PORT ADELAIDE will head into next week’s 2019 NAB AFL Draft with a strong draft hand, after gaining a further two first-round draft picks throughout the trade period.
Port currently has three picks inside the top 20 this year - on the back of three first-round selections in 2018 - and National Recruiting Manager Geoff Parker says premierships sides in the past tend to have consecutive strong drafts.
“To come up in the draft and have some extra picks is great,” Parker told media at a press conference on Thursday morning.
“It does put a little bit of extra pressure on the recruiting team, but we would like to think we have a pretty good track record.
“If you back and look at the premiership clubs, they tend to have two or three pretty strong drafts close together.
“We thought last year with Connor (Rozee), Zak (Butters) and Xavier (Duursma) worked well, so we are going to try and bring in another trio of talented players that come through the club together.”
Parker admits there are a significant number of moving parts this year, and he expects there to be more movement before the Power make their first selection on Wednesday evening.
“Last year, we were a bit more settled having pick five,” he said.
“We had a pretty good idea what was going to happen in front of us.
“With pick 12 it is a little bit harder to work out, but I still think there is a possibility for some clubs to trade, so we aren’t exactly sure who will have the picks in front us.
“It is a moving parts thing this year, so we are just working through it.”
The former Victorian and South Australian cricketer said the club will assess over the coming days whether they try to move up the draft order or are content with where it sits.
“We have explored a couple of options with some clubs - now we will wait and see what’s happening on the night,” Parker said.
“Some clubs with multiple picks in the first round - we will probably assess if there are players we like who haven’t been picked. We will explore whether we can trade up.
“We are comfortable where we are - that’s the reason we did what we did with the swapping of picks.
“We have a good feel of the players in the mix for where we sit, and we like what they can do.
“There are some players at the top who are pretty handy and if they start to fall a little bit, then we wouldn’t be against going up.”
The first round of the 2019 NAB AFL Draft will commence on Wednesday 27 November at 7pm AEDT, with the rest of the draft concluding on Thursday evening.
