Richmond Recruiting Officer Matthew Clarke believes the impressive depth of talent in the 2016 AFL National Draft, to be held tonight at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, should ensure the Club still manages to adequately replenish its playing stocks, despite not having an initial selection until pick 27.

“There is a lot of depth in this draft . . . it’s really strong,” Clarke said.

“We’ve been trying to work out what’s going on at certain picks and where players might fall. 

“This is the toughest one I can remember.  And, talking to a lot of guys at other clubs, we’re all sort of scratching our heads a little bit . . .  

“But that’s part of what we do, and we think we’re still well placed to get a pretty good player there (pick 27).  And, obviously, we’ve got a pick in the 50s and 70s as well . . .

“When you’re sitting at pick 27, you’ve just got to see what falls out.  But there’ll be a good player there – we’re pretty confident of that. 

“We’ve done a lot of hard work on some of those guys that are going to be picked late . . .

“We’re confident that our three picks are going to yield some good players.”

Clarke outlined Richmond’s philosophy with regards to utilising its first pick in tonight’s draft . . .

“Pick 27, you’re still probably thinking the best available talent.  But we need to be mindful of a couple of areas of need.  So we’ll probably look to fill that,” he said.

“We won’t bypass a guy that we’ve got really highly rated, though, at pick 27, if he fell out and he was in a position type that we’ve got plenty of. 

“Those players will play a lot of footy, so we’ve got to be mindful of that. 

“But we’re also looking to the future as well. 

“Some of these young kids might come in and play straight away and play really good footy.  Some might be a bit more long-term projects.  But those long-term projects might end up having the same career as the guys that play early. 

“So there’s a bit of a balancing act.”