SYDNEY national recruiting manager Kinnear Beatson says there are "five or six" contenders for the No.1 pick this season in a deep draft pool the veteran scout expects to throw up quality prospects with late selections.
After Harley Reid was anointed the runaway No.1 choice last year well before he was selected with the top pick, the 2024 draft crop doesn't have a standout for the best player, with clubs having a range of views on who it should be.
Josh Smillie, Finn O'Sullivan, Levi Ashcroft, Murphy Reid, Luke Trainor, Jagga Smith, Sid Draper and Harvey Langford have all been raised as potential No.1 picks by clubs as the end of the under-18 season draws closer.
Beatson said he rated a number of prospects as candidates for the top pick.
"Probably about five or six to be honest with you. It would be a hard pick at the moment if you had pick one or two thinking 'Boy, what are we going to do here?' because it keeps moving," Beatson told Gettable.
"And we haven't seen the best of players like Finn O'Sullivan yet, hopefully he gets going and gets some continuity in his game. Things that are beyond his control with injury but that hasn't helped his form this year but it's very wide open I think."
The depth of the draft class this season is expected to see clubs try to use future picks from the 2025 draft to buy back into the 2024 intake and Beatson said putting through nominations for the Draft Combine had illustrated that number.
"We got a memo from the AFL where we had to put in our 50 nominations for the upcoming AFL Draft Combine," Beatson said.
"(Swans recruiter) John Giramondo and myself looked at the 50 we wanted to put in as our nominations and then you look at the players who aren't in the 50 and it makes you realise it's a pretty deep draft and there's going to be some really good players drafted late or as rookies who come through in the future and people will say 'Wow, how did they get picked so late?'"
The Marsh Under-18 Boys National Championships wrapped up with the thrilling one-point win for Vic Metro over Vic Country earlier this month at Marvel Stadium. There is now a push from clubs to see more games of the carnival played at AFL venues so recruiting teams can best assess the junior talents in the best conditions.
"The carnival itself was just great, with the final being at Marvel Stadium, which was fantastic that (AFL CEO) Andrew Dillon made sure that occurred to see the best of the best on this venue. It was pretty special," Beatson said.
"If we could get onto the Adelaide Oval, back onto the Gabba like we did a couple of years ago, it would be great to see them on the size of the ground but also the quality of the deck.
"It's hard to compare what we saw here with Vic Metro and Vic Country on Marvel as opposed to the game we saw at Claremont in the mud. I don't know why we ended up at Claremont that day, I thought there was a chance to move that game but clearly there wasn't. But I think everybody appreciated the quality of football we had here a couple of weeks back."