\n National Recruiting Manager Geoff Parker has spoken following the conclusion of the 2025 AFL Draft.\n <\/p>\n
National Recruiting Manager Geoff Parker has spoke on Port Adelaide’s draft strategy following the conclusion of the 2025 National Draft. Image: AFL Photos.<\/p>\n
Port Adelaide National Recruiting Manager Geoff Parker has explained the club\u2019s decision to leave this year\u2019s national draft empty-handed, reiterating that he and his team are comfortable with the strategy they have in place.<\/p>\n
Following a fruitful mid-season draft where the Power took three picks in Harrison Ramm, Mani Liddy and Ewan Mackinlay, the recruiters shifted their focus to trade into the 2026 draft to prepare for NGA talent, while also offering the chance for players to train-on during pre-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely came into this draft with a list of players to pick so there was never a thought that we weren\u2019t going to pick,\u201d said Parker as he left the draft room on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a list of players and when you come in at pick 58, you need a long list. So by the time it got to our pick, they\u2019d disappeared. We had the three mid-season picks so we brought in some talent there. So we look at that as we\u2019ve already got three new players on our list really and if we were going to get another one tonight, we would have, but unfortunately it didn\u2019t work that way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s been a focus (to trade into next year\u2019s draft) and it\u2019s been spoken about since trade period. Our focus was to try and get some capital in next year\u2019s draft. Obviously, Dougie Cochrane was approved by the AFL (to join Port Adelaide\u2019s Next Generation Academy) last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of footy to be played. We know (Cochrane) is talented, (but) whether he\u2019s the number one, we don\u2019t know yet. The football the boys play next year will decide that.\u201d<\/p>\n
2024 mid-season rookie Logan Evans was rewarded with an upgrade to the primary list following the draft on Thursday, while the club also holds three picks in Friday\u2019s rookie draft.<\/p>\n
\u201cLogan\u2019s had two years in the system and he\u2019s played AFL footy so it\u2019s a reward for that, for him. And then we go into tomorrow with three rookie picks so we\u2019ll see what that brings. If we don\u2019t use all the rookie spots, we\u2019ve got potential train-ons,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n
With a predominantly new coaching group in place, senior coach Josh Carr is in regular contact with Parker and list manager Jason Cripps, as they continue taking stock of the list and how it\u2019s shaping up for 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got new coaching staff and they want to have a bit of a look at the list as well and work out where it all fits,\u201d Parker said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some new AFL rules to consider as well so it gives everyone a chance to take a breath and take a look at what we\u2019ve actually got. Jason Cripps talks to Josh Carr a lot. It\u2019s a new group and a new set of eyes to take a look at our list and they might have some different ideas about where players can play and where they can\u2019t play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AFL rookie draft begins at 2:50pm ACDT and can be watched live on the AFL website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National Recruiting Manager Geoff Parker has spoken following the conclusion of the 2025 AFL Draft. National Recruiting Manager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,85,83],"class_list":["post-298373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298373","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=298373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}