Essendon’s will enter next month’s National Draft with three picks inside the top 30 selections, including the first pick.
On the final day of the AFL’s trade period, the Bombers sealed the deal to land former GWS forward James Stewart by sending pick 77 to the Giants.
“I think he’s a young man who has done his apprenticeship, he spent four years up there so he’s ready to go and he’s very determined to put his best foot forward,” List and Recruiting Manager Adrian Dodoro said.
“He’s a boy that probably struggled to get a berth with the GWS Giants because of the stocks they’ve got up forward with Cameron, Patton and Lobb.
“With us, there is an opportunity there – he can partner Joey (Daniher) for a number of years hopefully.
“He’s got a lot of potential, we’ve been tracking him for quite a while and we’re very delighted to have him.”
Another player Essendon had targeted before the trade period was Jaeger O’Meara.
The former Gold Coast player’s move to Hawthorn was finalised in the last minutes of the trade period.
“Obviously we were monitoring it very closely … we were in discussions with Gold Coast all the way through,” Dodoro said.
“It’s happened now, he’s got through to Hawthorn and we wish him all the best.”
Essendon now enter the National Draft with picks 1, 20, 29, 41, 68 and 95.
“We think it’s really strong draft, particularly around the first 30 – we think we’ll get three very good players,” Dodoro said.
“Even our pick 41 – four players around the top 40 is a good hand to have.
“We’re hoping we’ll find some more exciting talent.”
Dodoro said the List Management team would meet in the coming days to determine how many picks the Club will use in the National and Rookie Drafts.
He also said the Club is yet to finalise who it will select with the first overall pick.
“A lot of the work has been done but I’ll sit down with Merv (Keane - Senior Recruiting Coordinator) and the guys and really hone in now and become quite specific on what we’re looking for,” he said.
“We haven’t made up our mind, we’re very open minded about what we’ll do with pick one but we’ve got a rough idea of the couple we’re looking at and we’re very excited with the talent that will come in the door.
“We’ll sit down in the next couple of days with our list management team – obviously John Worsfold is pivotal to that.
“We’ve got to make some decisions of some players.
“We’ve got the delisted free agency period that will open up soon and there will be some boys that we’ll evaluate from other clubs that will be looking for opportunities as well.
“There is a bit to play out yet.”
