AFL Draft: Clubs tell of their approach to 2014 draft

HERE’S what your club is thinking heading into one of the biggest events on the AFL calendar — the national draft.

AFL Draft night at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. Sun's recruiting guru Scott Clayton, right, pulls the moves with Marcs ...

THE AFL Draft. It makes and breaks clubs.

For list and recruiting managers, tonight is their grand final. Months and years of planning comes down to tonight.

And while much of the night is out of their hands, most seem to agree on one thing — the 2014 draft is one of the trickiest in history.

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Blues’ recruiting boss Shane Rogers said this week he couldn’t recall another draft when he felt so in the dark as to what names would be read in what order.

AFL talent guru Kevin Sheehan agrees, saying although the pool of stars runs deep, clubs are super wary of giving anything away.

“It is the most secretive draft we’ve had ... every club will have two or three options for every pick. Everyone is playing their cards close to their chest.’’

PHANTOM DRAFT: THE LATE MAIL

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Here’s a snapshot of how your club is thinking leading into one of the most intriguing drafts in memory:

ADELAIDE (picks 10, 35, 43 and 58)

“The coach was always keen to have first and second round picks, so part of our strategy was to make sure we did.

“We improved the position of our late picks which means now that all our four picks are pretty much inside the third round, once you take the academy players out and the father/son selections.

“That’s a good thing in this draft because it’s so even.”

- recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie on afc.com.au

BRISBANE (picks 44, 61, 65, 73 and 81)

“History will tell you that players selected inside the top 30-40 generally play more senior AFL football than those picked later in the draft, so we know our work will be cut out for us this year.

“Even though the past two drafts have been poles apart for our club, we’ve had to do just as much work on analysing and research players this year because we’re very much in the dark as to who might be available at 65.

“Although it will probably be more of a speculative selection, we’ve identified a number of players who we feel might slip down the order and be of real value to our club.”

- recruiting Manager Stephen Conole on lions.com.au

CARLTON (picks 19, 28, 60, 71, 82 and 87)

“Nearly every year I would say we’d know by now what the order would be.

“This is one of those years the draft’s that wide open and that even, we’ve been putting a lot of work in trying to work out who’s going to be there at 19 and at this stage we don’t really know. We know the top 20 names and we think we’ve got those in order (but) as to who picks those names I’m no wiser today than I was six weeks ago.

“It’s the first time in my time in footy that’s it’s been like this.”

- national recruiting manager Shane Rogers on the Blues’ Newscast

COLLINGWOOD (picks 5, 9, 30, 48 and 75)

“Certainly in my short time in the role, I’ve never seen a draft where it’s been so open, pretty much from pick No.1 all the way through to No.101, if you like.

“We’re going to have a really good look at it in terms of the player type and I think, not just with our club, but all clubs can attack the draft with some real certainty.

“The spread of players is really unique. (It’s) more the types of players, the talls, smalls and mediums, and obviously the positional scope of each player.

“Make no mistake, we’re going to be able to really bring in a player who really fills our needs and hopefully is going to be a really long-term player.”

- list manager Derek Hine on collingwoodfc.com.au

ESSENDON (picks 17 and 20)

“When you only have the two selections, we have probably ended up putting more work into these two then we have ever done before.

“It is interesting because we will be waiting to see what falls out, we have rated our players one to twenty and we will be determined by what other clubs do in the draft.

“It will come down to the combination as well because you don’t want to take two of the same type of players.

“We might want to take a small and a tall or different types of players.”

- list manager Adrian Dodoro on essendonfc.com.au

FREMANTLE (picks 13, 34, 54 and 68)

“At pick 13, we’ve got four or five guys we’re hoping will get through.

“It’s always a discussion of best available versus list needs.

“There’s some good talls around the mark at pick 13, potentially, but there’s also some good midfielders as well.

“It’s really just the way it falls now. We’re not going to go too far out of our way to try and manufacture something for a tall.

“There’s a good half-a-dozen at the top end and then it really evens out.”

- general manager of player management Brad Lloyd on fremantlefc.com.au

GEELONG (picks 10, 47, 55 and 59)

“We are managing our list over a period of years, not trying to address any particular problem in this one draft.

“It’s a process, so we’ll just see who comes to us.

“We’ll be drafting players for all different sorts of spots depending on who comes through to us at the time.”

- recruiting manager Syephen Wells

GOLD COAST (picks 8, 15, 29, 64 and 74)

“The main path, or the main players we go after are matchwinners,” Suns list chief Scott Clayton said.

