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Emma Quayle is one of the more knowledgeable writers on the AFL Draft. Recently, her second book was published - The Draftees, a sequel to her first which covered the 2007 AFL Draft, The Draft. This time she covers the year-long journey of five potential 2014 draftees (Isaac Heeney, Jake Lever, Tom Lamb, Clem Smith and Peter Wright) and looks at the issues and the highs and lows involved in being a potential AFL draftee, including the pressures, the disruption to normal family life and education, injuries and a raft of other matters that arise during the course of the season. Interspersed with the diaries of the players are insights about the drafting process from the recruiting team at St. Kilda who made themselves available to Quayle at various times during the year. You get to understand their thinking and the pressure upon them to make the right calls on players. Obviously, from an MFC supporter perspective, the book would have been of even greater interest, had one of Quayle's subjects ultimately been a Demon draft pick, but there have been some interesting snippets so far (I'm halfway through the book). Some examples:- Saints recruiting manager (and former Demon Tony Elshaug) and another recruiter flew to Adelaide in May to watch an South Australian Under 18 trial game and called Glenelg pair Alex Neal-Bullen and Billy Stretch the "two stand out players". Discussion about Angus Brayshaw in the early stages of the Under 18 championships: "Brayshaw was next. 'He was very good. He had plenty of the footy,' said Barnard. 'I don't know if it was planned, but he got more on the outside than the inside, which I wasn't expecting. He's been really combative in the games I've seen previously. He gets caught a few times but his work rate is through the roof.' 'His leadership is very good,' said Elshaug. 'He was always talking to the others. He can't do much more. I don't think he could possibly be playing much better than he is right now. He was best on ground.'" Being a NSW/ACT representative, Isaac Heeney can only play in the second division of the Under 18 championships and expresses his frustration that the new championship format means that he couldn't do the thing that he most wanted: "take on Angus Brayshaw, Christian Petracca and the other really good midfielders ..." The importance of buildings up a good fitness base when coming back from injury was discussed in the case of Peter Wright, an early draft favourite on his recovery and on Jake Lever who spent the entire season sidelined after a knee reconstruction. Late in the season, one of the Saints' recruiters sat in freezing-cold weather at Ballarat watching Oscar McDonald play well at CHB in a TAC Cup game. "He works really, really hard and he's able to accumulate possessions because of that. He's a smart player, he reads the play well and he's competitive. There's just a slight lack of athleticism that worries me at the moment". I'm just getting to the part where the Saints recruiters discuss the top six draft prospects which included Paddy McCartin, Brayshaw and Christian Petracca - I'll cover that discussion in my next report.