THE LAST day was a shorter day compared to the rest.
The camp finished around 3.30pm and most clubs were on planes by 5pm.
But we headed back to Melbourne around 7.30pm, as we liked to review the camp as a group.
We finished off our interviews and spoke to another seven players, which took our total to 40 interviews.
That’s the most interviews we’ve done at the Draft Camp/Combine in the past three years.
Among those we spoke to included Josh Caddy (Northern Knights), Tom Hickey (Morningside) and Dyson Heppell (Gippsland Power).
The camp then finished off with the three-km time-trial, which is another aerobic fitness test. It’s a really good test to finish the camp with, because it’s really tough running, involving seven-and-a-half laps of the athletics track.
The players are really tired by this stage, so it’s really interesting to see who can get up for this final effort, in front of the recruiting staff.
It’s always interesting to see some players go hard early and then push back. Others tend to run hard at the end, which is never the best way to go about it.
But there were some outstanding running performances, including Cam O’Shea (Eastern Ranges), Andrew Gaff (Oakleigh Chargers) and Hayden Hector (Gippsland Power - and a GWS nominee).
Hector broke the shuttle run record the other day and backed it up with an outstanding three-km time-trial.
We like to see who wants to box on and fight it out - as the run is a real test of character.
Unlike the shuttle run, where you can finish any time you like, you’ve got to finish the three-km time-trial.
It’s always good to see how the mind is working with a few of the boys, when they’re trying to run their guts out.
It’s been a big four days - Tuesday through to Friday - and we’ve probably done around 15 hours of solid interviewing, which is a lot.
The quality of interviews this year has been extremely high.
There have been a lot of players who are looking to get high TER scores in their schooling. There is a good level of general intelligence out there, but also a high level of football intelligence as well.
That’s a big tick for a lot of the programs, which are going on around Australia in educating young boys on how to play the game.
In general, the boys we interviewed were articulate. We walked away knowing there is a lot of good character out there that we can bring into the footy club.
There weren’t many players - in terms of character - we put a line through in the interview process. And there were probably a few who also pushed their name up as well.
In terms of the testing, there were also a lot of guys who pushed their name up after some strong results.
This looks good for the draft and although there is still a long way to go, we can follow up on the interviews, collate the data and watch further vision of players.
From there, we hope to come up with the answers on November 18.
