The 2016 AFL Draft is drawing closer. If you followed the draft last year you might remember the introduction of a new bidding system for academy and father-son players – and plenty of confusion surrounding it!

Well, don’t worry. I’m going to take a stab at clearing that mess up, and then have a look at which players are in the mix to be bid on this year and where some of those bids might happen.

The system

For many years now, the AFL has allowed clubs to have priority access to father-son players, and more recently the league has allowed clubs in the northern states the same access to players born and raised within certain zones if they’ve been developed through club-run academies.

On the night of the draft, when any given club’s pick comes up, they will have the right to attempt to recruit one of these players if they wish to do so by announcing a bid on them with that pick.

The club to which the player is then tied will then have the option of matching the bid for that player, or declining to do so.

If they match the bid, they must give up draft picks later in the order that are equal to the value of the pick at which the player has been bid on – minus a discount.

The club matching the bid’s next pick in the draft rises in the order and the player is selected at that pick. Any other picks spent in this process move down the draft order.

All the other picks in the draft shuffle around a little, and the club that made the bid is on the clock again – they are free to bid on another academy or father-son player if they wish, or select from the open draft.

If the club elects not to match the bid, then no draft picks change position. The club that made the bid drafts the player in question with the pick they used to bid.

So how do we determine what the appropriate value is for a club to match a bid? There are two things at play here – the Draft Value Index, which assigns a points value to every pick, and the discount.

The points

The Draft Value Index puts a points value on every single draft pick – starting with pick No.1, which is worth 3000 points, and ending with pick No.73, which is worth just nine points. All picks from No.74 onward are effectively considered worthless.

A matching club doesn’t need to put up the exact number of points that the bidding pick is valued at. They do receive a discount on this in order to incentivise the development of academy and father-son players.

That discount is applied at 20 per cent of the pick’s value if the bid is made inside the first 18 picks, or at a flat rate of 197 points if the bid is made anywhere outside the first round.

So how does that all calculate out? In the table below, you can see every pick currently allocated in this year’s draft, the points value of each pick, the points value required to match a bid at each pick, and which club currently holds each pick.

The change

There has been one notable change to the bidding system from 2015 to 2016.

In 2015, clubs were able to access ‘hidden’ draft picks if they spent more than one pick to acquire a player who had been bidden on – if, for example, they had five useful draft picks but only three empty spots on their list, they could still use all five picks to match bids for academy and father-son players.

This led to GWS, Sydney and Brisbane all trading backwards in the draft, giving up high draft picks but acquiring multiple late picks and coming out with a profit in terms of total points.

In this way, Sydney were able to secure Callum Mills at pick No. 3 in exchange for just a handful of picks in the 30s, and it was a similar tale for the Giants and the Lions.

The AFL has now ruled that clubs can only take into the draft as many picks as they have empty spots on their primary list – so a club only looking to take a few players will gain little benefit from building up a swag of late picks, as they did last year.

There is still some small benefit towards pick swaps for those clubs looking to match bids, and the fact that clubs can have anywhere between 38-40 players on their primary list does give matching clubs a bit of wiggle room.

One important thing to note is the AFL has given a one-year grace period to any club that traded in a 2016 draft pick during the 2015 trade period, since these decisions were made ahead of the rule change being announced – GWS being the main club affected by this.

If not entirely closed, the loophole has certainly been significantly reduced.

Every club’s hand

So how does this affect clubs this year? Let’s do quick run through of what picks every club has, the points of those picks, and the total points value that they potentially have to spend.

Adelaide
Picks: 13 (1212), 43 (378), 53 (233), 67 (69), 89 (0), 107 (0)
Total points: 1892

Brisbane
Picks: 3 (2234), 16 (1067), 21 (878), 22 (854), 76 (0), 78 (0), 96 (0)
Total points: 5033

Carlton
Picks: 5 (1878), 25 (756), 48 (302), 63 (112), 66 (80), 70 (39), 81 (0), 99 (0)
Total points: 3167

Collingwood
Picks: 28 (677), 44 (362), 51 (259), 62 (123), 65 (90), 83 (0), 101 (0), 105 (0)
Total points: 1511

Essendon
Picks: 1 (3000), 20 (912), 29 (653), 41 (412), 68 (59), 95 (0)
Total points: 5036

Fremantle
Picks: 7 (1644), 35 (522), 40 (429), 71 (29), 79 (0), 97 (0)
Total points: 2624

Geelong
Picks: 24 (785), 38 (465), 42 (395), 64 (101), 72 (19), 74 (0), 91 (0), 110 (0)
Total points: 1765

Gold Coast
Picks: 4 (2034), 6 (1751), 8 (1551), 10 (1395), 73 (9), 98 (0)
Total points: 6740

GWS
Picks: 2 (2517), 15 (1112), 37 (483), 39 (446), 45 (347), 52 (246), 55 (207), 57 (182), 58 (170), 59 (158), 60 (146), 77 (0), 109 (0)
Total points: 6014

Hawthorn
Picks: 88 (0), 90 (0), 108 (0)
Total points: 0

Melbourne
Picks: 47 (316), 69 (49), 84 (0), 102 (0)
Total points: 365

North Melbourne
Picks: 11 (1329), 32 (584), 33 (563), 87 (0), 92 (0)
Total points: 2476

Port Adelaide
Picks: 14 (1161), 17 (1025), 30 (629), 31 (606), 85 (0), 103 (0)
Total points: 3421

Richmond
Picks: 27 (703), 56 (194), 82 (0), 100 (0)
Total points: 897

St Kilda
Picks: 23 (815), 36 (502), 61 (135), 86 (0), 104 (0)
Total points: 1452

Sydney
Picks: 9 (1469), 19 (948), 46 (331), 49 (287), 93 (0), 111 (0)
Total points: 3035

West Coast
Picks: 12 (1268), 34 (542), 54 (220), 106 (0)
Total picks: 2030

Western Bulldogs
Picks: 18 (985), 26 (729), 50 (273), 75 (0), 80 (0), 94 (0), 112 (0)
Total picks: 1987

Just for fun, here’s a quick ladder of every club, ordererd by how many total points they’ve got in hand at this year’s draft.

