29.09.2009
TUESDAY was the first day of the Draft Camp.
Five of us from Hawthorn headed up to Canberra on Tuesday morning, including three from Melbourne, Geoff Morris from Adelaide and Gary Buckenara from Perth.
There was a little bit of change in relation to scheduling this year.
Normally the guys get in on Tuesday and there was no scheduling until Wednesday, so it was usually a settling in day. But this year, we had scheduled interviews during the day.
We also have a supporters' function in Canberra, which we conduct each Tuesday night when the Draft Camp is held, so we wanted to make sure we did our interviews in the afternoon, before the event.
We interviewed seven or eight players, including Deon Gordon from Northern Territory. Deon suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury six weeks ago, but we were still keen to talk to him and all of the other guys, regardless of injury.
Others included Dylan Grimes, Dustin Martin, Jamie MacMillan, Gerrick Weedon and James Craig.
Over the week, we will have about 30 to 40 interviews scheduled, so it's a busy time.
Generally, we spend 25 to 30 minutes interviewing each player and we go through a pretty standard pro forma in relation to questions we ask.
But we also ask them individual questions on how they have gone throughout the year, and what is important to them in their footy and outside of the game.
We simply try to find out more about them and we also conduct personal interviews at their home. The ones at their homes are usually for an hour or an hour-and-a-half with their parents.
Some guys at the camp we've already met and know; some we haven't.
Wednesday becomes an important day with the sprints, agility and vertical jumps, which has been brought forward, instead of normally being held on Thursday.
So everyone will be ready to go bright and early.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.
