A SINGING and dancing former basketballer and a mature-age goalkicker who knows how to build prisons are among the Western Bulldogs' new breed set to join their new club this week.

The Dogs' opening two selections in Thursday night's NAB AFL Draft saw tough inside midfielder Clay Smith and All Australian Under-18 defender Michael Talia recruited with picks No.17 and No.39 respectively.

Then, recruiting manager Simon Dalrymple reached for the numbers of athletic midfielder Daniel Pearce (selection No.49) and 24-year-old former Bendigo Bomber Tory Dickson (No.57). 

Pearce, 18, is described as having a "terrific natural leap and marking ability"; no doubt honed by his days as a basketballer playing for the Bulleen Boomers.

However, the former Oakleigh Charger, who finished fourth in their best and fairest this year, comes with other skills not listed in any sporting résumé published in the past week.

He's a performer, having recently starred in his school's production of Grease in the lead role of Danny Zuko, made famous by actor John Travolta in the 1978 movie.

"He can sing and dance. I spoke to the lady who ran the production about how he handled the stress of the first night and year 12 and she could not speak any more highly of him," Dalrymple told AFL.com.au. 

"He's a balanced boy who could handle that, VCE and playing for the Oakleigh Chargers and do it all pretty well … we were impressed.

"He's got a lot of athletic upside and his decision making is good, and he's a really good kid."

Dickson lands at Whitten Oval having trained for just half an hour a week over the past season as he juggled working as a personal trainer and building jails with his father.

He also commuted from Beaconsfield, 46km south-east of Melbourne, to Bendigo to play for the Bombers in the VFL.

While it was a hectic schedule, punctuated with the rather unusual day job, it seemed to work for the 2009 Frankston best and fairest winner as he booted 48 goals in 19 games and impressed coach Shannon Grant and former Essendon assistant Brendan McCartney.

With McCartney now the Bulldogs' senior coach and Grant one of his assistants, it was the two keen followers of his 2011 season that put him on Dalrymple's radar.

"[Their influence] was very important. We listen as recruiters but we don't just take on gospel," Dalrymple said.

"We then went and watched vision of every game he played and did all our stats analysis and homework on him, and the interview really impressed me.

"We did our due diligence, he impressed in testing and we think that he's ready to go in an age group that we think we probably need to get more players in.

"He was a tennis player as a junior and was on a scholarship at Haileybury College, so that explained why he didn't play in the TAC Cup and so forth."

The Dogs were confident only Essendon would have Dickson on its radar heading into the draft, but were also sure the Bombers weren't going to undercut their pick of No.57 and use their second selection of 31 - which they spent on athletic midfielder Jackson Merrett - to pinch the handy goalkicker.

Dalrymple said the Dogs were hopeful Dickson, who can also run through the midfield and shone in the centre clearances for Bendigo this year, could make his AFL debut in 2012 with a full summer of training behind him. 

"A pre-season will be huge for him. We think he's one who could play next year," he said.

"He's got an interesting background so I think he'll be very keen to train and play on a full-time basis."