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Opinion
The 2021 AFL National Draft is just around the corner (finally), but are you up to speed with exactly what to expect and when things will actually begin to happen?
Well, first of all, the second free agency period for delisted players will close this coming Monday (the 15th), however, with no action so far since it opened on Thursday any late signings at this stage will come as a welcome surprise in a dead news week.
On Wednesday the 17th the nominations for the draft close, which is normally pretty boring, but for Suns fans in 2020 it revealed a badly-kept secret in a pair of players from the academy who were quietly pre-listed without being announced and subsequently didn’t nominate for the draft. Will lightning strike twice?
Father-son prospects must nominate by this date, which seems a formality, yet just last year, Crows flag winner Tyson Edwards’ son Luke chose not to go down the same path as his delisted brother, although Adelaide came out and said they were not nominating him (you be the judge) and he is now a West Coast Eagle as a result.
In what has been the most boring week of the off-season, the only AFL news that has not been scandal or speculation has been the signing of international Category B rookies, so there could potentially be more movement on this front by Wednesday’s deadline.
Then it is one week, four hours and ten minutes until the draft commences, so triple check the time in your zone and tune in to your chosen coverage for the first round of selections, with father-son and possibly Northern Academy bid matching expected to take between 21 to 23 players.
After that, rather than a seemingly endless marathon like last year, the second round won’t commence until the following night, with live trading beginning in the afternoon before the first pick of the second round is placed.
This is the marathon session in 2021 with draft picks from later rounds coming in dramatically as picks used to match first-round bids get burnt, although the National Draft is only touted to feature a total number of picks somewhere in the 60s.
Next Generation Academy bids can be matched from the second round onwards, so the already scrambled draft order will be unrecognisable as bids are placed and matched, as with any further father-sons and Northern Academy bids.
(Photo by Russell Freeman/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
The AFL has predicted that this second draft session will take only three hours, but if it gets beyond the fourth round then proceedings will nudge four hours before list managers have to conduct late-night list adjustments before the following day’s preseason and rookie drafts.
For those needing to get to bed before midnight, the following morning will feature news of rookie upgrades for clubs that need to clear space for the rookie draft and any last-minute delisted free agency signings.
On the third day after the overnight list manoeuvres, there is a scheduled preseason draft but there likely won’t be any players nominating for it this time around, so it will be onto the rookie draft.
14 players have been designated to be re-rookied, which is actually facilitated before picks go live via a confidential listing process, then North Melbourne can have the first crack at undrafted players in the rookie draft.
In 2020, 15 genuine rookie draft selections were made and 11 re-rookied players were pre-selected while only 14 clubs made a selection with four clubs passing.
In comparison to Day 2, Friday will be neatly wrapped up in the afternoon, with the last order of business being the Category B rookie selections, which is the last chance for academy prospects to get onto their tied club’s list.
But even then, with the season’s player movement period finally over, there remains the preseason supplemental selection period for players training with clubs over the summer vying for final list spots, which eight clubs used to give lifelines to 12 players this season.
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