GEELONG recruiting and list manager Stephen Wells has highlighted the Cats’ potential interest in improving their current spread of draft selections on a new-look draft night.
Clubs can swap draft picks up until November 16 and again live during the draft for the first time this year.
“We’ll be looking to improve our position in the draft if at all possible, even trading future picks on the night,” Wells said.
The Cats hold a first round selection for the first time since 2014, with their second pick currently at sitting 50 after they traded their 2018 second round selection to secure Gary Ablett.
The draft itself will be a two-day extravaganza, with the first round separated from the following selections.
“It will be interesting, everyone’s going through it for the first time, but it adds another dimension,” Wells said.
“Every pick and every decision that clubs make on the night of the draft will affect every other club in that there will be some opportunities created.”
The strength of this year’s draft crop adds another wrinkle to an already hectic draft, with draft talent said to extend deep into the selections.
“Compared to other years there definitely is some outstanding talent in that top group of players as there always is, but there is fantastic depth this year,” Wells said.
“We’ll have seven new players coming to us over the course of the drafts, whether that be four primary listed players through the national draft and three rookies or we might even go to five primary list players and have two rookies.”
With Wells at the wheel Geelong won’t be entering the draft unprepared.
“We’re doing a lot of work now on our assessments of the players, reviewing all the interview notes we’ve had,” he said.
“We’re doing even more interviews with people that are around the players that we might be considering in the draft, whether that be their family members or school teachers or coaches, as well as comparing all the notes and different opinions we have on the players so we can come up with what we think is a really good decision on the night of the draft.”