The number one pick in the upcoming draft is a hot commodity, with at least two teams making a play for North Melbourne’s selection.
Adelaide reportedly offered the Kangaroos three first round picks – pick four, their future first and Melbourne’s future first, for pick one and a future 2nd rounder.
Richmond also threw their hat in the ring, putting Callum Coleman-Jones and picks seven, 15 and 26 on the table as part of negotiations involving the ruckman and Robbie Tarrant.
The Roos knocked back both offers and club GM of Football Brady Rawlings said he struggled to see many teams having the currency required to trade for pick one, which they likely plan to use on South Australian draft prosect Jason Horne-Francis.
“Obviously when you’ve got pick one and obviously this year has got a couple of guys up the top end that are of extreme talent, clubs are going to come for them,” Rawlings told SEN’s Whateley.
“There’s been a few offers for that pick. Once you get to this point of the year you can attribute the pick to a player now, so it becomes even more valuable.
“We listen to every offer that comes our way, but it’s going to take a lot of currency to get this one.”
On whether Adelaide’s three first-round picks was close to being entertained for the top selection, Rawlings said he feels it would be hard for them to give up the pick without a player involved in the deal.
“Clearly there were things going back (Adelaide’s way) as well. We listen to any offer that comes our way, that’s our duty, but when you strip it back and you compare it to the player we’re going to get in at that pick, it just fell a bit short.
“There’s still a couple of days to go, I’m sure there’ll be more that come for the pick, I’m just not sure if anyone’s going to have the currency to get it done.
“The next few days isn’t the deadline for trading a pick, but it certainly is if a player is involved. It’s probably going to be hard with a pick swap to get something done for pick one.”
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Rawlings confirmed the Roos had a conversation with Horne-Francis and his family recently and spoke highly of the midfielder’s character.
“The guys went through a standard interview like they do with all the players. The last few weeks, there’s been a lot of interviews done with our recruiting team clearly with players who are at school, we used the school holiday period,” he said.
“They caught up with Jason and his family and everything went really well and there’s not too many more impressive kids around than Jason.
“It’s hard to assess. We’ll back ourselves in that anyone we bring from any state to our club that they’ll come in, they’ll be developed, they’ll be cared for and hopefully they’ll be excited by the talent we’re putting around him and hopefully success comes in the near future.
“Once you get a player in the club and you love the players you play with and you love your club, there’s no reason to leave. That’s the plan with everyone we bring in from interstate, obviously we did it with Tom Powell last year and Tom extended his contract pretty soon after he was here.
“We’ll back ourselves in that anyone we bring in is going to buy into our culture.”
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