1. Gold Coast (6740)
2. GWS Giants (6014)
3. Essendon (5036)
4. Brisbane (5033)
5. Port Adelaide (3421)
6. Carlton (3167)
7. Sydney (3035)
8. Fremantle (2624)
9. North Melbourne (2476)
10. West Coast (2030)
11. Western Bulldogs (1987)
12. Adelaide (1892)
13. Geelong (1765)
14. Collingwood (1511)
15. St Kilda (1452)
16. Richmond (897)
17. Melbourne (365)
18. Hawthorn (0)

Hawthorn. Ouch.

The players

The AFL clubs have now finalised which players they will and will not nominate to join them through academy and father-son bidding. Of course, not all these players will wind up where they’ve been nominated, and some might not be drafted, especially when it comes to the academy players. Those nominated are:

Adelaide
Ben Jarman (son of Darren, 121 games for Adelaide)

Brisbane Lions
Jacob Allison (Aspley Hornets)
Nate Dennis (University of Qld)
William Fletcher (Sherwood)
Jack Rolls (Morningside)
Declan Watson (Aspley Hornets)

Collingwood
Callum Brown (son of Gavin, 254 games for Collingwood)
Josh Daicos (son of Peter, 250 games for Collingwood)

Geelong
Sam Simpson (son of Sean, 114 games for Geelong)

Gold Coast
Jack Bowes (Surfers Paradise)
Daniel Charlesworth (Surfers Paradise)
Jesse Esam (Broadbeach)
Nicholas Kempe (Mackay Eastern Swans)
Curtis Marsden (Palm Beach Currumbin)
Brad Scheer (Palm Beach Currumbin)
Max Spencer (Palm Beach Currumbin)
Shawn Watson (Cairns Saints)
Josh Williams (Hermit Park).

GWS
Isaac Cumming (North Broken Hill)
Sam Fisher (Canberra Demons)
Ryan Garthwaite (Lavington Panthers)
Harrison Macreadie (Henty)
Kobe Mutch (Mildura)
Harry Perryman (Collingullie)
William Setterfield (Albury)
Zach Sproule (Albury)
Lachlan Tiziani (Albury)

Sydney Swans
Darcy Baron-Hay (North Shore Bombers)
Jake Brown (St George Dragons)
Ryan Hebron (North Shore Bombers)
Callum McFadden (South Coast Thunder)
Ned Reinhard (UNSW Bulldogs)
Matthew Wilson (North Sydney)

West Coast
Jake Waterman (son of Chris, 177 games for West Coast)

Most of these players won’t be bid on until the later rounds of the draft. The three names to keep an eye out for early on in the piece are Jack Bowes (Gold Coast), Will Setterfield and Harry Perryman (GWS).

Examples

Example 1: Jack Bowes
Jack Bowes is an 187cm midfielder with both class and ball-winning ability, likely to attract a bid from a rival club inside the top ten, and with the Suns holding four of those ten selections they will have no trouble matching.

It’s currently thought by many that Brisbane may make a bid on Bowes as soon as pick No. 3, which would make at least a small amount of sense because, in the highly unlikely scenario that Gold Coast opted not to match, the Lions would secure an elite Queensland local.

So, let’s look at how things would play out if the Lions did make that bid.

To match, Gold Coast would simply need to give up their next pick, which happens to be the next pick in the overall draft order, pick No. 4. It’s worth 2034 points which is more than enough to match the asking price of the bid – 1787 points.

The Suns would move up to pick No. 3 overall and secure Bowes, while Brisbane would move down to pick No. 4.

Example 2: Will Setterfield
A 190cm midfielder with dominant contested ball ability, Setterfield is tied to GWS and looks likely to attract a bid inside the first round. Carlton are rumoured to have some interest, so for this example let’s assume that they place a bid on him with their first pick.

The Bowes bid and match above hasn’t changed where Carlton’s picks sit, so that’s still pick No. 5 overall, and the Giants will need 1502 points to match it.

That mean they would give up pick No. 15 (1112 points) outright, and then pick No.27 (483) on top of that. That’s a total of 1595 points, which means they would have 73 points in excess.

Pick No.15 moves up to pick No.5 and the Giants have Setterfield, while pick No. 27, with just 73 points remaining, moves down to pick No. 67.

Example 3: Harry Perryman
One of the most versatile players in the draft, 184cm Perryman can play anywhere on the ground. He’s also tied to GWS, and will likely be the Giants’ next bid to match after Setterfield.

Let’s take a punt and say that North Melbourne bid on him with what is now pick No. 12, thanks to GWS having moved ahead in the order. That’s a bid that will take 1014 points to match.

Because the Giants moved pick No.27 down, some of their other picks have moved just a little bit up the order. So they’re now looking at using picks No. 36 (502), No. 38 (465) and No. 44 (362) to match this bid.

Picks No. 36 and No. 38 will get used entirely – No. 36 goes up to become No. 12 and Perryman is drafted there, while No. 38 goes to the very end of the draft. The Giants still need to take 47 points off pick No.44 to pay the price, so it slides back to become pick No.48.

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Well, hopefully that clears things up at least a little. Or maybe it just made you all the more confused! If you have any questions about the bidding system, let me know in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer. Otherwise, stay tuned for more 2016 AFL Draft content over the next few weeks before the big day on 25 November.