BRISBANE recruiting manager Stephen Conole says the Lions are confident they can land high quality players with their two first-round picks at this year's NAB AFL Draft despite the disrupted under-18 season.
The Lions hold their own selection as well as Port Adelaide's first pick they accrued in a trade deal last year.
Some clubs hold reservations about using top picks on players they haven't seen this season, with Victorian prospects out of action for the whole year after the outbreak of COVID-19.
But Conole, speaking on AFL.com.au's Road to the Draft podcast, said the Lions were hoping to benefit from some highly ranked players slipping through.
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"If you do your work there's some real opportunity there to target some kids who you really like and also target some boys who you think have some real improvement and scope in them," Conole said.
"I think every club will have quite different views on various players who haven't played so there's a huge opportunity. It's quite exciting to head into the draft and be able to do some additional stuff and hopefully pick a player who you may have thought may have been a really high-end pick and you may get him a bit later.
"You'll be quite confident going into the first round of the draft this year."
The Lions have been linked to Essendon restricted free agent Joe Daniher and rivals believe the club is on the search for a key forward during the upcoming off-season.
With the club set for another tilt at the premiership, the Lions' pair of picks are likely to be deeper in the first round and they could look to package them together to move up the board.
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"There's so much water under the bridge until draft day through the trade period and all of that sort of stuff, so we're really open to using them or trading them," Conole said.
"We haven't got to a stage yet where we're working through final decisions on any of that. Dom Ambrogio our list manager will spend a lot of time prior to the draft working through those scenarios.
"But if we do happen to go to the draft with them I'm very confident that we'll head into there and have a really good feel for the first round of the draft. We'd be confident if we used both of those picks that we'd pick players we think can come into our footy club and have a real impact."
The Lions traded out their second-round selection for this year's draft in their deal to land Callum Ah Chee from Gold Coast last year.
