National Recruiting Manager Hamish Ogilvie believes Adelaide is well-placed to capitalise on this year’s deep pool of draftable talent.
The Crows currently hold five live selections ahead of this year’s National Draft, which will take place in Sydney on Friday, November 25. Adelaide’s opening selection comes at pick No.13 with the Club boasting two third-round selections (picks 43 and 53) along with picks 67 and 89.
See the updated National Draft order
It’s the biggest bunch of picks Ogilvie has had at his disposal in his tenure with the Crows leading into what is considered one of the strongest drafts in recent memory.
“There’s good depth this year,” Ogilvie said.
“The (Under 18) National Championships were very competitive. The introduction of the Allies (into Division One) certainly helped that. It gave those kids and the academy kids more opportunity to be assessed against quality opponents and I reckon that’s helped shape the overall depth of the draft.
“It’s possibly a little bit light for talls, but generally the strength of this draft is pretty good.
“We’ve got a pretty clear strategy in what we want to come out of it with and we’re confident with the picks we’ve got.”
Adelaide had just two picks in last year’s National Draft, claiming speedster Wayne Milera Junior and defender Tom Doedee with picks 11 and 17 respectively.
Crows recruiters have had to cover a much wider range of potential prospects given this year’s spread of selections, but Ogilvie said Adelaide’s overall draft strategy would ultimately remain the same.
“Our focus is still on picking the best available talent,” he said.
“We won’t be too specific on type or position. It’ll be whoever we think is the best available talent that has the attributes we think are required at each pick.
“But with our picks stretched out over pretty much each round of the draft, it does require a lot more work overall.
“Last year we were out of the draft at pick 17. This year we’ve had to scout and work through a much bigger range of players and we’ll go to the draft with a longer talent list.
“We’re comfortable doing that with this draft because there seems to be strong depth and a lot of players that are a draftable quality.”
The recruiting team still has some final ‘tidying up’ to do ahead of this year’s meet, but Ogilvie said the majority of the work was done with less than a month to go before deadline day.
“We’ve still got a few final interviews to do once school exams finish, but pretty much everything is done,” he said.
“We’ll lock ourselves away next week for the whole week to tidy up our order, pull everything together and compile every bit of information that we’ve got.
“The next step is to present to the coach and list management committee about a week before the draft, and then probably again maybe the day before the draft when we’ve got all our final intel sorted.
“We’ve planned things pretty well and everything will be ready before we get up to Sydney.”
