IT WILL be years, as many as five, before questions about the 2007 national draft are answered and yet judgements, it seems, were passed even before it began.

Like investors in a bear market, many clubs opted to limit their exposure to this year's draft. Five clubs, for example, arrived at Telstra Dome yesterday with no more than the legislated minimum of three selections.

Collingwood was one of them and recruiting manager Derek Hine's final selection was Jaxson Barham, a father-son acquisition.

Hawthorn was another. No club has invested more faith in the draft system over recent years than the Hawks and yet they held only three picks and used the last of them on Stuart Dew, a 28-year-old coming out of retirement.

This narrowing of the aperture was common. West Coast was finished by pick 22, with two selections in the first round and two in the second. In and out.

The Kangaroos, who had five selections, redrafted one of their own, Blake Grima, and plucked Scott Thompson from Geelong's VFL side.

Geelong laid relatively low. As premiers, the Cats might have had persuasive reasons to buy heavily into this year's draft. With salary cap issues to manage, it could not have been forgotten that the cheapest players are draftees.

Recruiting manager Stephen Wells carried five selections to his club-coloured draft table and proceeded to use the first of them on a 21-year-old from East Fremantle by the name Harry Taylor and another on Adam Donohue, like Barham a discounted father-son recruit.

Perhaps this was to be expected when, in trade week back in October, lots of business was done. The AFL Players Association, among others, voiced its concern in 2006 when, in its opinion, too few players moved clubs during the annual trash and treasure sale. Not this year.

Admittedly, clubs were no longer compelled to use a draft pick obtained in any trade but almost two dozen players made moves, a sign of two things: that clubs did not value their picks as highly this year as they did last year; and many preferred even a cast-off to their chances at the draft table. It did not pass without note that three of the top 26 players, including the seventh selection, Rhys Palmer, were available in last year's draft.

Fremantle, usually the compulsive trader of the competition, was one club that didn't deal in October. Instead, it held its judgement and then picked Mark Johnson and Kepler Bradley with two of its five picks yesterday. In effect, the Dockers recycled two players, as they do most years, and then met the untried player minimum of three. Palmer was their first selection.

There were exceptions to the apparent view of the merits of this year's draft. Adelaide opened up to it like a whale gulping plankton, using six of its seven selections, and the Western Bulldogs also used six. They, clearly, trust the future.

But many more were asking whether Johnson, at 29, would have even been considered, let alone selected, last year. Most thought not.