West Coast this morning participated in the rookie draft, recruiting Subiaco's Callum Sinclair at no.12 and Jamie Bennell from Melbourne with its final selection, no. 27 to round out its list for the 2013 season.
National recruiting manager Rohan O'Brien shares his insight below:
"I think we bolstered our list in some respects through the trade period, so once we got into the draft and the rookie draft it was really a matter of identifying the talent available and how we thought it could fit into things long term. We think we're fairly well placed for ruckmen with Scott Lycett coming through, so the short-term thing of bringing in another ruckman wasn't in our thinking."
Pick 12: Callum Sinclair (Subiaco)
"We've tracked Callum for a few years now and thought that the time had come for an opportunity. He is a young developing tall and he can play ruck, forward and maybe even a little bit back. Going across from Port Melbourne to Subiaco this year, he acquitted himself in the WAFL really well and played consistently good footy."
Pick 27: Jamie Bennell (Melbourne)
"We rated Jamie fairly highly in his draft year (2008) and he's played 50-odd games of league footy and played some reasonable games amongst them. He's coming off a knee injury, which wasn't really a great concern to us because we're not picking Jamie to play tomorrow. He offers some variety, playing forward and playing back and with his talent he should be able to pinch-hit through the midfield as well."
