Each year AFL clubs decide their list strategies and assess whether a strong draft hand is likely to yield benefits comparable to the trade assets the picks are worth.
As clubs push higher up the draft board they gain the security that they can draft the players they rate the highest before other clubs and, consequently, increase their chance of securing successful long-term recruits.
Nonetheless, this strategy is not foolproof and hindsight exposes the difficult reality of ranking the ability and potential of players before they have been introduced to an AFL environment.
In this list, the first round of the 2016 National Draft will be reassessed with the benefit of six years of AFL data.
Below is the original 2016 first round:
- Andrew McGrath
- Tim Taranto
- Hugh McCluggage
- Ben Ainsworth
- Will Setterfield
- Sam Petrevski-Seton
- Jack Scrimshaw
- Griffin Logue
- Will Brodie
- Jack Bowes
- Oliver Florent
- Jy Simpkin
- Daniel Venables
- Harry Perryman
- Jordan Gallucci
- Todd Marshall
- Jarrod Berry
- Sam Powell-Pepper
- Tim English
- Isaac Cumming
- Will Hayward
In this draft year, a number of players were taken as father-son and academy selections (eg. Will Setterfield, Jack Bowes, Harry Perryman). The nominal draft order will be adjusted to reflect what clubs would have actually taken into this hypothetical draft.
Where these players are selected it will be assumed that the clubs that matched their bids in the original 2016 draft will continue to do so regardless of where they land in this order.
10. Pick Ten: Rowan Marshall (rookie) - Sydney (Original position - Pick 10 Rookie Draft)
There aren't many rookie selections who are as versatile as Marshall, an athletic and mobile player who is effective as both a ruckman and a key forward.
He cuts an imposing figure standing at 201cm and is currently signed to a five-year deal with St Kilda expiring in 2027 as their predominant ruckman after Paddy Ryder's retirement.
Sydney currently uses Tom Hickey as a sole ruckman interchanging with makeshift tall Sam Reid (and occasionally youngster Joel Amartey), and the retirement of Callum Sinclair and delisting of Sam Naismith this year are symptomatic of years of instability within their ruck stocks.
Rowan Marshall has developed as an understudy to Paddy Ryder at St Kilda, and in this hypothetical draft his apprenticeship would instead be under decorated ruckman-turned-coach Dean Cox.
