Ross Lyon is looking forward to the upcoming NAB AFL Draft, which is the first uncompromised draft since the inclusion of Gold Coast (2011) and Greater Western Sydney (2012) into the league.

The AFL granted the expansion clubs a number of draft concessions in the past four years, including access to underage selections and multiple picks inside the top 10, which pushed the other clubs back in the draft order.

Lyon said Freo, which has picks 13, 34, 54 and 72 at the Thursday 27 November Draft, would stick by its strategy of recent years.

“We are always up for young key forwards and tall defenders, but we certainly won’t compromise our picks and go past the best running players that are there just for the sake of taking a tall,” he said.

“We’ll take the best available talent. It’s the first undiluted draft for a long period of time so we’re really excited by it.”

Lyon said his involvement in the club’s draft process was ‘negligible’.

He said the recruiting team, headed by general manager of player management Brad Lloyd, was entrusted to gather information on players and make the selections.

Lyon added he refrained from commenting on possible selections because he did not want to influence the recruiting team.

“Unless they say ‘we’ve got these two players and we can’t separate them but they’ve got these different type of attributes and we’d be happy to take both of them at this pick’,” he said.

“Then you can say ‘we’ll need this type of attribute’.

“So we help shape their views to what the AFL player requires these days.

“We help them with their filters, we don’t identify the talent.”

As for the upcoming AFL Draft, Lyon was confident Lloyd and his team would continue its good strike rate with talent.

“When I look to the batch over the past couple of years, (Hayden) Crozier (Lachie) Neale, (Cam) Sutcliffe, (Tommy) Sheridan and (Lee) Spurr all came in the one draft, and (Matt) Taberner and (Jack) Hannath thenext year,” he said.

“We’re really excited with what our recruiting team can deliver to us.”

Lyon added his main involvement with list management was with players already on the club’s list.

“What I’ll do is help assess the players on our list – who stays and who goes… (and) help form a view on contracting period-of-tenure and requirement.

“I don’t get involved in contracting and money.”