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Greater Western Sydney has a golden opportunity to bounce back up the ladder quickly, according to a pair of ex-AFL stars, with an enormous draft hand that’s the envy of the competition.
“They have got a monumental number of first-round picks to play with,” Foxfooty.com.au’s David Zita explained on Trading Day, calling it a “king’s ransom”.
After Wednesday’s pick swap with Brisbane, GWS owns picks 3, 12, 15 and 19 – a remarkable four selections in the top 20.
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Only two other teams, West Coast (2 and 20) and Sydney (14 and 17) even have two selections in the top 20, while Brisbane, Melbourne and Richmond have none.
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If they take all of those picks to the draft, the Giants will be able to add to their nine other top-20 picks in the last four seasons – Jye Caldwell and Jackson Hately (2018), Lachie Ash and Tom Green (2019), Tanner Bruhn, Conor Stone and Ryan Angwin (2020), and Finn Callaghan and Leek Aleer (2021).
“Great shape, it’s a really strong hand for them,” St Kilda great Leigh Montagna said on Fox Footy.
“And they’re still gonna get picks if and when Jacob Hopper gets done (to Richmond)
“You’ve got to remember, there’s still a month post-trade (period) where you can still pick swap, so if they want to manouver differently, maybe stash some picks for next year’s draft, they can still do that.
“And on draft night they can trade away those picks, so maybe depending on how the draft falls, whether they want to use some picks, or stash next year.”
As North Melbourne champion David King explained, it adds to the bounty of high selections they’ve made in recent seasons.
“Over the last four years they’ve had the AFL’s most top-30 draft picks already, with 11. Most clubs have had between six, seven, eight, around that mark,” he said.
“And in terms of the absolute cream, top-20 picks, they’ve had nine. So add four of those – it’s some sort of kitty to bargain with over the next few weeks prior to the draft.
“And even if you don’t, it just shows that this rebuild can happen quite quickly and quite sharply.”
Montagna added: “And for GWS now it’s about quality picks rather than quantity.
“They don’t want a heap of kids any more, they just want to get right to the pointy end, get as close to Pick 1 as they can and get a few high-quality picks, which they’ve done in previous years.”
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