Geelong recruiting and list manager Stephen Wells holds a bevy of picks for November’s drafts and will return to Simonds Stadium with as many as 10 new faces as a result.

The Cats have implemented significant change in the weeks and months following season 2016, with no less than 13 players leaving the club via trade, retirement or delisting.

But with a deep draft touted, Wells and his recruiting team have given themselves more than enough options to refresh the playing list and aim higher in 2017.

“This year’s draft does seem to be very deep. We’re very pleased to be having either five or six picks in the national draft – we’re still finalising that at the moment and we have a couple of weeks to do that,” Wells told Cats Media.

“Consequently, we’ll have either four or five picks in the rookie draft for a total of 10 new players coming to the club via drafts."

“With 10 picks overall we’ll be able to safely say we’ll come out with a variety of players.”

The Cats will enter the draft at pick 24 – acquired as part of a deal which saw midfielder Josh Caddy get his wish and move to Richmond.

Naturally there will be a lot of water to go under the bridge prior to that selection, but with all the possible scenarios and players currently being planned for, Wells is confident pick 24 will bring with it a quality young player.

“At pick 24, we’re very confident we’ll get a good player there. There will be some good opportunities for us to choose between a number of players at that position and then again at 38 and 42.”

“We’ll prepare for the draft as if any one of those players we rank in the top 24 come through to us. Logically, and common sense would suggest that, we could predict probably a dozen to 15 of them that would be highly unlikely to get through to us with our pick.”

“The rest of them we actually rate pretty evenly. We’ll just wait and see which names come off before we have our pick on the night and I’m sure we’ll have our choice of three or four players we’ll rank very similarly for that pick 24 spot."

The 2016 AFL national draft will be held in Sydney on November 25.

For the full interview with Stephen Wells, listen to PodCats via the video player above or audio player below.