CARLTON will welcome three new Blues into its ranks at tonight’s 2020 NAB AFL Women’s Draft.

With an interrupted 2020 NAB League season giving recruiters just three games to go off, Women’s Football List Manager Brett Munro had his work cut out for him in the months leading.

“Being in lockdown for so long, it’s been a long preparation. Basically, we haven’t seen the Victorian girls play since March,” Munro said.

“There’s been a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of vision, a lot of reference checks with coaches and AFL Academy staff – it’s been a long prep but we're really excited to be here today.”

With three selections in tonight’s proceedings, the Blues will be looking for the best talent initially with their opening pick at No.12.

With a further two selections at pick No.28 and No.36, Munro is eager to nab the best remaining talent available in the Victorian pool after a strong trade period through August.

“During trade period we brought three players into the Club: Elise O’Dea, Maddy Guerin and Charlotte Hammans. With those we had to give up some picks, but our strategy was always to go into this draft with three picks,” he said.

“We will be picking three girls from the NAB League: we want to bring in young talent and we’re really keen to have that talent coming through at the bottom of our list to come through together and grow with the other girls.

“We’ve got picks Nos.7, 20 and 25 in the Victorian draft: pick No.7 [we'll] always just go for the most talented player at that time, obviously we have to see what marbles fall below us and then we’ll have our plan in place for who we’ll choose.”

With limited recent football performance to reference in making selections, the interviews leading up to tonight’s draft became all the more important for the recruiting team.

“We did a first round [interview] with their parents present and then we did another round by themselves and the girls shine through a little bit differently when they are by themselves,” he said.

“It’s good to have that balance, but it’s a piece of the puzzle so you’re just trying to fit all those pieces together and make sure you get a true reflection on who they are.”