We received a request from the great Footy Maths Institute to have a look at the accuracy of the Phantom Draft that we tracked leading up to the 2014 AFL Draft. In looking at phantom draft accuracy we looked at a pool of 40 players – every player taken in the first two rounds, plus everyone predicted to go in the first two rounds in the consensus draft (Oscar McDonald, Clem Smith, Damien Cavka and Reece McKenzie). We excluded pre-selected players. That gives us a pool of 40 players against which to measure draft accuracy. We have measured accuracy in two manners:

Number of exact selections; and

Cumulative number of draft picks away from the final draft.

Queen of the Draft

Around the world of AFL draft writing and prediction, Emma Quayle, from Fairfax, is often called the “Queen of the Draft”. It is a reputation built over years, both in column inches and in the fantastic book on the process The Draft. It is also one that is borne out by the numbers. From our pool of 12 phantom draft who predicted at least the first round, Quayle’s predictions were the closest to the mark, and by a fair margin. Twenty of Quayle’s 21 selections were chosen in the first round, with her only miss being chosen at pick 22 (Daniel McKenzie). Quayle managed to get seven picks exactly right, and a further four chosen to the right club, but in an adjacent draft position (Melbourne’s picks 2 and 3, and GWS’ 6 and 7). On average, her selections were only “out” by average 2.5 draft picks, a phenomenal effort that requires both accurate contacts within the football world and an innate ability to judge talent.

But not exactly spot on

While Quayle’s seven correct predictions was impressive, it was not the highest number amongst our phantom drafters. Brett Anderson, from SEN, managed to pick eight draft selections correctly, including picks 1 through 6 and pick 8. Anderson’s other correct selection was the aforementioned Daniel McKenzie at pick 22. Brett Anderson also had the honour of being the only expert to pick the selection of the draft’s biggest bolter, that of Patrick McKenna (GWS, pick 23), although Anderson had McKenna going at pick 50. Anderson ended up having the most accurate ‘full’ phantom, ending up an average of 8.85 selections away across our entire sample.

How did the Consensus Phantom Draft do?

If you’ve been following HPN over the draft period you would know that we came up with a “new” type of phantom draft, the Consensus Phantom Draft, which utilised the knowledge of others and basic math.

We neglected to mention when mentioning Anderson’s “exact pick” win that one other phantom draft actually tied with him: the HPN Consensus Phantom Draft v3. A method with no human input managed to beat some of the best adjudicators of talent, with decades of connections within the industry, by using their collective knowledge.

Consensus picked the top five in correct order, as did most phantom drafters who updated on draft day (although some got the meaningless order of Melbourne’s two picks wrong). The Consensus Phantom Draft v3 was equal top with Brett Anderson, each getting 8 of 40 selections correct. In addition to the top 5 picks, Consensus also predicted Touk Miller (Gold Coast, pick 29), Brayden Maynard (Collingwood, pick 30) and Harrison Wigg (Adelaide, pick 35), correctly. For these later three correct picks, at least one expert made the exact prediction. Unsurprisingly, Consensus failed to divine a correct pick nobody else had made.

Time is the enemy of accuracy

At the bottom of our summary (above) you may see redditor /u/pizza_of_death near the bottom of the list, hanging around with the CPD versions 1 and 2. This is, in our opinion, nearly entirely a product of the time that each phantom draft was produced. Version 1 of the CPD was the second earliest phantom draft (behind pizza_of_death), and also the second least accurate. Version 2, produced 11 days later, was considerably more accurate, but still sit far off the pace set by Quayle and Anderson. The third CPD, released just two days later on draft day, was one of the most accurate drafts.

Draft day surprises

As mentioned above, the biggest bolter of the draft was Patrick McKenna, who was recently captaining the Australian U19 cricket team, and was rated as a speculative selection at best, in spite of his 9 goal haul in the Ballarat league against Kangaroo Flats. Other surprises in the first two rounds included Blaine Boekhorst, James Rose, Daniel Nielson, Lukas Webb and Toby McLean.

Carlton reaching for Boekhorst nine picks before any of our experts had him being taken. Rose was picked by Sydney at 37, 21 picks earlier than any of our experts. Special mention to Josh Poulter, who got Rose’s destination correct but at the wrong pick (pick 58). Nielson was picked by North at 25, with only one expert (Knightmare, pick 33) having him selected within the first two rounds. The Western Bulldogs picked Webb and McLean with back to back picks, with only McLean being rated by one expert (/u/pizza_of_death) as being a top 30 selection.

Draft day sliders

The obverse to stories such as McKenna’s on draft day is those like Reece McKenzie, who after being speculated as being an early second round selection had to wait until pick 77 to hear his name called by Richmond. Other prospects who suffered falls on draft day include Oscar McDonald (CPD pick 25, picked by Melbourne at 53), Clem Smith (CPD pick 36, Carlton at 60), Damien Cavka (CPD pick 66, West Coast at 34), Alex Neal-Bullen (CPD pick 21, Melbourne at 40), Jayden Laverde (CPD pick 6, Essendon at 20) and Hugh Goddard (CPD pick 8, St Kilda at 21).

Ultimately while these players were unlucky that they slide down the draft order, potentially losing money along the way, should be proud of their huge achievement of being selected in any circumstance. All seven of the players mentioned above still have a very good opportunity to contribute at AFL level.