After a few weeks off due to good behaviour, the Judge is back. And rather than dwelling on my own past terrible predictions (such as stating the Mighty Bucks would win the Champions League only to see them be eliminated in Stage 1), I have decided to have a look at everyone else’s. It’s nearly the half way mark of the season and so what better way to judge the foresight of every team than by looking back at how their first round draft pick is going.
Round 1 PSD picks are seemingly regarded as gold. Untouchable. The Guru spends half the season talking about who is going to end up with the number 1 pick at the end of the year. Looking through the history of AFR trades the last time a round 1 PSD selection was traded was back in 2017. People just don’t want to part with their round 1 PSD pick. But how valuable are they really? To find out I have looked back at everyone’s first PSD pick from this year and then looked at how many games that player was available, how many of those games they actually played. Whether that player is holding their spot in their team’s preferred starting line-up, and then my subjective opinion of whether that player was worthy of a round 1 PSD selection. And here are the results (in order from pick 1-10):
Super League
| Team | Pick | Available | Games | First Choice | Worthy |
| The Thylacines | Nick Daicos | 8 | 3 | No | No |
| Ashy Convicts | Jy Simpkin | 8 | 6 | No | No |
| The Coat Hangers | Nick Hind | 7 | 7 | Yes | No |
| McAvanean Marvels | Jason Horne-Francis | 8 | 0 | No | No |
| Phamtoms | Jack Crisp | 8 | 5 | Yes | Yes |
| Sons of God | Patrick Dangerfield | 6 | 3 | Maybe | No |
| Bill’s Brawlers | Mitch Georgiades | 8 | 2 | No | No |
| Nexus | Oscar McInerney | 7 | 4 | No | No |
| Mighty Atoms | Bradley Hill | 8 | 5 | No | No |
| Major Warriors | Jake Stringer | 4 | 4 | Yes | No |
Original League
| Team | Pick | Available | Games | First Choice | Worthy |
| Digital Dingoes | Nick Daicos | 8 | 3 | No | No |
| Hodgey’s Heroes | Jordan Dawson | 8 | 6 | Yes | Yes |
| Captain’s Chargers | Brodie Smith | 7 | 3 | No | No |
| Southern Titans | Ben Keays | 8 | 8 | Yes | Yes |
| Blue Flames | Jeremy McGovern | 6 | 6 | Yes | Yes |
| Wild Cards | Brandan Parfitt | 8 | 1 | No | No |
| Surrey Scorpions | Tim English | 5 | 1 | No | No |
| Deadly Doozers | Nick Vlastuin | 3 | 4 | Yes | Yes |
| Mighty Bucks | Jason Horne-Francis | 8 | 0 | No | No |
| Natas Adulterers | Mitch Georgiades | 8 | 3 | No | No |
The table really does speak for itself but, because I like the sound of my own voice, I will speak for it as well.
Overall most players selected in round 1 PSD have had reasonable availability. Stringer and English have had some injury issues, and Vlastuin has been selected by the Doozers in 4 games despite only having played 3, but aside from that every players listed has played at least 6 AFL games.
But it is AFR (as opposed to AFL) games played and whether those players are first choice for their teams where things seem to fall apart. Now I know a few people may comment that two players in each league’s first round PSD selections were picked due to their status as high AFL draft picks and therefor picked on potential, meaning it is unfair to judge them by the same criteria as the other players. But judging is what I do. So to those people I point out that the draft is meant to be the way to improve your team. And if those players are not improving your team, then they are simply filler a roster slot for someone who could. What is interesting here is that in the Super League, only 3 or 4 (depending how you look at Dangerfield) of the 10 round 1 PSD selections are actually holding their place in their teams, while in the Original League it is a similar 4 out of 10 strike rate.
But then judging the players by the subjective measure of whether they were worthy of the honour of being selected in round 1 is where things fall apart even further. In the Super League I have only judged 1/10 as being worthy of being picked in the first round, while in the Original League the number hold steady at 4/10. An interesting side note is that of the 4 OL selections deemed worthy, 3 of those 4 are backs (going against the long held theory that you get your forwards in the PSD and your backs in the MSD).
So what does all this mean? Should people be more willing to trade their round 1 PSD picks? Or will that just mean that someone ends up with 2 selections they are disappointed in…?
Judge’s Verdict – Round 1 PSD picks are overrated.
Bruce McAvaney
I think Kent and Dave realise that Horne-Francis is the next Nathan Buckley. He might be traded in 2032.
Cameron Baker
Well Bruce, lets judge it by whether the players are keepers for their team a few years down the track then. And from the 2019 round 1 PSD only 4/10 from the SL and 4/10 from the OL are still on the same team. Meanwhile from 2020 only 3/10 from the SL and 2/10 from the OL had not been either delisted or traded by the team that selected them with their precious round 1 PSD picks.
Of course this data is somewhat skewed by my own strike rate of 0/4 from this period…