Potential Defender Sleepers For Your Preseason Watchlist

You got to love finding those picks before everyone else jumps on board. The ones sitting there in round 8 or 9 of your draft that end up being top 10 defenders by seasons end. 2025 is shaping up to deliver plenty of these opportunities.

Between potential role changes and new team structures there's plenty to get excited about in the defensive stocks this year.

Let's run through the defenders catching our eye already as potential sleepers heading into 2025.

Kane Farrell

2024 Games: 22

2024 Average: 78

Farrell may not be a household name yet, but he has shown flashes of brilliance that suggest he could be a valuable asset in AFL Fantasy. With the loss of Dan Houston there is a loss of 90 points every week to be spread around Port Adelaide’s defence system in 2025. The hype may be trending towards names like Rory Atkins, Jase Burgoyne or Ryan Burton to take the role, but we believe that Farrell can’t be discounted.

Farrell shared the kick in duties with Houston all year and in round 24, when Houston missed the first of his matches through suspension, it was actually Farrell that took the Houston role and was on 51 before half time. Unfortunately, he had to be subbed off with a hamstring injury and ended up being done for the season. This meant we got no more looks at Farrell without Houston in the side.

If he can secure a regular spot in his team's backline, he may well outperform his current draft fantasy value.

Ryan Burton

2024 Games: 13

2024 Average: 64

As described above, someone has to get the points in the reshaped Port Adelaide backline so if not Farrell than Burton is another likely candidate. In games without Houston at the tail end of 2024, Burton looked rejuvenated within Ports backline and put up scores of 80, 96 and 81 when he played. More importantly, he took 50% of the kick ins during these three games.

We’ll be sure to keep an eye on his role during practice matches to gauge his fantasy potential.

Matt Roberts

2024 Games: 20

2024 Average: 76

Here is a fun fact that not many people know. Excluding AFL Finals, during the last 7 games of the regular AFL season, Matt Roberts averaged 104 fantasy points.

That is not a typo, he scored 89, 102, 138, 93, 91, 93 and 125 to finish the regular season. In the high intensity of finals, he came crashing back to earth with scores in the 70s and 50 but we have to take notice on what he was doing before the finals.

With a new coach at Sydney, it’s a big watch for the preseason. If his distributing mark and kick role off half back continues, Roberts is another defender who could fly under the radar initially but provide significant fantasy value for your Draft squad.

Nick Vlaustin

2024 Games: 22

2024 Average: 82

Vlaustin is another player who had a strong finish to 2024 (93 average across the final 5 games).

The reason that Vlaustin is a potential sleeper, is because everyone in the community seems to have landed on Jayden Short as the major beneficiary to the removal of Dan Rioli from the half back line at the Tigers. So, while the community is looking at Short, we are keeping one eye on Vlaustin. A proven scorer within Richmond’s new system already, if the preseason sees him also scoring more in transition as a result of Rioli not being there, he will quickly slide up our 2025 Rankings.

John Noble

2024 Games: 20

2024 Average: 74

Noble made a move to Gold Coast over the preseason and while it’s pretty normal to get exciting about a player moving to a new club, why we are writing this section about Noble and not Rory Atkins is because the club Noble has gone to is coached by Damien Hardwick.

Any Damien Hardwick coached team, will have plenty of fantasy points to go around off half back. Think Houli, Short, Flanders and Sexton (at the tail end of the year).

Flanders is flexible enough to play elsewhere in 2025. Noble is a more explosive player than Sexton but he is not a more explosive player than Dan Rioli. So the question will be, can Rioli and Noble co-exist of the half back line and both score heavily.

If this is shown to be the case in even a quarter of a preseason match, than Noble becomes a great sleeper option heading in to your AFL Fantasy Draft.  

Defender Sleepers in ADP’s 2025 Rankings

In conclusion, while these defenders may not be the first names on everyone's draft board, their potential to deliver exceptional value makes them worth keeping an eye on this preseason. Identifying and securing these sleepers early could be the key to transforming your AFL Fantasy season from good to great. If staying on top of all the players during the preseason feels like too much, let us do the work for you here at AFL Draft Pros.

As more information comes in, we’ll update our rankings for these sleepers and many others in our 2025 Draft Ranking Spreadsheet.

Sign up below to get access to our latest 2025 Draft Rankings Spreadsheet as soon as it becomes available!