Grand finalist Adelaide to invoke the Joel Selwood draft rule

ADELAIDE will invoke the Joel Selwood rule - to always take the best player available - with its first selection at Friday’s AFL national draft.

Andrew Capel

@andrewcapel

2 min read

November 23, 2017 - 2:10PM

TALENT SPOTTER: Adelaide national recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie is eyeing a big prize with pick 12 at the AFL national draft.

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ADELAIDE will invoke the Joel Selwood rule at Friday’s AFL national draft.

Virtually guaranteed a good player at pick 12, the Crows will use words of wisdom from draft guru Scott Clayton when selecting a player they would expect to play at least 200 games.

“We’ll stick to talent, you’ve got to,’’ national recruiting manager Hamish Ogilvie said when asked whether the club would consider a player on a positional needs basis.

“Especially with where our list is at the moment, we’ve got a bit of everything, so we're not pressed (positionally).

“I remember Scott Clayton (current Gold Coast list manager) once saying that if you go with needs rather than talent you can miss a Joel Selwood.

“ So at pick 12 we’ll stay with talent, that will be the main driver. Later, with pick 39, you might look at balancing list needs but that is something we have debated because at the draft you can't forget about talent.

“

Our strategy has been that you draft for talent and trade for needs.’’

Geelong captain and triple premiership-winning midfielder Selwood, coming off a bad knee injury, famously slipped to No. 7 at the 2006 national draft after Essendon (Scott Gumbleton, No. 2), North Melbourne (Lachie Hansen, 3), Brisbane (Matthew Leuenberger, 4) and Hawthorn (Mitch Thorp, 6) went for talls.

In the past 10 years, Adelaide, which lost this year’s grand final to Richmond, has had a good record with its first pick at the draft when it has ranged from 10 to 23.

Its selections have included Brownlow Medallist Patrick Dangerfield at No. 10 in 2007, All-Australian defenders Daniel Talia (13 in 2009) and Brodie Smith (14 in 2010), reigning club champion Matt Crouch (23 in 2013) and All-Australian nominee Jake Lever (14 in 2014), although Dangerfield (Geelong) and Lever (Melbourne) are now at other clubs.

“At pick 12 we are in a position where we will have to wait to see what falls to us but we’re confident we will get a very good player, someone who is going to play a lot of good AFL footy,’’ Ogilvie said.

Crows fans would be ecstatic if leading SA draft contender, Glenelg’s Darcy Fogarty, slips to No. 12 but Ogilvie conceded that is unlikely.

“I wouldn’t think that he would get to us,’’ he said.

Adelaide, which has upgraded classy rookies Hugh Greenwood and Alex Keath to its senior list, has four picks at the draft – 12, 39, 75 and 94.

But Ogilvie said that for list management reasons it is likely to use only the first two, bringing its senior list to the minimum 38 required, while taking a full complement of six rookie-list players.

The Crows, who already have father-son player Ben Jarman and ruckman/forward Paul Hunter as rookies, have committed to taking delisted midfielder Cam Ellis-Yolmen and Glenelg's Jackson Edwards – son of 321-game Crows great Tyson Edwards – as rookies if they slip through the main draft.

Originally published as Grand finalist Adelaide to invoke the Joel Selwood draft rule