The AFL Mid-Season Rookie Draft is fast approaching (May 26) and clubs will be monitoring which players from the state league pool - or perhaps levels below - they are willing to gamble on.
Greater Western Sydney is in an interesting position as the club ponders whether to open a spot by placing star midfielder Tom Green (ACL injury) on the inactive list. The club and Green are both keen to leave the door ajar in case their star can make a late return this season à la Sam Docherty in 2024.
Giants list manager Adrian Caruso sat down with Zero Hanger's Mitch Keating and Jonty Ralphsmith for a bonus episode of Craft of the Draft and touched on GWS' plans for Green's list spot and the MSD.
"It's gonna be something we will just have to wait and see," Caruso said. "I think from a recruitment perspective, we are getting across the talent pool in case it gets to that point and we want to have a pick. We need to know who there is to pick from, we need to know if we think there are players there that can come and help us.
"We do have a lot of injuries at the moment and that can skew what you think, but we also look at in five or six weeks most of those guys will, hopefully, be back playing footy. We don't want to bring in someone as a midfielder and then in five weeks' time, which is when they will be coming in, they will be fifth in line as a VFL midfielder."
In terms of depth of the current MSD talent pool, Caruso wasn't convinced that there were players that would actively make a difference to the Giants' squad.
"My philosophy generally is, if you are going to pick in the mid-season draft there are sort of two ways you can go; you can either pick young talent that you just think is a good young player to bring into your footy club and develop and that you've got confidence they can help you long term," he said.
"The other option is to pick someone who can go straight away like a 21-22-year-old state leaguer that can come and help you in a position of need.
"At the moment we sit here, I wouldn't say that there was anyone from a talent perspective that would be a standout talent that you would be prioritising picking from what I have seen and going through the Young Guns games in the past couple weeks and that sort of thing. I think it is a pretty even crop of that young talent that has spilled out from the last couple of drafts.
"I don't think there are any standouts there that I think we would be saying, 'Well they are better than just saving that pick for later in the year'.
"In terms of the mature-age talent, again, it's not like positionally we sit here and say we are really light on in a certain area and we need to go and address this area, we feel like we are pretty covered.
"At the moment, where it sits is it will probably be unlikely that we will be picking, but you are doing the work in the background."
