Adelaide’s recruiters feel they are as well prepared as possible for the 2020 AFL Draft if the NAB League and other elite underage competitions do not resume this season. 

Prior to the AFL’s shutdown announcement on March 22, Crows recruiting staff had already begun preparing for this scenario, observing and studying increased levels of match vision.

While National Recruiting Manager Hamish Ogilvie conceded he would have liked to have conducted more interviews with potential draftees, he remained hopeful of resuming these later this year. 

“We did a lot of vision when we knew this was coming, so we did every game that was played this year across the country,” Ogilvie told AFC Media.

“We got to a fair few (live games) early before it got cut off, then we did every game on vision. We’ve done a fair bit already to have a reasonable feel for it.

“The boys have done the hub camps in South Australia and Western Australia before this happened and a couple of Victorian interview days as well.

“We’ve done a fair few interviews. Not to the level you’d like to go into a draft, but hopefully, we can pick that up later in the year.”

Ogilvie said recruiters will need to rely on past form, primarily what prospects were able to do in 2019 when assessing where each individual sits on their draft boards.

Late speculative picks will absorb additional risk this year if underage games do not resume in the coming months.

“You’d probably be less likely to speculate on someone you’d only seen once or twice, and that’s going to become really testing if we don’t get any more footy, depending on how it works. 

“I think it’ll be more the body of work at the moment if we don’t get to play again.” 

Adelaide currently holds four selections inside the first two rounds and another pair of third-round picks in this year’s draft as the Club continues to look to the draft as part of its list rejuvenation.

“You’d rather have them (draft picks) than not, so that’s worked out pretty well that we’ve got those in the bank,” Ogilvie said.

“But it’s just how much goes ahead, what goes ahead, there’s a lot of unknowns with what would happen with your picks – would they get pushed into the next year, who knows?”