In response to a question about new recruit Jack Hannath, who was training with Melbourne when he found out he’d been drafted to Freo, Lloyd said:
“We did our full profiling and due diligence on Jack. We spent some time with him at his house in SA. He enjoyed his training at Melbourne and was appreciative of the opportunity they gave him. He will love it at Freo and we are excited to have him.”
Lloyd gave great insight into the recruiting process that goes behind screening the best talent in the country.
“We have a team of full time recruiting staff and we monitor players from under 16s, 18s and state leagues. In the lead up to the draft our recruiters travel across Australia and complete due diligence including medicals, profiling, coach interviews. We also focus on home visits to get an understanding of the environment the players are coming out of. This work starts months and even years in advance of a player being selected. In any given year we can speak to up to 100 potential draftees.”
He also told one fan just how much consideration recruiters take of a player’s character before deciding to draft them or not.
“We put a lot of emphasis on football character. We do a lot of external interviews, home visits, psych test analysis and speak to a number of people about the players to get a feel how they will cope in a full time AFL environment. The players with high resilience and optimism are the ones that make it.”
Lloyd was frank when answering some of the tougher questions, like Freo’s decision to draft Jayden Pitt ahead of Jack Darling in 2010.
“Jayden is a talented young player. He has put on some good size and strength over the past two seasons. We're excited about his contribution for next season. We're very happy to have him on the list.”
Lloyd also revealed one of his biggest draft regrets - not choosing a current premiership forward.
“Sam Reid from Sydney is now a premiership player. He would have been handy to have on our list. There are always players, in hindsight, that would have been good options.”
Freo’s recruiting team have done their jobs in 2012 and now hand the reigns over to the club’s development academy.
Lloyd and co can afford a short break before they get back into the full swing of things again early in 2013.
