2025 AFL draft order: Which clubs are barracking for and against others after picks changed hands

Hawthorn will be keeping a close eye on Carlton’s form, pleading for rivals to leapfrog them on the ladder as they hold the Blues’ picks tight. See who your club should be barracking for.

Hawthorn’s list team would have every reason to curse Carlton’s rivals in the lower reaches of the ladder.

For the Hawks to cash in on the Blues’ disastrous year they need their rivals around Carlton to hold up their end of the bargain.

When West Coast had the option of taking Carlton’s first and second-round picks or Hawthorn’s top two selections, the Eagles famously chose the Hawks’ suite of picks.

West Coast backed the Blues to thrive as they secured a draft booty in the Tom Barrass deal, but instead saw Carlton wilt.

Tom Barrass landed the Eagles’ Hawthorn’s first and second-rounders. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

And yet with seven rounds remaining the issue for Hawthorn isn’t Carlton’s abject misery, it is the failure of the teams under them to leapfrog the Blues.

Carlton, languishing in 12th place, has lost five of its last seven games and yet the teams below the Blues on the ladder are even worse.

Essendon (13th) has lost its last five games, Melbourne (14th) has lost its last five games and St Kilda (15th) has lost seven of the past eight.

So the Blues selection – currently in Hawthorn’s grasp – remains at No. 7 with those Victorian rivals stubbornly refusing to leapfrog Michael Voss’s non-contenders.

Hawthorn is top four bound with the wind in its sails but the cherry on top of the cake would be the Blues slumping into the bottom five on the ladder.

With seven rounds left the AFL’s list teams are looking at the receipts of their 2024 pick swaps after a flurry of movement that saw six first-rounders and six second-rounders exchange hands.

Gold Coast has Collingwood and Port Adelaide’s first-rounders as well as its own to secure its academy windfall.

Zeke Uwland is set to join the Suns in November’s draft. Picture: Jenny Evans/AFL Photos/via Getty Images.

Richmond has its own first-rounder and the Roos selection at No. 3 in the national draft, but has given up its second-rounder (to the Roos) and its third-rounder (to Fremantle).

Richmond’s list team knows a second top five pick is in its grasp, but it is also aware the depth of this draft is so thin that a club with the tenth pick could end up with the best player.

So it is excited by the possibilities but aware the draft is a total crapshoot.

And while Hawthorn would be cautiously optimistic, the Dons will believe they have set themselves up well despite their bold 2024 strategy.

Amid conjecture over whether a rival would have bid early for academy small forward Isaac Kako, they traded pick nine and a future third for 28, 40, 46, 54 and 65 and the Demons first-round pick in 2025.

On draft night they also traded for St Kilda’s 2025 second-round pick.

The Bombers secured an extra first-round pick this year in order to nab Isaac Kako. Picture: Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

If they had rolled the dice on clubs overlooking Kako before their first round pick, players like Xavier Lindsay, Taj Hotton, Jonty Faull, Murphy Reid and Harry Armstrong would have been on the draft board.

Instead their draft intel told them rivals weren’t bluffing with Kako interest so they traded into a draft they knew would be weaker – but didn’t have that first-rounder swallowed up by matching a rival bid.

With Melbourne and St Kilda also holding up bottom-six spots on the ladder, Essendon has picks five and six on ladder order and 22 and 24.

Academy and compensation picks will clearly dilute those selections so the big question is this – can Essendon nail a pair of top 10 selections after plenty of misfires in recent seasons?

A club setting its sights for the medium term will believe it nailed the 2023 national draft (Nate Caddy), built on it last year (a generational small forward in Kako) and then debuted 11 players in 2025.

Some of those might fade from view but Lewis Hayes, Tom Edwards, Angus Clarke, Lachie Blakiston, Archer May and Vigo Visentini have all shown real promise after being secured through various list mechanisms.

Melbourne will believe the trade allowed it to secure midfielders Harvey Langford (pick 6) and Xavier Lindsay (pick 11) in one of footy’s best drafts, easily justifying the traded cost.

So it is up to Essendon to find gold in a mediocre draft – or attempt to trade those picks for Harley Reid at season’s end.

If it can secure another 10-year player to help Caddy and Kako lead the resistance then the trade is well and truly justified.

Originally published as 2025 AFL draft order: Which clubs are barracking for and against others after picks changed hands