THE 2021 NAB AFLW Draft will take place on Tuesday night in a virtual format, where the newest members of the AFLW competition will be selected.

Carlton’s GM of Women's Football Brett Munro said there has been so much work going on behind the scenes to get the 2022 season rolling, with the latest COVID outbreak throwing a spanner in the works. 

With the 2020 NAB AFLW Draft being conducted virtually last year, Munro noted that they will know what to expect when the time comes on Tuesday. 

“We’ll be sitting in a room locked away, Josh [Hare] will be fronting the draft and reading out the names, which is a nervous task for him, but a really satisfying one so he’s excited about the prospect of calling out the new lot of Game Changers to join the Carlton Football Club,” Munro said. 

“Hopefully we get out of lockdown at midnight on Tuesday and we can visit the players and welcome them into the fold.”

With some experienced players departing the Club during the sign and trade period, Munro made it clear that key position players would be the first priority for the Blues.

“Certainly we need a backup ruck for Brea Moody: that could be a ruck/forward or a forward/ruck, we’re not really sold on any one thing,” he said. 

“We’re always looking for midfielders, those inside and outside mids and probably a forward as well: those will be the priorities.”

Picks six and seven in the Victorian pool will be Carlton’s highest picks on the night, with Munro already looking forward to the top-end talent planned on being called out on draft night.

“It is dependent on who picks ahead of us, Geelong do have three of those picks,” he said. 

“We’ll be looking at the pool that’s left and just looking at the players that we think are best suited to playing AFLW: it doesn’t have to be for Round 1, but the ones that are going to be the best players in five to 10 years.”

The AFLW season has been brought forward to December, meaning pre-season training will start in a matter of weeks.

Munro admitted it might affect some of the newer draftees, however he is committed to setting commitments that everyone can be comfortable with. 

“Several of them will still be doing VCE, so those commitments are always the priority and we make that the priority for the players,” he said.

“It won’t affect our decision but it’s just the access to those players for the early parts of pre-season and how much they can do, but we’ll work really closely with the player and their parents and our staff to adapt and suit their needs.”

When all is said and done in the draft, Munro had one characteristic that would be front of mind when splitting hairs between players. 

“We want good people, it’s what our list is made up of,” he said. 

“They’ve all got their own personalities, they’ve all got their strengths and the younger ones, you’re probably looking at what they can build on. 'Are they good at taking on information? Have they got a good work ethic?'.

“They’re the things that are most important to us.”