Tigers eye draft camp quartet
5:10:37 PM Thu 30 September, 2004
Matt Burgan in Canberra
Sportal
Richmond recruiting manager Greg Beck says the club's number one draft pick in November will be one of four young guns - Brett Deledio, Richard Tambling, Ryan Griffen or Lance Franklin.
All four youngsters are at the Australian Institute of Sport for the National Bank's AFL Draft Camp and Beck confirmed on Thursday that the quartet were jostling for the honour of being the first name selected come the November draft.
"It's clear in our mind that there's four or five players that we'll talk about for pick number one," Beck told Sportal.
"We've spoken to all of those boys and we've seen most of their mums and dads. We've got a couple of interstate trips to do before we'll make up our mind about who we'll take with pick number one.
"Those four boys are certainly in the mix - there's no doubt about those. They've all got super qualities and they're as good as the kids going around the last couple of years, who have been taken number one, so they're certainly in the mix."
Beck said the club could also land another two first-round selections, if the Tigers could secure the right deal for ruckman/forward Brad Ottens who has declared his intentions to quit Punt Rd.
But Beck said Ottens' career was not definitely over at Tigerland.
"There's no guarantee Brad's going. We're all saying that he's going, but there's no guarantee that will be the case," Beck said.
"The (other) clubs are aware and (Richmond director of football) Greg Miller's made all of the clubs aware of what we want for him and we won't budge on that, and I think all of the clubs consider what we've asked for is reasonable and fair.
"That being the case, that's what we expect (two first-round selections) and if we don't get it, then Brad could possibly be with us, next year."
Beck said the future over defender/forward Ty Zantuck was also unclear.
"We'll keep Ty in the loop about what we're doing, so nothing has been concrete about what's been happening with Ty Zantuck at this particular stage, so we'll just wait and see," Beck said.
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