Yze's hat in pre-season draft ring

FORMER Melbourne star Adem Yze is hoping his prolific career at the top level is not done yet, with the 31-year-old a surprise nominee for next week’s NAB AFL Pre-Season Draft.

Late on Tuesday afternoon, the AFL released a list of recently delisted players who had nominated for the December 16 draft before the 2pm deadline.

While Josh Carr (Fremantle), Chris Johnson (Melbourne) and David Gourdis (Richmond) have thrown their names into the ring as expected, Yze’s decision to put his name forward came more from left-field.

The mercurial left-footer played 271 games in 14 seasons at the Demons, and picked up a host of individual accolades throughout his career in the red and blue.

However after managing just 14 matches in the past two seasons, he was told late in 2008 he would not be offered a new contract for next year.

Yze, who booted 234 goals in his career playing through the midfield and in attack, would appear to an unlikely choice in next Tuesday’s draft.

Two clubs – Carlton and Port Adelaide – have already committed to players, with the Blues publicly declaring they will snap up Johnson if available and the Power keen to take back former premiership player Carr.

Melbourne is one of four other clubs with live draft picks, ruling out another chance for the silky-skilled veteran to prolong his career.

That would leave Yze as an option for just three clubs -- Essendon, the Brisbane Lions and Richmond.

The Bombers may well be Yze’s best opportunity to continue playing AFL football.

Earlier this week Essendon coach Matthew Knights spoke of his club’s need to bolster its playing ranks with experienced senior players.

“It depends on what is around because we have added a lot of younger people to our list in the last two years and had a lot of experience go out,” Knights said on Monday.

“I am open-minded about maybe looking at fairly mature player for the pre-season draft pick if the right guy is there.”