The Brisbane Lions’ overwhelming success at the 2013 AFL National Draft has effectively enabled the Club to trade away their top end selections this year for ready-made AFL stars.

The Lions will have to wait until Pick No.67 before having their first live selection at the 2014 AFL National Draft later this month, after trading away their first (Pick 5) and second (Pick 25) selections and committing their fourth (Pick 44) and fifth (Pick 63) picks to selecting Hyundai Lions Academy graduates Liam Dawson and Harris Andrews.

Although it will prove one of the least active Drafts in the Club’s history, the off-season recruitment of former Collingwood premiership player and best and fairest winner Dayne Beams, and exciting Geelong midfielder Allen Christensen, more than makes up for the loss of early picks.

Plus, the Club took seven teenagers at last year’s AFL National Draft meeting, making it effectively two drafts in one.

Better yet, early indications suggest that the Lions recruiting team got it right with each of those selections.

James Aish, Darcy Gardiner, Daniel McStay, Lewy Taylor, Tom Cutler, Nick Robertson, and Jono Freeman all got a taste of senior AFL football in 2014 and look to be valuable acquisitions for the future.

For Club Recruiting Manager Stephen Conole and his team, it was an outstanding result – particularly given the pressure the Lions were under following the departure of five talented youngsters during the preceding trade period.

“I think we were fortunate that it was a draft that there were some terrific kids around our picks (between No. 22 and No. 34),” Conole told the Herald Sun.

As for Pick No.67, the Club will be hoping to unearth another draft special, but understands the task will far more difficult.

“Unlike last year when we tried to get really strategic and target the players we were looking for around those selections, we don’t come into 67,” Conole said.

“You just never know at that end of the draft.”

The 2014 NAB AFL National Draft will be held on the Gold Coast on Thursday 27 November.