IT WAS only with the 11th-hour whisper of a top-10 shake-up that North Melbourne considered its chances of recruiting Murray Bushrangers midfielder Shaun Atley.

Strongly linked to Essendon at pick No.8, Atley slid down to 17 in Thursday night's NAB AFL Draft after the Bombers instead chose Gippsland Power's Dyson Heppell, who had made his own surprising fall out of the top six selections.

Atley confirmed that he'd had minimal communication with North in the lead-up to the draft, with the club not among the 12 that interviewed him at the draft combine in Canberra in late September.

North's talent ID manager Bryce Lewis said he and his recruiting team hadn't prepared for Atley's availability until 24 hours before the draft, purely because they thought they were no chance of getting him.

"Even last night, his manager Alex McDonald was saying, 'He's not going to get through to you'," Lewis said.

"Of the top 50 players, I may have had [the] least one-on-one involvement with Shaun.

"When we had an inkling that the order might shuffle a bit, we went back over our notes and all of the information just to be sure. We simply had him ranked and ticked the names off as they went."

Atley wasn't a complete stranger to North, having trained at Arden Street with the Victoria Country team during its under-18 championships campaign.

Well aware of the midfielder's ability, the club had sourced character references from Atley's Vic Country and Bushrangers coaches, his school, and a family friend of its first-round pick of 2008, Jack Ziebell.

Coach Brad Scott, who met Atley for the first time on Thursday night, said late advice on the players who could be available at pick 17 was sought from its new director of medical services Steve Saunders.

"[We] hooked up via Skype because he was still in Utah," Scott said.

"He had a few further questions. I thought it was a bit of a covering-bases exercise, but to have him still there at 17 was amazing for us.

"When it became apparent that maybe the top 10 draft order might change, we just had to cover those bases.

"We rated him so highly that we didn't think he'd be available."

From Corryong, five hours' north-east of Melbourne and with a population of 1200, Atley said he hadn't read too much into his prospects and entered draft day with an open mind.

"I'm not used to this sort of stuff. It's blown my mind to be up here and to be picked by North. I'm stoked," he said.

Scott also said that in securing Atley and medium forward Kieran Harper - who was landed with selection No.27 - North had addressed a deficiency in its squad.

"We just took the attitude in that we would take the best available talent regardless of type and we rated Shaun and Kieran right up there," he said.

"To get those two guys ... it's a real bonus that they've got the speed that we need."