#35,#1 Jaidyn Stephenson

[magpieazza]

Very happy with this selection.

If he turns out to be healthy he will be a star!!

[rand corp]

Lots of talent, pace, good height, strong hands, kicking a bit dodgy

[E]

i hear this kid plays with a lot of heart!!!!

[piedys]

Getting potted by a few already. Hopefully they will end up with egg on the face. Give it a rest. It is boring, infantile and shows a lack of respect.

Ronnie, i'm sure we'd all prefer to be wearing egg on our faces, rather than throwing them.
We'll wait'n see what 2018 serves up?

[think positive]

[Dave The Man]

Lots of talent, pace, good height, strong hands, kicking a bit dodgy

But Kicking has Improved longer the Season Went

[HAL]

Do you have only a few friends?

[Albert Parker]

[ronrat]

Getting potted by a few already. Hopefully they will end up with egg on the face. Give it a rest. It is boring, infantile and shows a lack of respect.

Ronnie, i'm sure we'd all prefer to be wearing egg on our faces, rather than throwing them.
We'll wait'n see what 2018 serves up?

Exactly. wait and see before you go off at the kid. No wondwr Clokey says social media is an issue. But having a go 10 minutes after he is drafted is as weak as piss.

[bally12]

Positives:
==========================================
- Sounds like a great kid with a good attitude
- Tall and can take a mark
- Has a great speed/endurance profile...can play midfield as well as forward. His 2km time would make him 4th on the whole Pies list, behind Phillips, Sidey, and Smith...except Jaidyn is a lot speedier than all those guys.
- Exciting player, who looks to take the opponent and the game on. This kid isn't going to go backwards like half our team. God do we need that.

Negatives / things to work on:
==========================================
- His kicking needs work, particular his ball drop. Swanny's ball drop was also pretty bad but he ended up being an very effective kick..there is hope. I'd be interested to see if he can develop a 55m metre kick which would elevate him into super dangerous player for us.
Anyway, he's joining good company in Treloar, Adams, Crsip, Greenwood, at the Collingwood Butcher club. Maybe they can all get together and compare notes.

Unknowns at this stage:
==========================================
- Class, composure in traffic, awareness, decision making.
- Health issue. It's a bit concerning the kid has to take 3 tablets a day for his heart problem. From the very limited info I've heard so far, his exact condition is still not confirmed. In my experience, I'd be getting 4th, 5th, 6th opinions if I was him, from the best experts I could find.
I know for a fact quite a few players need to take medication to calm their nerves because it results in their heart racing like crazy during a game to the point where they can pass out. The reasons can be many, including personality type, hereditary, breathing patterns, issue with the electrical function of the heart.
Again, I don't have enough info but have had some personal experience in this area. If they can rule out a functional heart issue, then I'd be taking a holistic view and understanding both his physical and psychological make-up. For example, if he's highly-strung, naturally excitable, fast-paced, perfectionist, has OCD, highly driven...then these factors can contribute and manifest in physical issues like "racing heart". Meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, psychotherapy, can all help here.
The last thing I want to see is people taking medications ongoing, for the rest of their lives, if they can avoid it..especially an 18yo kid. Needless to say, these medications come with a lot of side-effects.
With a bit of luck, the issue may even resolve itself over time.

Good luck Jaidyn. I can see exciting times ahead for the Pies

[Albert Parker]

^Interesting that he can perform on the big stage though, if indeed there are anxiety issues.
Best on ground in the All Stars match and BOG in one of the U18 champs too.

[K]

...
Unknowns at this stage:
==========================================
...
- Health issue. It's a bit concerning the kid has to take 3 tablets a day for his heart problem. From the very limited info I've heard so far, his exact condition is still not confirmed. In my experience, I'd be getting 4th, 5th, 6th opinions if I was him, from the best experts I could find.
I know for a fact quite a few players need to take medication to calm their nerves because it results in their heart racing like crazy during a game to the point where they can pass out. The reasons can be many, including personality type, hereditary, breathing patterns, issue with the electrical function of the heart.
Again, I don't have enough info but have had some personal experience in this area. If they can rule out a functional heart issue, then I'd be taking a holistic view and understanding both his physical and psychological make-up. For example, if he's highly-strung, naturally excitable, fast-paced, perfectionist, has OCD, highly driven...then these factors can contribute and manifest in physical issues like "racing heart". Meditation, yoga, breathing exercises, psychotherapy, can all help here.
The last thing I want to see is people taking medications ongoing, for the rest of their lives, if they can avoid it..especially an 18yo kid. Needless to say, these medications come with a lot of side-effects.
With a bit of luck, the issue may even resolve itself over time.

