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.
6. Pick Six: Tim English - Gold Coast (Original position - Pick 19)
The stocks of Tim English have never been higher heading into a season where the ruckman who have dominated the competition for the entirety of his career, Brodie Grundy and Max Gawn, are playing on the same team.
English has gradually added size to his frame during his six AFL seasons and now stands at 207cm and 103kg, an imposing presence that compliments his already highly developed skill set.
Gold Coast already has All-Australian ruckman and co-captain Jarrod Witts dominating the centre square, but adding English in 2016 would have allowed him to develop at a more suitable rate after struggling when thrown into the deep end at the Bulldogs.
He would be a very hand foil to Witts and a longer-term option than the 30-year-old who suffered from a long-term knee injury last year.
