As the real season draws closer to the starting gun, the recruiting world is already turning its attention to what the finish line could look like, with club's travelling to the United States on Monday to analyse the talent attending the NAB AFL Academy Camp.

36 Academy players, all of whom are eligible for this year’s National Draft, and four Irish prospects will spend the next week being put through their paces at the IMG Academy in Florida, before the second week of the camp is held in Los Angeles.

While not all clubs attend the camp, St Kilda holds the camp in high regard due to the unrivalled level of access provided to recruiters each and every day, which helps build a dossier on potential recruits.

St Kilda State Recruiting Manager, Chris Liberatore, is travelling to America and says the main benefits of attending the camp are the ability to observe the players in a variety of environments and the opportunity to interview prospects in depth.

“It’s not only a great opportunity to watch them all train, interact and do everything amongst themselves, but we also get really good access to them in terms of being able to have proper 15 to 20 minute sit down interviews with them one-on-one,” Liberatore told saints.com.au on Monday.

“We also get to spend a lot of time with them around activities, meals and other things at the camp. So it’s a great opportunity to interact and get to know them on a personal level.

“It’s only one piece of the puzzle, but you don’t get anything like this at any other stage during the year.

“While we do get to interview the players in their homes, and we get to watch them play and we do all these other things (at home), we don’t get access to them for multiple hours every day for two weeks straight at any other time during the year.”

With St Kilda currently holding two first round picks at this year’s National Draft, Liberatore says it’s even more important that the Saints make the most of their draft position by using opportunities like Florida to their advantage.

“Given that we’re going into the 2017 draft with two first round draft picks – at least at the moment – getting them right and getting high-end talent is even more important,” he said.