The 2020 draft is significantly riskier for the clubs, given that they have zero form lines on 60% of the players being drafted. Most of these kids haven't played a game in 12 months, and considerably more for some of them (those who missed games due to injury in 2019).So we've essentially rated one year of a 32-year-old Mackay ahead of anyone taken beyond pick 23 in this draft including most of our NGA players.
Why are we bothering with the rookie draft then? There's clearly no one worth taking
Selecting players in the RD carries less risk - they're paid less, and we can delist them after only 12 months if they don't work out.
It makes a lot of sense to keep our powder dry for 2021, for a number of reasons:
- We can fill those remaining list spots using the mid-season drafts, once we finally see the Victorian kids in action and get a form line on their development.
- List sizes are expected to return to normal at the end of the year, giving us 2 free list positions without having to make any additional delistings.
- The 2021 draft is reputedly very, very strong - so it makes sense to be going deep in that draft, and shallow in this one.




