It was a breakfast club of a different kind on the AFL Academy Camp in Florida that helped provide recruiters with a great understanding of the people behind the players in this year’s draft class.
In the cutthroat business of talent identification, rarely has there been a more important time to get decisions right at the draft table. But before the seats are taken at that table, the process behind those selections takes shape in places like the IMG Academy in Florida.
After sending List and Recruiting Manager, Tony Elshaug, last year, St Kilda sent State Recruiting Manager, Chris Liberatore, across to the United States at the end of January to scope out what lies ahead in the 2017 draft class.
For Liberatore, who has recruited for the Saints since 2009, the opportunity to observe and interact with prospective recruits on a daily basis was an invaluable piece of the recruiting process, in a world where you can never have enough information to form decisions.
“It’s essential because some of them haven’t been around recruiting staff before, so when you get them in a structured environment some of them are a little bit nervous and you only get eight minutes with them so you don’t get a lot of time in a one-on-one setting,” Liberatore told saints.com.au on Monday afternoon.
“When you’re in that setting you’re more talking about their facts and football history as opposed to getting to know them and seeing who speaks well? Who can hold a conversation? Some of them can’t hold a conversation. Some of them are quite mature.
“We got to interview them one-on-one in a structured setting as well as having a breakfast setup this year. For three of the mornings, recruiters got to go into the player's rooms where they had self-contained apartment with four or five boys in each apartment.
“The boys made us breakfast and we had a chat for 45 minutes in a more relaxed setting, so we got to know them a bit better outside the one-on-one structured environment.”
While a draftees year is mapped out around games, school and screenings, Liberatore explained why recruiters also like to chart how prospective recruits develop from a personal perspective from one interview to the next.
“It’s also invaluable seeing them now and then seeing them when we do more interviews in April and then when we do home visits in the second half of the year and then at the combine. So you see that growth with them across the 12 months,” Liberatore said.
And while recruiters might invest countless hours into a player only to see him land at another club, Liberatore said it was important to build a relationship with each player you have on your radar, because you never know when they might become available down the track.
“It’s important building that relationship with them because regardless of whether you pick them or not you hope that you’ve got some sort of rapport with some of them because you might end up looking at them again down the track. The better relationship you build with them now the better off you’re going to be down the track,” he said.
