Many have rated this year\u2019s draft pool as shallow and weak after pick 30. That is not necessarily the case. There are many questionable players, but also many proven players who will be absolute steals. Rankings are obviously opinion based, but they certainly provide an alternative insight and contrast phantom drafts. Without further ado, here is my own 2013 draft rankings:<\/p>\n
Absolute elite:<\/strong> A few surprises here, but we\u2019ll start with the obvious ones. Aish, Boyd and Billings clearly have the tools and the runs on the board. Aish is somewhat of a question mark due to his injuries this year, but skills like his don\u2019t grow on trees. Salem is the best midfielder in my eyes. Having seen him six or seven times live this year, I see absolutely no flaws to his game. His upside is enormous, and he has the vision, skills, pace and versatility to be an elite AFL player. Ben Lennon just dominates the game. Like Billings he can win the game off his own boot and he has the tools to become an outright star.<\/p>\n Borderline elite:<\/strong> A few omissions and a few surprises. Kelly and Freeman are very impressive athletes and high level footballers, but they\u2019re a little overhyped in terms of their foot skills. Kolodjashnij and McDonald should be excellent half backs with their exposed form and incredible potential. Hartung and Garlett are electric and game changers, but they might be too outside to be complete players, and obviously Garlett has his issues. Crouch, Taylor and Sheed are all ball magnets who should be able to play 150+ games.<\/p>\n Excellent players:<\/strong> Scharenberg and Bontempelli are well over rated because of their size. Seen plenty of the latter and even in his 30+ possession games I haven\u2019t found him to be overly game changing or damaging. Dunstan looks to be a very well rounded player and Acres could be anything. Kennedy \u2013 Harris, Impey, Honeychurch and Sicily are so explosive. They all have the tools to become excellent players. Conlon is a bit of an unknown considering how much footy he has missed, but his knee injury was a freak accident, and he\u2019ll be the biggest steal of the draft.<\/p>\n Very solid to great:<\/strong> Most of these guys are proven performers, but they all have their obvious downsides. They should all make the grade at AFL level in the right conditions, and some of those at the top of the list could even be great. Darcy Lang is a bit of an under rated commodity, but he has shown how solid he is in the early part of the year. Mick Turner rated him as the second best midfielder behind Lewis Taylor at the Falcons. Big wraps.<\/p>\n High potential to somewhat over rated:<\/strong> A bit rough to call them over rated, but many of these guys have stood out on a few flash in the pan moments or games, or have just been generally over rated due to their size and athletic ability. Either way, these guys could definitely have a bright future, yet at the same time I have queries over them. Byrne-Jones is a fairly under rated player, but many look at him as a pure athlete, which is why he has been put in this section.<\/p>\n Under rated, but will need to be in the right situation:<\/strong> The smaller, yet well accomplished midfielder and the somewhat undersized key position players make up a majority of this section. Cavarra, Chisari, Heavyside, Gibbons, Scott, Beasley, Dickson, Knight. All fantastic players who shouldn\u2019t have any question marks on them, yet their height makes them slide. An interesting one is Karl Amon, who I rate as a very solid player who is the draft-able size. If he averaged five touches more he\u2019d be a second round pick undoubtedly.<\/p>\n Late Value:<\/strong><\/p>\n Isaiah Miller (Bendigo Pioneers) Probably the longest list of them all, and this is why I believe this draft could be fruitful. There is a ton of players who could be picked up after pick 50 in the under rated and late value sections. In the late value section, I have faith in Boag, Hogan, Kalanj, Fitzgerald and Clothier to be decent value as rookies. Barrett looks to be a great pick up for the Giants. Guys like Willsmore, Miller, Hayes and Maginness could make the grade at AFL level, but their draft stocks aren\u2019t high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many have rated this year\u2019s draft pool as shallow and weak after pick 30. That is not necessarily the case. There are many questionable players, but also many proven players who will be absolute steals. Rankings are obviously opinion based, but they certainly provide an alternative insight and contrast phantom drafts. Without further ado, here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":7179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTom Boyd (Eastern Ranges)
