When and where…
The Draft will be held at the Sydney Showgrounds on Friday, November 24.
Our picks…
North Melbourne will have picks 4, 23, 64, 76 and 87 in Friday night’s Draft.
The candidates…
Placing the top five of this year’s crop is intriguingly hard to predict, which means that any of Cam Rayner, Luke Davies-Uniacke, Paddy Dow, Adam Cerra, Jaidyn Stephenson or Andrew Brayshaw, among others, could end up at North.
Rayner is fancied as the most likely no. 1 pick by many experts, but with the strengths of the other four it is not out of the question that he is passed up by Brisbane, Fremantle and Carlton and falls to North at pick 4.
Highest pick since ’06…
Pick 4 is the earliest selection that North Melbourne has had in 11 years.
Lachlan Hansen was taken behind Bryce Gibbs and Scott Gumbleton as pick 3 at the 2006 Draft.
Explaining the Draft point index…
Ahead of the 2015 National Draft, the AFL implemented a value index that allocated a points value to every selection.
Every draft pick has an assigned value (pick 1 is worth 3000 points and pick 70 is worth 39 points), and to match a bid before their own selection a club must pay for the higher pick in draft points.
In the lead up to the draft, clubs can nominate father-son and academy selections, but must then match bids from other clubs who nominate these players with one of their live selections during the draft.
This allows father-son and academy players to be assessed and chosen with a selection in the draft that accurately and fairly reflects their value.
A recent example of this system in action was in 2016, when North Melbourne placed a bid on Collingwood father-son nominee Callum Brown with pick 35. Collingwood elected to match the bid to secure Brown, paying with points in the form of later draft picks, which resulted in the draft order changing.
This live shuffling of picks as the draft unfolds creates a more exciting - albeit more confusing - event for fans.
I can follow the action via…
Friday’s NAB AFL Draft will be broadcast live on Fox Footy (channel 504), on radio SEN and 3AW and through the official AFL App, using the AFL Live Pass.
Fans can download the official NMFC app for draft updates, as well as North’s social media channels.
Next up…
The draft fun doesn’t end on Friday, with the Pre-Season and Rookie Drafts taking place on Monday evening. These take place over the phone, rather than a physical location for the main Draft.
Clubs with Next-Generation Academy players, Zone selections or Academy selections get the chance to pre-list their nominated players prior to the Rookie Draft on Monday. If these players go unselected at Friday night’s draft, clubs will be able to select them before other clubs would get the chance to rookie them.
Clubs may also have committed to re-drafting players that they have delisted, through the rookie draft.
Some of the players hoping for a second chance in the 2017 rookie draft include Billy Hartung, Sharrod Wellingham and Stewart Crameri.
Next year is the first time that all rookies are eligible for immediate senior selection, and won’t have to be promoted or wait for an injury to play in the AFL.
