{"id":288235,"date":"2025-11-16T12:25:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T12:25:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/288235\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T12:25:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T12:25:21","slug":"melbournes-draft-plans-revealed-afl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/288235\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne’s draft plans revealed – AFL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Melbourne will look to bring in some of the nation’s best talent in next week’s AFL Draft<\/a>, but will consider making a play for a small forward.<\/p>\n

The Demons currently hold Picks 7, 8 and 37, courtesy of the Christian Petracca<\/a> trade with Gold Coast, as well as 63 and 65.<\/p>\n

The wheelings and dealings during the trade period by the Victorian club have left them with another pair of first-round selections, making it eight across the last four seasons.<\/p>\n

Melbourne national recruiting manager Jason Taylor said the club is “confident” with its hand heading into Wednesday, as well as the likely group of prospective stars that could fall at their selections.<\/p>\n

Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/p>\n

“We’ve had a long time to prepare, and I’ve felt like we’ve been ready to go for a little while now,” Taylor told Melbourne media.<\/p>\n

“I’m feeling really confident with our outcomes, and we’ve got a group of players there that we are thrilled about. It’s a nice group to pick from, and we’ll see what comes through to us.”<\/p>\n

Being so high in the draft, the Demons will almost get the pick of the bunch, with only West Coast, Richmond and Essendon coming before them.<\/p>\n

Gold Coast Academy prospects Zeke Uwland<\/a> and Dylan Patterson<\/a> could receive bids early on the night, as well as Carlton father-son gun Harry Dean<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The departures of Petracca and Clayton Oliver<\/a> have opened up vacancies in Steven King’s on-ball brigade, while the emergence of Harvey Langford<\/a> and the addition of Jack Steele<\/a> will help fill the void.<\/p>\n

\"MELBOURNE,MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – MARCH 29: Harvey Langford of the Demons kicks during the round three AFL match between Melbourne Demons and Gold Coast Suns at Melbourne Cricket Ground, on March 29, 2025, in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Josh Chadwick\/AFL Photos\/via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Midfield prospects Dyson Sharp<\/a> and Sullivan Robey<\/a> are tipped to be selected within the first 10, but if they make it to the Melbourne picks, it is expected they’ll be snapped up.<\/p>\n

“We’ll pick the best available player,” Taylor added.<\/p>\n

“Within that, though, there’s areas of the ground that we feel like we need to enhance and continually look at to improve. There’ll be a focus around that as well for us.”<\/p>\n

And there’s the obvious link to Latrelle Pickett<\/a>, who is the younger cousin of superstar Kysaiah.<\/p>\n

Pickett finished the season with a bolt and has most clubs interested in his services as a small forward, thanks to his speed and innate goal sense.
But he is expected to fall in between Melbourne’s Pick 8 and 37.
“There’s a number of small forwards in this year’s draft,” Taylor continued.<\/p>\n

“We’ll end up with three selections in the draft. We’ll be strategic with how we look at that. We’re not going to go early on a particular positional type, but we feel within that range that we’ll look pretty strong at it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melbourne will look to bring in some of the nation’s best talent in next week’s AFL Draft, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-288235","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288235","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=288235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}