THE AFL is still deciding how to announce clubs' selections at this month's NAB AFL Draft after a mixed reaction to last year's restructured event.
Last year was the first draft with the new father-son and academy bidding system in place, which saw the League change its approach to the night.
Club recruiting teams were seated in a different room to the main stage, senior coaches read out each of their first picks and AFL chief executive Gill McLachlan called out the remaining choices.
It led to a longer than usual draft night that also included some technical mishaps.
Clubs will return to the main room this year for the event at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, but the AFL is still weighing up how to reveal each selection.
A decision is likely to be reached by the end of this week, but the AFL has already ruled out going back to the old format where recruiting managers read out their picks from their individual tables on the floor.
Either a club or AFL official will be charged with calling the name of the draftee from the main stage after the recruiting team has lodged its pick via the draft night technology developed last year.
There are expected to be at least three bids on academy prospects in the first round this year, with Jack Bowes (Gold Coast), Will Setterfield and Harry Perryman (Greater Western Sydney) all highly rated.
Five father-son prospects have been nominated by their prospective clubs – Callum Brown and Josh Daicos (Collingwood), Ben Jarman (Adelaide), Sam Simpson (Geelong), Jake Waterman (West Coast) – but none are expected to attract bids in the opening 25 selections.
The draft order will change throughout the night as bids are matched due to the points value associated with each selection.
The AFL generally invites around 15 prospects to the draft to ensure it has all members of the top-10 there on the night.
