COACHPaul Roos says he was comfortable with Melbourne selecting any one of the threestandouts in this year’s NAB AFL Draft on Thursday night: Paddy McCartin,Christian Petracca and Angus Brayshaw.
Inthe end, St Kilda opted for the tall in McCartin with the No.1 pick, asMelbourne snapped up the two best midfielders in the pool: Petracca andBrayshaw.
“Itdidn’t really matter too much to us – depending on who St Kilda took at No.1.At one stage, it looked it was going to be Christian and then it looked like itwas going to be Paddy – and it turned out that it was Paddy [at pick No.1],” hetold Dee TV.
“Wewere always going to take the next two – with Angus being one of them.
“You’realways going to get quality picks at two and three and we believe we’ve got twogood midfielders. The thing for us now is to develop all four of the boys wepicked up and make sure they fulfill their potential.”
Roossaid South Australian midfielder Alex Neal-Bullen and tall Oscar McDonald – theyounger brother of Tom – were also set to reap the benefit of a beefed updevelopment program at Melbourne.
“He’s[Neal-Bullen] a hard midfielder and a really good runner – you never knowwhat’s going to get there at No.40 and at No.53, which is quite amazing becausewe got Tommy McDonald’s brother at the same pick in the [2010] draft,” he said.
“It’spretty unusual with 18 clubs. To get drafted is a great effort, but to get theboys drafted to the same club would be pretty unusual.
“We’vegot to develop them now – I think we’ve got a good development team now withBrett [Allison], Brad [Miller], Goody (Simon Goodwin) doing that [role for themoment], Justin Plapp at Casey and Brendan [McCartney] coming on.
“We’vereally got to develop all four boys and make sure they turn into good players.”
Roossaid he was “a consultant” to the recruiters and didn’t get involved too much.
“Wehave a helping hand, but the picks come from the recruiting guys who do all thework,” he said.