“We have been very planned and methodical and we do think most areas (on the list) are covered.”

GWS (picks 4, 6, 7, 23, 24, 72, 80, 85)

“With Ryan Griffen and Joel Patfull added to our list, the commitments we’ve made to academy players Jack Steele and Jeremy Finlayson and high selections in the draft, we believe our list is in a strong position ahead of the 2015 season.”

- general manager of football Graeme Allan on gwsgiants.com.au

HAWTHORN (picks 31, 49, 50)

“31 will be best available for us, so we’ll just see who’s there.

“We have a fair while to wait obviously, so it’ll be interesting to see what actually gets through to us at that pick.

“We’re comfortable we’ll be able to get a good player at 31 and hopefully there’ll be something else there for us at 49 and 50.

“We’re well prepared and looking forward to it.”

- list manager Graham Wright on hawthornfc.com.au

MELBOURNE (picks 2, 3, 40, 42 and 53)

Melbourne is armed with picks 2 and 3 in tonight’s draft and is expected to snaffle Angus Brayshaw, along with another highly-prized youngster (likely Christian Petracca if the Saints nab Paddy McCartin as expected). It will be a huge injection of class to the Demons’ midfield. There should still be plenty of good players around with the Dees’ latter selections.

NORTH MELBOURNE (picks 16, 25 and 36)

Already possessing plenty of height, look for the Kangas to go for runners with their three good selections in the top 40. Herald Sun draft gurus Jay Clark and Sam Landsberger, in their Phantom Draft, have predicted the Kangas may nab polished outside mid Lachie Weller. Key defender Oscar McDonald is also believed to be in the club’s sights.

PORT ADELAIDE (picks 56, 69, 78 and 84)

“There is good depth in quality in this draft, it is really even.

“The group from about pick 25 to 55 is pretty even, so we’re very confident we can grab a very good player with our first pick.

“And we’re hopeful that some quality players will slip through to us further down the draft. “That’s what can happen when the draft pool is so deep and even.”

- Port Adelaide list manager Jason Cripps

RICHMOND (picks 12, 33, 52, 67, 77 and 83)

“We’ve got three of four players we hope will be there.

“Even at this late stage, there’s still seems to be a bit of debate about how the first 10 picks will unfold.

“The likes of Collingwood and GWS will have a big bearing on how that first 10 picks will play out.

“We’re still confident, regardless of that happens, that there will be some good players available.”

- general manager of football Dan Richardson on richmondfc.com.au

ST KILDA (picks 1, 21, 22, 41)

“You go into the draft rock-solid. We take the mantra of no surprises; completely informed decisions,” St Kilda’s chief operating officer Ameet Bains said.

“At the moment particularly, we can’t afford to miss.

“We said (on Thursday) there is a possibility that who we had at 12 or 13 could actually slide all the way through.

“Of the players we rank 1-22 we think there could be eight or nine different players that could be there, there’s just so much conjecture over certain players.

“Do we want three talls? Do we want three midfielders? Do we want a midfielder and two talls, a tall and two midfielders?”

SYDNEY SWANS (picks 18, 37, 38, 57, 70, 79)

“There is no specific type of player, but what we’ve set our minds on to achieve is to find the most talented or highly-ranked player that we have available at selection 37.

“Whether that’s a tall or a midfielder, it will just be the most talented player and that’s because we were able to balance the list up a little bit with our Academy selections already.”

- recruiting and list strategy manager Kinnear Beatson on sydneyswans.com.au

WEST COAST EAGLES (picks 11, 32, 51, 66, 76)

“You hope things go as well as you can possibly hope for, but in terms of being prepared for it we’re pretty comfortable there and relaxed about it

“You just like things to work out the way you want them to.”

- national recruiting manager Rohan O’Brien on westcoasteagles.com.au

WESTERN BULLDOGS (picks 26, 27, 39, 45, 46, 62)

“We’ll be looking at each pick that we have, getting the best player possible, with the best possible chance of being a successful AFL player.

“The boys right at the top end we’ve stopped doing work on them, but there are a number that might slide through to our picks so we need to make sure we cover all bases there.

“That’s always a challenge in terms of reading the play and who might slide through, as well as looking at getting our order in terms of how we rank the players.”

- recruiting manager Simon Dalrymple on westernbulldogs.com.au

* 2014 NAB AFL Draft - live and exclusive on Fox Footy tonight from 6:30pm AEDT