North Melbourne is in a “strong position” ahead of the 2015 NAB AFL Draft, the club’s list manager says.
With three picks inside the top 30, North GM Football Operations and List Management Cameron Joyce said the deals done during the recent Trade Period would ensure the club goes into November’s draft with the ability to recruit some future stars.
And Joyce confirmed the Roos’ interest in former Lion James Aish had helped it secure the best result in the Ryan Bastinac trade.
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“Probably being interested in James helped us in the end get the picks and the trade that was done between Collingwood, ourselves and Brisbane,” Joyce told NMFC.com.au.
“By us being interested in James, (it) gave us some leverage to come away with picks 17, 26 and 28.
“We’re delighted on the picks we were able to gain over the last 10 days, and bringing in Jed Anderson too, we’ve put ourselves in a really strong position.”
With the NAB AFL Draft just over a month away, Joyce said his team’s work would continue as they looked to find the best available talent to bring to Arden St for season 2016 and beyond.
“Three picks inside 30, gives us a really good chance to get players we rank inside our list of 20... and (we’re) hoping we can get three really, really good players for the footy club out of those three picks,” Joyce added.
RELATED: Trade period summary
After North’s 2014 National Draft selections all suffered season-ending injuries throughout the year, Joyce said Sam Durdin, Daniel Nielson and Ed Vickers-Willis were effectively another batch of talented new recruits.
“It was bad luck that they had, the three of them, but they are all up and running now that they’ll be able to do full pre-seasons and hopefully challenge for NAB 1,” he said.
Joyce said the club would head to the draft in Adelaide with an eye to picking up the best available talent, not focusing on any one position in particular.
“With drafting some tall players last year in Durdin, Nielson and also Vickers-Willis, we think we’ve been able to bank a couple of players that will be really strong contributors for a long time. So it probably gives us the ability to target the talent and try and pick the best players that our recruiters think will service the best.
Joyce also thanked Bastinac and ruckman Daniel Currie for their commitment to North, with the duo traded to Brisbane and Gold Coast respectively in recent days.
“’Basti’ has obviously played a significant amount of footy for us and some really good football and we certainly wish him all the best up there.
“Daniel’s been up front and so have we. We would have loved to have kept him but we understand opportunity presents for some of these guys, so they’ve got to make the most of it but so have we as a footy club and we’ll be doing that via the National Draft.”
North’s younger brigade will return on November 23 when they head to Utah for a pre-season training camp, with the remainder of the playing group returning in December.