\nChristian Salem (Sandringham Dragons)
\nJack Billings (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nBen Lennon (Northern Knights)
\nJames Aish (Norwood)<\/p>\n
\nJosh Kelly (Sandringham Dragons)
\nNathan Freeman (Sandringham Dragons)
\nKade Kolodjashnij (Launceston)
\nLuke McDonald (Werribee)
\nDominic Sheed (Subiaco)
\nLewis Taylor (Geelong Falcons)
\nBilly Hartung (Dandenong Stingrays)
\nDayle Garlett (Swan Districts)
\nMatt Crouch (North Ballarat Rebels)<\/p>\n
\nMatt Scharenberg (Glenelg)
\nMarcus Bontempelli (Northern Knights)
\nLuke Dunstan (Woodville-West Torrens)
\nBlake Acres (West Perth)
\nJay Kennedy-Harris (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nJarman Impey (Murray Bushrangers)
\nMitch Honeychurch (Eastern Ranges)
\nCameron Conlon (Northern Knights)
\nJames Sicily (Western Jets)<\/p>\n
\nTrent Dumont (Norwood)
\nDarcy Gardiner (Geelong Falcons)
\nZac Jones (Dandenong Stingrays)
\nPatrick Cripps (East Fremantle)
\nMichael Apeness (Eastern Ranges)
\nToby Nankervis (North Launceston)
\nZac Merrett (Sandringham Dragons)
\nLloyd Perris (St George)
\nJames Tsitas (Geelong Falcons)
\nDan McStay (Eastern Ranges)
\nDarcy Hourigan (South Adelaide)
\nJames Battersby (Sturt)
\nDarcy Lang (Geelong Falcons)<\/p>\n
\nMalcolm Karpany (Woodville \u2013 West Torrens)
\nRory Lobb (Swan Districts)
\nTom Cutler (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nNick Bourke (Geelong Falcons)
\nCam McCarthy (South Fremantle)
\nMitch Harvey (North Adelaide)
\nJonothan Marsh (East Fremantle)
\nCameron Giles (Woodville-West Torrens)
\nDarcy Byrne-Jones (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nNick Holman (Murray Bushrangers)
\nAlex Pearce (Devonport)
\nOrazio Fantasia (Norwood)
\nGeorge Hewitt (North Adelaide)<\/p>\n
\nKane Lambert (Northern Blues)
\nJacob Chisari (Bendigo Pioneers)
\nSam Heavyside (Bendigo Pioneers)
\nJake Greiser (Western Jets)
\nAlex Spencer (Sandringham Dragons)
\nMichael Gibbons (Murray Bushrangers)
\nBrady Gray (Burnie)
\nKurt Heatherly (Sandringham Dragons)
\nJosh Scott (Gippsland Power)
\nHugh Beasley (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nGuy Dickson (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nBen Cavarra (Eastern Ranges)
\nJake Kolodjashnij (Launceston)
\nClayton McCartney (Dandenong Stingrays)
\nKarl Amon (Sandringham Dragons)
\nAlex Spina (North Adelaide)
\nEli Templeton (Burnie)
\nRiley Knight (Woodville \u2013 West Torrens)
\nDwayne Wilson (Sturt)
\nFraser Fort (Geelong Falcons)<\/p>\n
\nNicholas Robertson (West Perth)
\nLuke Reynolds (Port Adelaide)
\nWill Maginness (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nMax Hayes (Sandringham Dragons)
\nJared Jansen (East Fremantle)
\nTom Langdon (Sandringham Dragons)
\nAiden Franetic (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nLouis Herbert (North Ballarat Rebels)
\nDallas Willsmore (North Ballarat Rebels)
\nIsaac Conway (Aspley)
\nDarcy Cameron (Claremont)
\nJack Leslie (Gippsland Power)
\nJake Barrett (Temora)
\nHugh Curnow (Northern Knights)
\nNathan Drummond (Murray Bushrangers)
\nAaron Christensen (Calder Cannons)
\nJake Owen (Calder Cannons)
\nJason Cooke (Calder Cannons)
\nMatthew Haynes (Northern Knights)
\nJedd Clothier (Calder Cannons)
\nBen Brown (Werribee Tigers)
\nAaron Heppell (Gippsland Power)
\nLewis Fitzgerald (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nJake Kalanj (Northern Knights)
\nJosh Turner (Northern Knights)
\nChris Cain (Port Melbourne)
\nBilly Hogan (Oakleigh Chargers)
\nEd Morris (Gippsland Power)
\nMatthew Boag (Geelong Falcons)<\/p>\n