Ta-da.
It’s official! Despite scintillating grand final debut, Marlion Pickett will be available at rookie-price in SuperCoach next year
It’s official, the player who was third in Norm Smith Medal voting in Saturday’s grand final will start the 2020 SuperCoach season at rookie-price.
In his first AFL game, Marlion Pickett tallied 22 disposals, eight contested possessions, one goal and 96 SuperCoach points in
the 89-point drubbing of the Giants and will be priced in a similar way to former South Fremantle teammate Tim Kelly in 2018.
Peter Jankulovski, managing director at Vapormedia — the company responsible for Virtualsports — confirmed what SuperCoaches wanted to hear following
the 27-year-old’s scintillating debut.
“He will likely be priced at the $123,900 mark, which is the standard for two-plus-year rookies or players on lists who had not made their debut,” Jankulovski said. While Pickett will head into 2020 with one game to his name, he is yet to make his SuperCoach debut, a competition which runs purely in the home-and-away season. “I don’t think yesterday will account for much and we’ll stick with the usual methodology,” Jankulovski said of the pricing formula which is based around regular season numbers.
While he can also play at half-back, Pickett,
whose rise has been a remarkable one, is likely to be again classified as a midfielder-only, as he was in July this year after Richmond swooped in the mid-season draft. And, all going to plan, like Kelly’s did in his debut season, Pickett’s price is likely to skyrocket very quickly, if his grand final performance is anything to go by. The smooth-moving midfielder finished with 560 metres gained — only teammates Jason Castagna and Nick Vlastuin recorded more — and was one of only three players on the ground to not register a clanger.
“He’s just so composed with the ball. He was incredible really, the way he went about it,” coach Damian Hardwick said post-match.
A week earlier, Pickett won the Norm Goss Medal as the best player on-the-ground in the VFL grand final after 20 disposals, 11 contested possessions, nine tackles, four score involvements and 123 SuperCoach points.
He’s a player who can have a huge influence, even with limited possession. It’s a part of his game South Fremantle coach Todd Curley, who had both Pickett and Kelly in his side in 2017, highlighted on the AFL website last November. “Tim has the ability, which we probably saw this year, to accumulate consistently big numbers,” Curley said. “(But) Marlion can have a big impact on a game with probably not as many possessions just through the way he attacks the ball.” And it’s a crucial trait to have if he’s going to be a consistent SuperCoach scorer next year.
As Kelly made his way to the next level — and averaged 93 SuperCoach points in his first season to rise by $346k — Pickett assumed the Geelong star’s midfield role in the WAFL, averaging 22 disposals per game in 2018. It surprised some that he wasn’t taken in last year’s draft, despite an enormous 26-disposal, four-goal performance in his side’s qualifying final victory. But everyone, including SuperCoaches, are happy with that way it’s worked out.Just less than 50 per cent of SuperCoach teams featured Kelly, who was yet to be seen at AFL level, in Round 1, 2018, Expect Pickett’s ownership percentage to eclipse that number in March next year.