Callum Wilkie made his name at St Kilda playing full back but, like Jacob Weitering and Darcy Moore, he has had to adapt his defensive talents to also be able to play centre half back, as his role in the team is now to take the opposition's best tall target regardless of where they start. Today he gets Ben King, Coleman Medal contender for a team which gives him plenty of quality supply, a more traditional full forward who leads from the square. Wilkie's KPIs are partially to prevent King booting goals, but also to intercept when he can. Fantasy coaches will stay away.
Callum Wilkie made his name at St Kilda playing full back but, like Jacob Weitering and Darcy Moore, he has had to adapt his defensive talents to also be able to play centre half back, as his role in the team is now to take the opposition's best tall target regardless of where they start. Today he gets Ben King, Coleman Medal contender for a team which gives him plenty of quality supply, a more traditional full forward who leads from the square. Wilkie's KPIs are partially to prevent King booting goals, but also to intercept when he can. Fantasy coaches will stay away.
Callum Wilkie must have read with interest some media speculation during the week that St Kilda were throwing stupid amounts of money to bring Jacob Weitering across from Carlton in the next off season. Wilkie is now the incumbent full back at the Saints, having taken over that job from Dougal Howard and standing the best opposition key forward every week with some aplomb. Perhaps his versatility would mean he would welcome Weitering to help out in defence, but as it is he is by far the best that the Saints have got, and is an opponent to be respected.
Callum Wilkie has had a bit of press about him this week, perhaps surprisingly for a third tall defender as they don't normally attract much media attention. Much has been made of the goalscoring records of his opponents, which to be honest is not all that impressive since his opponents are normally playing up the ground a lot, but for fantasy coaches they are much more interested in the fact that he posted his second fantasy ton this week, his third haul of 20+ disposals and fifth with six-plus marks. He's worth a flutter in DFS but his floor is still too low for consistent use.
Wee fill-in Wilkie
Taken with the third selection in the 2018 rookie draft, key defender Callum Wilkie repaid the faith with an outstanding first season covering for injuries to tall defender teammates, often matched up on the opposition's best half forward. Key to the Saints back six throughout his debut campaign, in a fit list Wilkie might have to compete with Nathan Brown for full back duties as the skill sets of others are better suited at half back. He is not a fantasy factor.
Walk away from Wilkie
A mature-aged defender, Callum Wilkie is a decent intercept marker and rebounder though he was used as a ruckman in the first JLT game, a role at which he completely sucked. Perhaps brought in as insurance, if Wilkie forces his way into the St Kilda senior team he could be a mid-season free agent option, though you would want a better form line than this year's JLT provided.
