So you can see that without doing anything, a club goes into the Priority Draft Process with three Draft Picks, which guarantee three free players should the club decide to simply recruit. But the Draft Picks are commodities that can be bought, sold or traded, just like players. There are many things to take into account when deciding what to do with your Draft Picks. Do you need them? Perhaps you have a full Squad and don't want to Delist anyone. In that case it would seem sensible to try to get some money for your picks, rather than letting them go to waste. Who would want to buy a Draft Pick? Maybe another club has lost 4 or 5 players from the previous season and needs to replace them to get a team on the field. That club may be willing to pay $30,000 or $40,000 for a pick, rather than paying $50,000 for a Free Agent once the season has started. It is also worth considering just who can be recruited in the Priority Draft. A club may need a player with certain Qualifying stats, or perhaps there is an outstanding youngster who was selected by an AFL club in the national draft. And then there is the actual pick number to be taken into consideration. It's fair to say you would have much more bargaining power in deal-negotiations by offering pick number 1 compared to pick 25.

There is no way to put even an approximate price on what each Draft Pick is worth. Different clubs will have different needs and bank balances. Once again money must come into the thinking. A club in financial difficulty may be willing to sell pick 1 for, say $200,000 or a good Ruckman. But to find a buyer means another owner thinks that pick 1 is worth that amount of money or that type of player. Maybe no-one does. So it's simply a market economy, with Draft Picks, players and money the commodities. Which finally leads us to the first week of the overall Priority Draft Process.

Rule 11C - In the first week of the Priority Draft Process, a club may take advantage of the Loan Facility. This allows a club to borrow up to $1,000,000 from the SFL, interest-free. The Loan is repaid in 22 equal instalments over the 18 home-and-away rounds and 4 weeks of finals. Loan repayments are automatically deducted from a club's bank balance each week.

Rule 11D - The maximum amount of a Loan is $1,000,000. In addition, the sum of the loan amount added to a club's current Bank Balance cannot exceed $1,000,000.

Sounds a bit confusing, but it's not. To put it another way, you can borrow only enough money to take your bank balance to $1,000,000 unless you are ITR, in which case the maximum Loan is $1,000,000. So if your bank balance is $50,000 you can borrow a maximum of $950,000. If your balance is $700,000 you can borrow a maximum of $300,000. If you have a bank balance less than $0, the maximum Loan amount is $1,000,000. A club with a bank balance of $1,000,000 or more cannot take out a Loan. The money received from the loan CAN be used to fund other orders (for example, to purchase a coach) on the same draft form.

Rule 11E - In the first week of the Priority Draft Process, a club may Bulk Delist up to 10 players.

This enables clubs to trim their squads of unwanted players. When a player who is currently signed to a Sim club retires or is delisted by his AFL club, he remains on the Sim Masterlist until he is Delisted by his Sim club. Therefore most clubs will need to Delist a few players after each season. And there will probably be a few fringe players who will be given the flick to make way for Draft recruits. A club still receives the usual $25,000 dividend for each Delisted player. It should be mentioned that a Sim club does not have to Delist a player who is no longer on any AFL list. If you have a player who has, for example, been delisted by his AFL club due to injury, but who you believe may be picked up again the next year, you can retain him on your list under normal pay conditions.

Rule 11F - In the first week of the Priority Draft Process, a club may make up to 3 Pay orders, 3 Transfer (Player) orders and 3 Transfer (Draft Pick) oders. Each club may Transfer a maximum of 2 Draft Picks to any other single club.

These orders allow you to make deals and, in particular, to trade any or all of your Draft Picks if you so choose, before the actual Priority Draft takes place. But you can only Transfer a maximum of 2 Draft Picks to the same club, in exactly the same way as you can only Transfer 2 players to the same club in the same year. All deals involving the transfer of players and/or draft picks will be scrutinised for anti-competitive activity as a matter of course.

When approaching the first round of the Priority Draft Process, the most important question an owner must ask is "Do I take out a Loan, and if so, how much?" This is one of the great Sim questions, and is not easily answered, because there are so many things to take into consideration. Do you need extra money, and why? Will you be able to repay it without going ITR? Will lots of money in the bank tempt you to spend it, perhaps unwisely? Only the individual owner can answer these questions. However, there are two basic lines of thought when it comes to the Loan question. The first is to borrow as much as you can. It's interest-free, so if you don't use it, it doesn't cost you anything, and it is automatically repaid each week without you having to do anything, so no harm done. The second is to borrow as little as possible. This will keep your weekly repayments to a minimum and reduce the risk of over-spending and perhaps getting yourself into financial difficulty. Your tactic may be to choose a Loan amount somewhere between the two extremes - it's entirely up to you.

As mentioned earlier, the actual Priority Draft takes place in the second week of the Priority Draft Process. If you want to be sure of signing a player with each of your draft picks, you will need to list as many players as the number of your last pick. For example, if you had picks 3, 13 and 23, you would need to nominate 23 players to ensure you signed 3 players. When nominating the players you wish to draft, you should list them in the order of your preference, with your most wanted player at number 1, next most wanted at number 2 etc. There is no point leaving a wanted player out of your list just because you think he will be drafted before it gets to your first pick. What if he isn't? This is where the Priority Draft is significantly different from the Initial Drafts. In the latter, you may decide it's not worth nominating a star player because you think other owners will also do so, meaning the player will be In Dispute and will therefore be subject to bidding. That is a perfectly valid assumption and tactic. However, in the Priority Draft there are no Players In Dispute. If you nominate a player and he is your highest remaining available selection when it comes to your pick, you sign him.

Let's say, for example, you have done a few deals in week 1 and enter the Priority Draft with only pick number 9. So you list 9 players in the order of your preference. The absolute worst you can do is draft your 9th preference. But if the first 8 players drafted don't include your 1st preference, you sign him with pick 9. Remember that the player who you rate as the best available may not be so highly rated by other clubs. So when you think about it, the actual Priority Draft doesn't involve any tactics at all. You simply list the available players you want in the order of your preference.

Rule 11G - The Coach Draft commences in the first week of the Priority Draft Process and runs for 3 weeks.

See Section 5 of the Sim Rules for details of the Coach Draft. Once the season commences following the 3 weeks of the Priority Draft Process, the Coach order is available on the Teamsheet, meaning clubs that have not secured a Coach can still purchase one at the advertised price. Obviously the choice will be pretty limited by then.

Because a Coach In Dispute is treated in exactly the same way as a PID, the same opportunities exist for deals to be made. For example, you may be In Dispute over a Coach and offer the other owner a player or money in return for not bidding on the Coach.

In a roundabout sort of way we have covered the first 2 weeks of the Priority Draft Process. Pre-season deals, the Loan, Bulk Delisting and the actual Priority Draft have all been discussed. All that is left is the simplest process of the lot.

Rule 11H - In the third week of the Priority Draft Process, a club can Bulk Contract it's players.

The details of Contracting are explained in Section 8 of the Sim Rules, and there is also a discussion on the pros and cons of Contracting at the end of Section 9. Bulk Contracting allows a club to Contract any or all of it's players prior to the beginning of the season. This is the only occasion during the year when you can Contract more than one player in the same week. Once the season begins, clubs are only permitted one Contract order per round.

So there you have the guts of the Priority Draft Process. Quite a lot goes on, often simultaneously, so it is important that you have a good understanding of all the different aspects.

And that brings us to the end of the rules that explain how to actually play the game. However, there are a few little quirks that need to be explained, and the next section does just that.