West Coast is excited by the golden opportunity to bring in more elite young talent and unlikely to part with either of the first two picks in the draft, list manager Matt Clarke says.<\/p>\n
The Eagles hold picks No.1 and 2 and plan to take those selections into the first round of the Telstra AFL Draft on November 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can toe the party line and say we\u2019re always open to offers, but it would be pretty unlikely I reckon given this draft and where the talent group sits,\u201d Clarke, the Head of List Management and Recruiting, told 6PR.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has had a conversation with us or put something forward as to what that looks like.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll always listen to it, but it would be pretty unlikely I would\u2019ve thought given what we think the draft looks like right at the top end.\u201d<\/p>\n
West Coast received pick two after Oscar Allen\u2019s free agency move and shifted up the draft board to pick 13 in the deal that brought two-time premiership player Brandon Starcevich back to the west from Brisbane.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a big tick for the footy club, the program, Andrew (McQualter) and what he is trying to do as well to get a two-time premiership player to come from the premiers to a club that is a rejuvenation stage that we are,\u201d Clarke added on Trade Radio.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally excited. We\u2019re very specific about the types we want to bring in in positions, but also on age demographic too.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrandon is proven at the level and can come into our back six, back seven, and really show the way a lot of the young guys that are down there and add some extra steel to (Reuben) Ginbey, (Liam) Baker and (Harry) Edwards and these sorts of guys \u2013 and obviously Young coming in as well \u2013 so it was a big tick for the footy club.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eagles were active early in the Continental Tyres AFL Trade Period, powered by Tyrepower, and secured 35-gamer Tylar Young from Richmond well ahead of Wednesday evening\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n
The 196cm key defender will help fill the significant gap left by club legend Jeremy McGovern, whose retirement this year followed the departure of Tom Barrass 12 months ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really excited what he can bring in,\u201d Clarke said of Young.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe obviously hasn\u2019t played a lot of AFL footy because he started late in his career, but we think what he can add to those other guys and Starcevich coming in as well is pretty exciting for our backline.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eagles are also committed to adding Deven Robertson, the nephew of former skipper Darren Glass, and will secure him via one of several list mechanisms now that the Trade Period has ended. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old played 47 games for the Lions since being drafted from Perth via selection 22 in 2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way, shape or form that he\u2019s not on our list, it\u2019s just a matter of what it looks like,\u201d Clarke said on 6PR.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll work out what the best mechanism is that we can add Dev as well as other players to our list.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s probably been a bit unlucky he\u2019s been stuck behind a couple of really good midfielders at Brisbane. Josh Dunkley is probably playing in a position that Dev could play for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe adds some real hardness and some steel. There\u2019s probably not a more competitive and ferocious player that I\u2019ve seen at VFL level for the last couple of years than Dev.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can find the footy, he\u2019s tough, he cracks in, he\u2019s high standards, he drives culture so we\u2019re really excited to have someone of his age bracket and also of a position of need we had through the midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarke also poured cold water on speculation about West Coast selecting Robertson\u2019s teammate – forward Callum Ah Chee \u2013 with the first pick in the pre-season draft after the 28-year-old\u2019s trade from Brisbane to Adelaide fell through.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s pretty unlikely that that will happen. We targeted a number of players to come into the list in position types that we felt we needed,\u201d Clarke said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with Liam Ryan going out (to St Kilda) we thought the young guys we\u2019ve actually got on our list will be able to develop into those roles.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast is excited by the golden opportunity to bring in more elite young talent and unlikely to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-216770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}