The 2013 draft features perhaps the best top-end talent of any count since 2010.
The top three selections of this re-draft astonishingly hold well over 400 Brownlow votes between them, accompanied by multiple All-Australians and top-tier awards including a Brownlow Medal and premiership medallions.
Hindsight updates to this draft create a plethora of exciting changes and strange fits, and you can decide whether your club benefits or goes backwards.
But first, here is the original first round of picks:
- Tom Boyd (GWS)
- Josh Kelly (GWS)
- Jack Billings (St Kilda)
- Marcus Bontempelli (Western Bulldogs)
- Kade Kolodjashnij (Gold Coast)
- Matt Scharenberg (Collingwood)
- James Aish (Brisbane)
- Luke McDonald (North Melbourne)ย f/s
- Christian Salem (Melbourne)
- Nathan Freeman (Collingwood)
- Dom Sheed (West Coast)
- Ben Lennon (Ben Lennon)
- Patrick Cripps (Carlton)
- Cam McCarthy (GWS)
- Zak Jones (Sydney)
- Darcy Lang (Geelong)
- Michael Apeness (Fremantle)
- Luke Dunstan (St Kilda)
- Blake Acres (St Kilda)
- Jack Leslie (Gold Coast)
Note: All matched bids for Academy and Next Generation Academy prospects in this re-draft are based on what we know about how those players' careers have panned out, to date.
14. Blake Acres - Sydney (Originally: Pick 19, St Kilda)
Acres has always been a tough player to judge, seemingly never getting the most out of his lofty potential as a 190cm power-running winger.
Before the 2023 finals series, there's a chance he doesn't even rise from his original spot in this draft, being a career 19 disposal-per-game player notorious for his poor ball use.
His match-winning performances in back-to-back weeks against Sydney and Melbourne in front of nearly 190,000 fans combined has just about flipped the Acres narrative completely, now being recognised as a clutch performer for a side on the rise to premiership glory.
This draft sees him start his career at Sydney, however, where he likely slots into the Swans' wing position and potentially tears up the SCG under John Longmire.
Perhaps the early finals experience at Sydney from 2014 onwards would have laid the foundations for an illustrious All-Australian career at the Swans.