Author: Sean

HPN fully intended to do a long series of AFLW previews, including of each team outlining strengths and weaknessses. But, due to a project that we have been working on for the last year or so hitting deadline, we couldn’t find the time. Instead, we’re going to lay out the

This is HPN’s fourth annual attempt at the Consensus Phantom Draft, combining the wisdom of multiple draft watchers and also Reddit, to find out what the consensus view is. In most years the method is within the two or three most accurate phantom drafts overall, and the final draft-day version is

Richmond and Geelong Richmond traded their 2018 third round pick to get Geelong’s current one. Pick 53 gives the Tigers a third pick in the 50’s to go with 15 and 17. They’d probably like to have their father/son prospect Patrick Naish slip past 17 and be matched using a

Sam Murray came off the Swans rookie list, and as such the Swans gave up nothing to get him. He was obviously promising enough in the NEAFL for Collingwood to be interested. He’s apparently quite fast, and some sort of defender, so it makes sense for the Pies to be

Matthew Lobbe had a brief period where he was Port Adelaide’s first choice ruckman in their run to a narrow preliminary final loss. He also played most of 2015 sharing the duties with Ryder, but since then, injury and a tactical shift have seen him pushed out. Port have come to

Nathan Wilson is a very good half-back and will likely contend for All-Australian honours in the coming years. Wilson is young, has one of the best kicks in the competition, is pretty damn quick and is also versatile on the field. Wilson has really broken out in the last 18

Sam Gibson gets a chance to continue his career if he’s good enough to play senior footy in the Crows midfield. He will likely play a lot of SANFL footy. He’s 31, he’s probably not got a lot of footy left in him, but he’s likely got some. Given North just

Logan Austin and Aaron Young have four place names between them, and now they both head to new clubs in a busy trade period for Port. St Kilda acquire the fringe Canberran defender Austin while sometime best-22 small forward Aaron Young heads to the Suns. Both go for late future picks. Of the

There’s more deals to come, but Gold Coast have swapped picks with West Coast in a manner that suggests they simply didn’t want the collection of second round picks they accrued last year. The prize for the Suns is a future first round pick and to obtain it they turned

Bryce Gibbs is a very good footballer, perhaps even a great one, and the Crows think he is the missing piece on the march towards the 2018 flag. Gibbs is 28 and has signed a 4 year deal, so we can assume he’s going to play for at least that