing, his game could be furthered by developing into more of an aerial marking threat which he isnt currently as more a ground level player who displays substantial hurt factor with ball in hand. Bolton has developed strongly this year and is likely to feature in either the first or second round.Pushing up draft boards in the last month of the season, Will Hayward a 186cm, 76kg forward had a strong draft combine. He placed top five in the clean hands and standing vertical jump and top 10 in the 20 metre sprint and running vertical jump (left foot). Hayward as a forward does his damage close to goal and his results correlate with what he has shown during games. He a strong mark overhead who can take the ball at the highest point but then is also clean at ground level. He has good acceleration on the lead, often creating separation between himself and his opponent. Hayward also has shown he can leap and take a mark overhead. Hayward is said to be pushing potentially towards the back-end of the first round but is more likely to feature somewhere in the second round.While unable to finish inside the top 10 in any category, Sam Petreveski-Seton narrowly missed out in several categories and requires a mention given the athletic attributes he has demonstrated over the past two seasons. His endurance testing was solid which is a big tick and his speed testing was not far behind the top 10 either. With Petreveski-Seton unable to make the top 10 in any category, it is a clean indication that the athletic and skill testing does not tell the whole story. Petreveski-Seton is one of truly freakishly clean players at ground level and has explosive acceleration, evasiveness in traffic, a sidestep that can get him around just about anyone and a natural instinct with ball in hand to take on the game at every available opportunity. He is also one of if not arguably the best dual-sided kick in this draft. ' ' '