It’s a far cry from the days, not too long ago, when the Club had just one full-time recruiter, who was assigned the task of rebuilding the playing list.
“When I first started in 2006, there was really just me, and we had a few volunteers,” said Richmond’s Recruiting Manager Francis Jackson.
“Now, we’ve got three full-timers, which is terrific, but we also have two part-timers in WA, two in SA, and two in Victoria.
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“So, that enables us to really spread the load and to get a great handle on all the potential draftees Australia-wide, to view the players and build up a strong database, as to their strengths and weaknesses.”
After initially being acclaimed by some as a “Super Draft”, Jackson believes the 2012 National Draft, to be held at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on November 22, is only “average”.
“The first round has some depth, but I think there are plenty of question marks on a few of the players in that round,” he said.
“All will be revealed in three or four years’ time, but it is a difficult draft, I think.”
Richmond’s early drafting priority remains the same, although Jackson admitted many factors now come into play when deciding on selections.
“We generally take best available with our first pick, but it’s just a constantly evolving landscape,” he said.
“The game is constantly changing . . . we monitor that through statistics.
“We’ve seen contested footy become increasingly important in the last three or four years, and I think that trend will continue.
“So, there are a lot of different factors that really affect what weighting we put on particular aspects, and many varied individual aspects that we drill into, looking at players’ overall performances, when we do our final rankings.”
