In the lead up to the 2011 national draft to be held in Western Sydney on Thursday night, afc.com.au will run a series of features relating to the club’s draft history.

Today, National Recruiting Manager Matt Rendell explains why Daniel Talia was too good to pass up at pick No.13 in the 2009 national draft.

Daniel Talia, pick No.13 in the 2009 national draft

Games: 9

Goals: 0

Matt Rendell:

We started out planning to take a midfielder in ‘09’ because it wasn’t a great draft for talls.

There were a lot of great midfielders in it, but we thought most would go early.

Initially, we didn’t think Daniel would get past Melbourne (pick No.10) or Carlton (No.11), who both needed key-position defenders, but we found out on the morning of the draft that he was likely to slip through to our first pick at No.13.

We had Daniel rated pretty highly because his form in the Under-18 Championships was outstanding.

I think, maybe, people dropped off of him a little bit towards the end of the year because they were a bit worried about his kick and he also had a few issues with his hamstring.

I’m not sure, but we really liked Daniel as a player and knew he was a quality person too.

It was a classic case of not being required to pick for needs.

At the time, we didn’t think we needed another key defender, but it’s actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise with Nathan Bock (Gold Coast) and then Phil Davis (Greater Western Sydney) leaving.

Basically, we just took the next best player on our list and sometimes you have to do that when a quality player like Daniel, who you didn’t think would be there, spills through to your pick.

We had a serious look at Lewis Jetta (Sydney Swans, pick No.14) and we liked Koby Stevens (West Coast, pick No.23), who we thought would complement our midfield, too.

We thought Koby had good size, toughness and leadership to play in the middle and we expected him to be available at pick No.13.

We were also pretty keen on Andrew Moore, but then we found out Port Adelaide was going to take him at pick No.9.

We had South Australian boys Daniel Menzel and Christian Howard ranked around our picks as well.

I honestly thought we’d be able to get Menzel or Howard with our second pick at No.29, but that got blown out of the water when the Western Bulldogs and Geelong picked them with their first picks at Nos. 15 and 17.

I only had 24 players on my list that year and 19 of them went in the first 21 picks.

I thought, ’oh no. we’re in trouble here’.

Luckily, Jack Gunston spilled through to pick No.29 and Sam Shaw was still available at No.45.

Unfortunately, Jack left at the end of the season, but I think we all saw he had some talent.

I’ve still got high hopes for Sam Shaw.

He just needs a bit of luck with injuries to show what he can do.

We also took James Craig, who was clearly the best ruckman in the under-18 competition, with our last pick (No.61) in that draft.

Unfortunately, James has had a lot of problems with his hamstrings, but he’s training with us at the moment and hopefully he gets another go

We ended up with a couple of utilities and a key back in a really tricky draft.

The ‘09’ draft was actually a bit like this year’s draft.

It was tough to pick, but you could end up with a couple of diamonds later on and I think Jack was one.

Nathan Fyfe was another. It was a great pick by Fremantle to get him at No.22.

When we watched Nathan, he played almost next to the goal umpire every game and barely left the goal square.

He showed he was a good mark, but we didn’t know enough about him.

It wouldn’t have mattered how much we liked him though, because we weren’t going to take him at No.13 and he was gone by our next pick.

Freo obviously knew more about him and knew how good a runner he was.

Tomorrow, Matt Rendell tells afc.com.au why recruiting Brodie Smith with pick No.14 in the 2010 national draft was a ‘no-brainer’.

As the Crows prepare for season 2012 on the track, be sure to visit 19thman.com.au and renew or join the Club for 2012.