Q – Adrian, the draft is behind us – The wash up - were you pretty pleased with how things turned out for Essendon Football Club?
A – Yes, we were pretty happy. Obviously you go in and you can’t anticipate what is going to happen until it actually happens. But we came away with a good mixture of young players and to pick up Paul Salmon was tremendous for our club and Daniel McAlister gets another opportunity – so hopefully that process will make him a better player.
Q – You obviously do try and plan and look at what other clubs might do – in terms of predictions was the club far away from who they thought would be available when our first draft pick came around?
A – Actually we were right on the money. We would have liked a couple of breaks to go our way in terms of clubs not taking other players but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. We were surprised Barry Brooks was there at 15. At one stage we thought he might get through to 18 but that wasn’t to be. We thought all along Shane Harvey was going to be our first pick at 18 and as it turned out we were delighted to get him at 18.
Q – The pressure of the day – as a Recruiting Manager it is your Grand Final – how does it feel in there. Are you nervous heading into draft day?
A – Very nervous. You go in knowing that you have done the hard work but not knowing what to expect. Hoping there are going to be some surprises from other clubs. This year there wasn’t any surprises particularly in the first round. You do get nervous – you get nervous because we have set pretty high standards at this club over the last few years and we want to retain the status of being on of the benchmark clubs in the competition. To do that we need to recruit well.