Yes, I agree it's a concern that his condition has still not been diagnosed.

But no, despite the fact that he is indeed a perfectionist, obsessive type, I don't think there's any chance this is related to psychology. Many players have ridiculous pre-game routines and become rather superstitious about it all. This is not OCD in general or in his instance.

It seems they did ECG tests on all the kids at the Combine, and that showed up an irregularity. I don't think psychological issues would manifest at that time in that way. I haven't seen any info regarding what extra tests were done after this at the behest of interested clubs (there were at least three clubs, I think). I certainly think they should do as thorough testing as possible. JS said they're doing genetic tests. One wonders why this wasn't done much earlier (like years earlier); maybe the cost was prohibitive, whereas now the clubs or AFL are bearing that.

On medication, it actually seems that it's 6 tablets a day (2x3). As I said previously in this thread, it's just Propranolol, a fairly innocuous beta-blocker. It actually has many uses, so that info doesn't tell us too much (but you wouldn't expect it to, since we already know they don't know exactly what the problem is)... though that seems a rather large dose.

I'm not concerned about Propranolol and its side-effects. I mean there are no 'health' side-effects I'm concerned about. There are some 'sports performance' side-effects. JS said it slowed his heart rate down by only a few beats. It can affect aerobic performance. It's a credit to him that he still ran a very good 2km time trial (6:21). Apparently, in elite athletes it can decrease their VO2max by 15%.

My biggest concern is the possibility of it being undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. In a previous post on another thread, I mentioned the case of Cuttino Mobley in the NBA, where you'd think they have ****loads of money to test player's health. It was thought he had an enlarged heart, and his teams (three different teams over many years, from memory) made him sign a waiver acknowledging it and waiving their liability. But when he was traded to the Knicks, it was found he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, after the Knicks doctor ordered an MRI. He then chose to retire.

The worst-case scenario for undiagnosed hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is too horrible to think about. I don't know what the false-negative and false-positive rates are if you do a full battery of tests, including MRI and genetic testing. But they definitely need to get this right, for the kid's sake.

[Culprit]

Amazingly everyone is question his heart condition, shit we even have our own resident cardiologist experts diagnosing a patient that they have never seen. The young man has played, trained without any issues. A plethora of clubs have tested him with the best Medico's money can buy and he still got the all clear. The suggestion is he will even play in round 1. Get excited, we have a player who is not a midget.

[K]

Amazingly everyone is question his heart condition, shit we even have our own resident cardiologist experts diagnosing a patient that they have never seen. The young man has played, trained without any issues. A plethora of clubs have tested him with the best Medico's money can buy and he still got the all clear. The suggestion is he will even play in round 1. Get excited, we have a player who is not a midget.

Culprit, no one here is diagnosing his condition. I think that's quite clear if you (re)read the posts. People here are expressing the desire that he get the best possible medical tests and expertise. By his own words, the condition hasn't been diagnosed and tests are ongoing.

And people here are excited about his football (kicking reservations aside).

[MatthewBoydFanClub]

When it comes down to it, you can get knocked over by a bus crossing the street. None of us are infallible. You need to take your chances in life because if you don't, someone else will come in and reap the reward. We hesitated with Johnson and paid the price in 2007 in the PF when we could have been celebrating a premiership the following week. So I'm happy we did our homework on Stephenson, weighed up the pros and cons before making the decision to call his number. I'm confident if he stays fit, we will have an elite player on our books for years to come. If it doesn't work out you have to move on in life and work with the next batch of recruits and learn from the mistakes you made in the past.