The Blues will be looking to add more depth and build on the foundations of last year’s draft crop according to Carlton’s General Manager of List Management and Strategy, Stephen Silvagni.
With only 15 sleeps until the 2016 NAB AFL Draft, speculation surrounding which players will be recruited with each pick has well and truly begun.
Speaking to AFL Media’s ‘Road to the Draft’ podcast on Thursday, Silvagni wasn’t giving too much away, saying the Club’s main object is to get “talent through the door”.
“The Club has been quite clear that we just need to get talent through the door, that’s probably in all areas to be honest,” Silvagni said.
“We go to the draft and try and pick the best players with our picks and we also go through the trade period as well to try and get some depth on our list – we brought in four players this year.
“It’s quite clear from where we sit you’ve just got to get the best talent through the door.”
Unlike last year when the Blues had four picks within the top 20, Carlton heads into this year’s draft with selections 5, 25, 48, 63, 66, 70, 81, 99 and 117.
As far as first-round selections go, the Blues have never had pick 5 in the national draft, so history will be made when Carlton selects its first recruit on 25 November, with Silvagni reiterating it will be the “best player” available.
“Next week is when we do a thorough analysis of who sits around that pick five for us, obviously we’ve got a group of players who we think are in that top-10 bracket.
“We don’t know what’s going to go 1,2,3 or 4, obviously there are guys like McGrath and McCluggage, Ainsworth and Setterfield and Bowes, they're all in that and mix. Scrimshaw is another one, but until we go through our analysis next week we’re not really sure of what our pick looks like.”
At this stage the list manager is unsure how many picks Carlton will use in the draft, electing to see what talent is still available as the night unfolds.
“We’ve got six primary spots that we can fill, whether it’s going to be six picks – it might be five – just really depends on what slides through on the night so we’ll just determine that on the night.”
The 2016 NAB AFL Draft will be held in Sydney on Friday 25 November.
