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.
13. Pick 13: Josh Daicos - Collingwood (Original position - Pick 57)
A bid for the first and only father-son selection on this list comes earlier than it did originally in 2016, with Adelaide choosing to bid on the talented Josh Daicos in this re-draft at Pick 13.
Daicos is a gun wingman with elite speed and agility that is rated highly by Collingwood, punctuated by his top 10 finish in their best and fairest this year.
The ongoing uncertainty over the fitness of Paul Seedsman after a serious concussion leaves a spot on the wing opposite to Jordan Dawson open, but it is difficult to imagine the Pies not bidding on a son of the legendary Peter Daicos.
Daicos has shown continued improvement each year he has been in the AFL system and has developed into one of the premier wingman in the competition with a knack for scoring in the forward half.
