GENERAL manager of football operations Josh Mahoney says the club definitely wants to recruit Bomber Jake Melksham and Giant Tomas Bugg in the trade period.

Mahoney confirmed Melksham and Bugg were on Melbourne’s radar and will look to secure when the trade period starts on Monday. 

“Jake Melksham’s been mentioned and he’s been targeted to play off half-back and he probably played that role for the last three or four games for Essendon this year,” he told Dee TV.

“In terms of due diligence, we’ve got Simon Goodwin and Brendan McCartney, who have both coached him and they see a lot of potential in him, so he’s a player we’d like to add to us.”

“Tom Bugg’s another one at GWS, who has been linked to us. We’ve had discussions with him and we think he can help us as a club. They’re probably a couple of guys we’d like to add over this period and we think that they will both make our team stronger, leading into next year.”

Mahoney said “everyone from Patrick Dangerfield and Luke Parker” had been linked to Melbourne, but it was too early to tell how it would be played out.

“All that we can say is that we’ve been out there speaking to a lot of different players and we’re very active trying to attract players to our club,” he said.

“We’ve got a goal that we want to be a destination club and we want to be a club that people put up their hands and say ‘I want to go to Melbourne’. Right at the moment, we’re not quite at that stage. We’re in the conversation, but we’re not able to land an ‘A-grader’ at this point.

“You’ve got to be really clear on your timing with that and when to bring one in. If it may not be this year, it may be next year, where we target those players.

“We’ve really now progressed further to really targeting some particular players for some roles we need.”

Mahoney said it was still unknown whether high-flyer Jeremy Howe would remain a Demon or depart the club over the trade period.

“Jeremy made the decision earlier in the year to put off talks until the end of the year and we’ve been continually talking throughout the year,” he said.

“It’s getting to that stage now – it’s closer to decision time for both the club and for Jeremy, so we’d expect there would be a decision to be made in the next week or so on whether he’s staying or going after that.

“That’s probably the situation right now.”

Mahoney said the club had some clear objectives about what it wants to gain from the trade and draft period.

“Like every club, you want to come out of the trade and draft period with a stronger list … and better placed than it was in round 23 last season. That’s certainly our focus,” he said.

“We’ve got a strong belief in our young group and we think we’ve got a very talented young group coming through, so we’re conscious of that. We don’t want to smother their development at any stage, but we still think that they need some support around them.

“That’ll be our focus – trying to bring in some guys who have played a bit of footy and they’ve been around AFL clubs for a little while. [We are looking at] that range of 21 to 24 year olds, who have played 50 to 100 games and can come in and play a really specific role. That’ll be our focus during this trade period, as well as trying to improve our draft position.

“As much as there has been some talk about the strength of this draft, I think it’s more about the depth of this draft. If you can get your picks in the top 40, there are going to be some very good players.”

Mahoney said there was a chance further delistings could happen after the trade period.

“That’ll play out … there are a few guys that haven’t been offered contracts at this stage and it’s going to come down to the numbers and which players we bring in,” he said.

“There are probably two or three players we’re looking at. Unfortunately, there are probably players at every club that just have to wait until the end of trade period.

“We’ll make that decision as quick as we can for those guys.”

Overall, Mahoney said Melbourne was aiming to have “three to five” picks in the NAB AFL Draft and adding earlier picks via the trade period.  

“We think getting picks inside the top 10 is going to be really important this year. There is still a lot of talent in that top group, so we would definitely want to have picks early on in this draft,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot of faith in our recruiting department and the work that they do. We’ve got a really strong team of recruiters, well led by Jason Taylor.

“To also get an Aaron vandenBerg in, off the rookie list – from the work that our pro scout Kelly O’Donnell was doing to find those players – we’ve got a lot of faith that they’ll bring in the type of players we want.

“That gives us the confidence to go in the draft with the extra picks, if we have them.”