After successfully bolstering the club’s midfield stocks in the National Draft last week, Essendon’s recruiting team has turned its attention to the Rookie Draft to be held on Wednesday.

The Bombers have two live selections in the rookie draft with only two positions remaining on the club’s list for the 2014 season.

List Manager Adrian Dodoro is confident the club can recruit two quality players from the rookie draft.

“It will be best available player that we will go for,” Dodoro said.

“Some people say there is not a lot of depth around but we are confident there are still a couple of players sitting there that can make an impact for us really quickly.”

The Bombers list manager gave an indication the club might be looking to recruit a tall in the rookie draft after making some ‘tough calls’ against recruiting talls at the National Draft.

Make sure you’re with us as we aim to get to 60,000 members in 2014! Click HERE to join.

The club was successful in its aim of adding pace to the club’s midfield brigade selecting two quick young midfielders.

Dodoro said the club had made a concerted effort to add players with pace to the list.

“We were looking at trying to find some players that can give us some speed in our team,” Dodoro said.

“We went and got (Shaun) Edwards and (Kurt) Aylett from GWS as we just wanted to get some speed through our midfield and I think we were able to do that.”

Both Edwards and Aylett have impressed on the training track since joining their new teammates back in training earlier this month.

Zach Merrett, selected at pick 26 with the club’s first round selection will add that pace, has good awareness and reads the game well.

Dodoro admits he was surprised Merrett was still available for the club to select.

“We were surprised that Zach Merrett was there with pick 26, we thought he would go much earlier then that so that put us in a bit of a bind because we didn’t think he would be there,” Dodoro said.

“We are keen to keep improving our midfield depth and he is a player that is a bit different to what we have in our midfield.”

Orazio Fantasia, taken with selection 55 on Thursday night is also expected to add more leg speed to the Bombers midfield.

“He is very quick and has a massive engine so we feel he will be able to add speed to our team,” Dodoro said.

The Bombers officially elevated Lauchlan Dalgleish to the club’s senior list with selection 64.
Essendonfc.com.au will have live coverage of the Rookie Draft on Wednesday morning.