Adelaide Crows list manager David Noble, left, watches a match with recruiter Hamish Ogilvie. Picture: Dean Martin. Source: adelaidenow
THEY'RE having friendly chats, the recruiting managers and the coaches, but they're also playing mind games the day before the annual horse flesh market.
Have you heard about him? Nah, stopped looking at that player in June. Too slow.
It is how it goes when the clubs size each other up, this time in a cafe in beautiful surrounds at Surfers Paradise.
Sydney coach John Longmire walks by, you spy national talent manager Kevin Sheehan on a walk; you sit down with talent manager Matthew Clarke from Richmond and Geoff Parker from Port Adelaide for a cold drink and some shade.
David Noble, the Crows' list manager, was in the wars yesterday on two fronts: he filled in for Steven Trigg at the chief executive's meeting and had to rearrange all of his plans for today's draft after the Crows decided to forfeit their first two draft picks.
"It's frustrating, no doubt," Noble said last night.
"But it's not about how many times you get knocked down; it's about how many times you get up.
"It means you have to plan for the alternatives, because you don't know what'll be left when we get our pick.
"But we've already worked through some of those scenarios."
Recruiting managers mix, even the day before their biggest day of the year; they just keep their latest ideas to themselves.
Throughout the year they've seen each other at airports jetting off to under-age matches, spent time in the outer at less-than-glamorous games, and all made the same phone calls to the talented private-school kid who's good at both cricket and football.
They're all looking for the steal, even though it's getting more difficult to keep talents hidden.
What will Port do? It's a big player in this year's draft, with three selections inside the top 31.
But for all that, there's an element of uncertainty about the talent.
"The top 20, I think, there's some real class, and you can find some really good players after that," Parker said.
"But it's the first 20 that stand out from the rest. After that, from 21 from 40, they could be just about equal."
This much is clear. Recruiting managers have a ranking list, from one to somewhere around 50 to 60.
Both Parker and Clarke reckon they'd never snap up somebody they hadn't interviewed. And both of them say the work is done now; at tonight's draft they'll simply follow the draft.
It is only later in the piece that they might make decisions, having realised they need another, speculative, key position player or somebody who could one day turn out to be a ruckman. Even if it takes him three or five years to get there.
They mill around up here, football coaches, recruiting managers and the few players who have been invited to take part in the show because the league is just about certain they will be high-end picks.
And they're all walking around like they're sitting on a secret - and maybe they are.
This is the time for the next great hope, the next potential champion.
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