Editors’ note: HPN has found out, just before the scheduled publication of this article, of the tragic death of Phillip Hughes at the age of 25. In any other circumstances we would hold off and not publish this article, but unfortunately it would have little to no value if it was held over until tomorrow. We are in the position as sport-lovers where we’d rather not be self-promoting at this time, but after some careful deliberation, we have decided to publish. We understand if people do not agree with our decision. Our thoughts and condolences are with Hughes’ family and his friends and teammates, both inside and outside the Australian cricket community.

After 12 months of speculation, draft day is finally upon us. The best young players in the country, and talents from outside the traditional pathways, will have a new place to call home by tomorrow morning, and footy fans nationwide will have a new set of names to adore or hurl profanities at.

This is the final version of HPN’s Consensus Phantom Draft, a compilation of the opinions of draft experts on the 2014 draft. Our final pool of experts stands at 13, with four additions to v2 of the Consensus Phantom Draft. The full version with linked drafts is:

Paige Cardona (Bound For Glory)

Knightmare (Bigfooty)

Jay Clark and Sam Landsberger (Herald Sun)

/u/pizza_of_death (/r/afl subreddit)

Brett Anderson (Inside Football/SEN)

Josh Poulter (FootyExtra)

Matt Balmer (the Roar)

Dean Bilton (ABC)

Skippos (Bigfooty)

Sebastian Spanugolo (the New Daily)

Cal Twomey (afl.com.au)

Rahul (Mad Monday Show)

Emma Quayle (Fairfax)

Some of the phantom drafts included only have selections for one or two rounds (or for 31 picks in the case of the Herald Sun, for reasons known only to them). As such, the accuracy of the phantom drafts is better for the higher picks. For the full phantom drafts included, if a player is undrafted we have given them a default value of pick 80. For the shorter phantom drafts, we have discarded any undrafted players from their compiled average. For data quality reasons, the Consensus Phantom Draft only covers the first two rounds of the draft. (It also gets confusing once picks start being passed and used for rookie upgrades.)

We have also included a “mode” or “most frequent selection for all of the players on the list for the final edition, showing the most common draft pick for each player. This is to provide an alternative view compared to a simple mean of draft positions.

Round 1 Club Player Consensus pick Most frequent pick 1 St Kilda Patrick McCartin 1.8 1 (8/13) 2 Melbourne Christian Petracca 1.9 1 (5/13) 3 Melbourne Angus Brayshaw 2.3 2 (9/13) 4 Greater Western Sydney Jarrod Pickett 4.8 4 (11/13) 5 Collingwood Jordan De Goey 6.5 5 (8/13) 6 Greater Western Sydney Jayden Laverde 8.8 11 (5/13) 7 Greater Western Sydney Peter Wright 9.0 10 (6/13) 8 Gold Coast Hugh Goddard 9.7 7 (5/13) 9 Collingwood Darcy Moore 9.0 9 (13/13) 10 Geelong Liam Duggan 9.8 8 (7/13) 11 West Coast Paul Ahern 10.2 6 (5/13) 12 Richmond Jake Lever 11.8 13 (4/13) 13 Fremantle Sam Durdin 12.0 13 (6/13) 14 Adelaide Caleb Marchbank 14.5 19 (5/13) 15 Gold Coast Corey Ellis 15.1 12 (6/13) 16 North Melbourne Nakia Cockatoo 15.2 15 (5/13) 17 Essendon Lachie Weller 15.3 16 (4/13) 18 Sydney Isaac Heeney 18.0 18 (13/13) 19 Carlton Kyle Langford 15.5 15 (6/13) 20 Essendon Jarrod Garlett 20.4 20 (5/13) 21 St Kilda Alex Neal-Bullen 22.9 21 (5/10) Round 2 Club Player Consensus pick Most frequent pick 22 St Kilda Tomb Lamb 23.4 21 (3/12) 23 Greater Western Sydney Daniel McKenzie 24.8 23 (3/11) 24 Greater Western Sydney Jack Steele 24.0 24 (13/13) 25 North Melbourne Oscar McDonald 25.4 25 (5/13) 26 Western Bulldogs Ed Vickers-Willis 26.8 27 (4/11) 27 Western Bulldogs Connor Menadue 27.5 26 (4/11) 28 Carlton Connor Blakely 28.7 29 (4/10) 29 Gold Coast Touk Miller 29.4 31 (5/11) 30 Collingwood Brayden Maynard 30.0 23 (2/10) 31 Hawthorn Reece McKenzie 33.3 35 (2/18) 32 West Coast Blaine Boekhorst 33.8 28 (6/8) 33 Richmond Dillon Viojo-Rainbow 34.4 33 (3/8) 34 Fremantle Damien Cavka 34.9 30 (2/8) 35 Adelaide Harrison Wigg 35.0 29 (4/9) 36 North Melbourne Clem Smith 35.8 34 (2/6) 37 Sydney Declan Hamilton 36.6 23 (2/7) 38 Sydney Jack Hiscox 38.0 38 (13/13) 39 Western Bulldogs Daniel Howe 38.3 36 (2/6) 40 Melbourne Toby McLean 42.1 NA

Hopping on the McCartin Bandwagon

For our first two Consensus Phantom Drafts, Christian Petracca was a near unanimous number one selection, with only two experts going against the grain (Skippos and Josh Poulter in the second update). Then, over the course of 24 hours, the tide changed dramatically.

The previous flood of support for Petracca instead became McCartMentum. The Consensus Phantom Draft now has Patrick McCartin at pick 1, with 8 of our 13 experts saying that the Saints have opted for him. Petracca is still favoured by 5 experts, but that number could diminish as the day progresses. Strangely, Petracca is being dropped as often to pick 3 as his is pick 2, with Angus Brayshaw still being cited as the most common selection at pick 2. The composition of the top three is still quite clear amongst our pool of experts, none have opted for an outsider to break the hegemonic top 3.

Wisdom of the Crowd?

The Consensus Mock Draft has placed several players as being drafted to a club nobody in the sample has actually predicted. Jayden Laverde (pick 6, GWS), Hugh Goddard (pick 8, Gold Coast) and Liam Duggan (pick 10, Geelong) are all, according to the consensus, off to clubs no individual mock drafter has selected them to. Have we identified a supra-individual wisdom within our mock drafters, beyond their individual ken? Or have we illustrated the limits of "best available” by showing that the players sitting between about 6 and 12 are close enough in quality that it’s down to individual preference?

Step on up Caleb Marchbank

Caleb Marchbank, on the back of speculation that GWS might be interested in selecting him, has taken over the “Where the hell are they going to go?” award from Peter Wright. Our pool of experts have predicted that Marchbank will go as high as pick 6, or as low as pick 20. His precise selection may end up being a pivotal point of the draft.

A story of stability starring Nakia Cockatoo

Across our three Consensus Phantom Drafts only one player, who is not pre-selected, has not moved on our list: Nakia Cockatoo. Cockatoo has been nailed to North Melbourne’s pick 16 since the first run of the consensus draft. In a process of guesswork, Cockatoo has been a beacon of stability. Now, hopefully North pick him up (rather than Gold Coast or Essendon), because we’ve become invested in this rare oasis of statistical calm in an otherwise chaotic and indifferent universe.