The AFL mid-season draft kicks off tonight, which will see state league players realise their AFL dream by being drafted to an AFL club half-way through the season.
AFL clubs need to have an open list spot in order to draft a player, meaning clubs need to move long-term injured or recently retired players to the inactive list in order to free up list spots for the mid-season draft.
Initially introduced in 1990, the mid-season draft has been a thing of the past for the AFL, who scrapped the draft in 1993.
It wasn't until 2019 where the AFL reintroduced the draft, before going into hiatus again in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic and coming back in 2021.
There have been some great players to come out of the two mid-season drafts so far, with players showing great promise at the top level.
Before the third edition of the AFL mid-season draft kicks off tonight, check out the 10 best players who have come through the draft since 2019 down below.
9. Matthew Parker (St Kilda/Richmond)
Matthew Parker was selected by St Kilda with pick 47 in the 2018 AFL Draft out of WAFL side South Fremantle where he went on to have an immediate impact with the Saints, kicking 16 goals in 2019 in what looked to be the start of a promising career.
Parker then fell out of the best 22 in 2020, playing only two games and was delisted at the end of the season.
Forward
Disposals
Marks
Goals
The 26-year old then returned to South Fremantle before getting picked up by Richmond with pick 10 in the 2021 AFL mid-season draft and has since played 11 games with the Tigers in 2021 and 2022.
Parker has played a total of 30 AFL games so far, and would be higher on this list if he was able to perform consistently as he has the X-Factor, but is unable to produce on a consistent basis.
