Collingwood recruiter admits ready-made mid-season draftee may have already played in 2024

Collingwood head recruiter Derek Hine has given an insight into the two players that the Magpies selected in Wednesday night’s mid-season draft.

The Magpies’ first pick came at No. 10, where they picked up Eastern Ranges ruckman Iliro Smit.

While Smit, 18, is a development player, the Magpies also went for a more ready-made player at pick No. 19 in Collingwood VFL product Ned Long.

The 21-year-old has been perhaps Collingwood’s best VFL player so far in 2024 and he rejoins an AFL list after being delisted by Hawthorn – where he played five AFL games across two years - at the end of last season.

Hine told Collingwood Media that Long is a ‘plug and play’ option given he spent the entire summer training with the AFL group and has learned the way the Magpies like to play via the VFL program.

“He’s a player that can plug and play, he can play multiple positions for us,” Hine told the club’s website.

“There’s a real attraction for that, we don’t have to train him in the way we play.

“We don’t have to train him in terms of any position or likely position he’s going to play because he has already played them.

“That was a real attraction. But the fact that we were able to have two guys drafted from our VFL system is a huge credit to Josh (Fraser) and the boys and the ongoing philosophy with our VFL program.”

With Collingwood’s injury list seemingly building by the day, some fans were calling for Long to debut in Friday night’s clash against the Western Bulldogs given how impressive he’s been in the VFL averaging 24 disposals and nine tackles across six games.

Unfortunately, Hine revealed that the 194cm midfielder is carrying a niggle that will sideline him for a fortnight, but he did admit that he may have already played AFL in 2024 if he was on the list earlier given the club’s injury profile.

“Ned already has fitted into our program,” Hine said.

“He’s got a little niggle at the moment, which is only a one-or two-week injury, but you could make a case potentially that he may have already played given our profile.

“But we’re rapt, I can’t emphasise enough that we keep developing that VFL program … it’s a testament to both Ned and (Jack) Hutchison getting taken (at pick No. 3 by West Coast) – two players taken from the one club.”

As for Smit, some Collingwood fans were surprised to see the club take a developing tall instead of one that could come in and play straight away given the injuries to the likes of Brody Mihocek, Dan McStay, Mason Cox, Aiden Begg and Oscar Steene.

While Hine said that the club was mindful of their injury list, he says that Smit was at the top of their draft board come pick 10 and they think that he can really grow in the club’s development system.

“There was a bit of an eye to that (the injury list), but it got to a point in the draft where Iliro was at the top of our list at that point and we took him,”

“We’re understanding that he’s a development player, he’s not going to play in the next three to four weeks.

“We feel he’s going to really grow in our system … we think he’s got all the attributes to thrive in our system.

“We’re mindful of the injury profile but we’re mindful of how that looks going forward with the time these boys will have on the injury list.”

Collingwood next play the Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium on Friday night. The VFL side also plays Footscray on Friday evening at the same venue in a curtain-raiser.