"Paddy McCartin's the player we're going to pick," Tony Elshaug began. "After much deliberation and debate about who's going to be the best player for the next 12 years and the best player for St Kilda, Paddy's the man. He ticks all the boxes, we feel. He has power, he's aggressive, he has strong character and he's a natural forward. He knows where to lead and when to lead. He splits packs open and brings the ball to ground when he doesn't mark it. He's a great team player and he's unselfish when he gets the ball. He used to be an inconsistent set shot but he's worked hard and improved that and it's just going to keep getting better. His kicking in the field is very good. He has strong character. Everything about him stands up, so he's the one we're going with."

"What's he been doing in the last few weeks?" Richardson asked. "We've obviously spoken a bit about Paddy and his ability to get into elite shape. What have you noticed since the season ended?"

"He's had a personal trainer, and he's the one who instigated that," Elshaug said. "He's done a really good job and he looks in terrific shape. You can see he's really leaned up – he kept working through his exams and in the last month he's dropped a couple of kilos, dropped 11 on the skinfolds. You can see the definition in his arms and his body. He looks the part. He's been flipping tyres, doing all that sort of stuff, and from what everyone says he's really sucked up the work."

"How good is his engine?" asked Matt Finnis, the CEO. "Is it good, or elite?"

"Not elite," said Elshaug. "But probably the only standout tall forward in the draft who has better endurance than him is Peter Wright. That's all. So it's not elite, but his father was a good cross-country runner and Paddy as of 18 months ago was able to run a 13-and-a-half beep test. The thing is, he has a natural desire to compete and work and he loves training, he loves the contest. You think about all that, and you think about what you've seen of late, and it's well, jeez, he's going to do the work and he's going to get to a very, very good standard."

"What have we decided about the diabetes?" asked the coach.

"We've done a lot of work in that regard," said Elshaug. "In some ways it's been a positive for him. It's got him organised, it's helped him form some resilience, it's kept him on his toes and it put up a hurdle that he's been able to overcome."

Bains was in the briefing, too. "He's been able to manage it at every level he's stepped up to. And what's given us comfort is that, as all the people we've spoken to have pointed out, he'll be coming into a professional environment where his whole day is mapped out and structured and he'll have more help than he's even had to this point."

"So putting that aside, is there a ceiling that comes with it?" asked Finnis. "Is there a point he can get to with his conditioning and that's it, because of the condition?"

"The simplest way of explaining it from a medical point of view is that if you manage it properly, he's no different to anyone else," said Bains. "That's it in a nutshell."

"That was my concern driving back from his home," said Richardson. "I was thinking, 'He's been asked to step it up this year in a much more serious way than ever before, and the best he's been able to do is low 60s in skinfolds. So is that because of his condition? Because if it is, it's going to be very hard for him to cope'. Obviously he's been doing a lot of work and we need to trust the experts, but he's pick one. He needs to be elite. We need this guy to be a ripper."

"He will be, and that's why we're picking him," said Elshaug. "Put that aside, because we know we can manage it. He's an elite, aggressive player with power who has great character."

"People have achieved a lot with it, even in some of the really full-on endurance-type sports like cycling and triathlons," said Bains. "And in those sports you need to be out there for a very long time going full tilt."

"OK. So another question. Is there a sense that he's a tall forward, it's a difficult role to play, so it will take longer for him to develop into the player he can be?" asked Finnis. "I'm thinking of that in combination with the expectation that comes with being pick one. Is that something you've factored into your thinking?"

"Everything's been factored in," said Elshaug. "It's like, OK, health-wise he's going to be fine. His potential athletically is the same as anyone else, or better. Then after that it's: right, he's a key forward and they take a bit longer. That's OK. We're here for the journey."

"I think you factor in the short term, but you don't pick for the short term," added Bains. "You wouldn't pick them to play next year just because it would be great for us. Not with where we're at."

"He'll play some games and he'll do quite well," said Elshaug. "How many? Well, that will depend on a whole range of things, but if he plays double figures, great. He needs some continuity. The continuity is going to be really good for him."

"OK. So Richo, this isn't a short-term decision," said Finnis. "Are you happy with that? Are you looking at the list and thinking, OK, 2017, what's there? Is that something that's relevant to you, who you've got on the list then?"

"Most definitely," said Richardson. "I look at what's just happened with [Tom] Boyd. There's always midfielders. Let's say we can't split them and we go with [Christian] Petracca because his history suggests he might play a bit more and have a bigger impact next year. There's no doubt he might do that. But then we've got to back the truck up and get Tom Hawkins out of Geelong, or whatever the case may be. I think that certainly comes into it. But before that even comes into it, it's reassuring for Trout to say, "No, this guy is the better player, he's the best player in the draft'."

"That's what we think. And there isn't much between the two of them," said Elshaug. "There's not much between the three of them, to be frank. [Angus] Brayshaw could be captain of Melbourne in five years."

"Paddy's personality − and you know him much better than I do, Trout – but his personality and the way his teammates talk about him reminds me a lot of Luke Hodge," said Richardson. "He's a forward so he's obviously a very different type of player, but what Hodge has done for Hawthorn has been incredible, really. I see a bit of that in Luke Dunstan and I mention it because I see McCartin as being a bit similar. He's probably not as blunt as Luke, but he comes across to me as someone who's honest in what he says and does."

"That's his style," said Elshaug. "He's aware of his and other people's feelings, but he's earthy and straight to the point. His teammates will love him. They'll want to be around him."

"How badly do you think he wants it, though?" asked Richardson. "I know that when Collingwood drafted [Dale] Thomas and [Scott] Pendlebury, Thomas was a real competitor and Pendlebury was a bit different. He was driven to be great. He'd make statements about where he was going to get to, and he got there. I'm not sure where this guy sits. Is he driven to be great? I didn't get any sense of that either way when we were out there."

"Oh, he is. He definitely is," said Elshaug.

"He's definitely competitive, I have no question about that. I just think you have to have one or the other. If you don't have one, you're in a bit of strife."

"We think this guy is someone we'll be able to build a team around over a period of time," said Elshaug. "It's early, but at this stage there seems to be very little at the top end of next year's draft in terms of key forwards. And what happened with Boyd has changed the landscape of football for the future."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Finnis.

"What changed? The price you have to pay to get something that is very, very hard to find. You have to give up a lot, you have to pay them a lot and you basically have to say to the rest of the group, 'It's about this guy now, so you get a bit less, and you get a bit less, and we can't go and get this other player because this guy's getting most of the dough'. That's what you're saying. At the end of the day, we'd like to have a group of players coming through in every position, and that's how we'll build a team over time. But if you don't have a quality key forward it won't be 2018 when we're planning to play finals, it will be 2025. You've got to have at least one."

"So the market forces say that if we draft one, we might still have to pay overs compared to the performance of other players on the list, but less overs?" asked Finnis.

"There's almost always two groups of players, aren't there?" said Richardson. "There's the group that says, 'I want to win a flag now', which means clubs like Hawthorn will get them for unders, and there's clubs like us and the Bulldogs, who are building, who have to pay significant overs because their motivation is not necessarily about instant success, it's about the contract. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just reality."

"There's a lot of things that come into it," said Elshaug. "But it's the icing on the cake in making this decision. It's not the basis of the decision – the basis is his football. It's a bonus, and a good bonus."

"There's an alternative view to this, which I don't necessarily agree with," said Finnis. "You could say Boyd changed the game and that if you're a club like us trying to build momentum and grow, then you have to pay overs to get those sorts of players in. So are you better off drafting players who are going to have more of an impact in the short term? Players who can get us to a point where we have to pay less overs to get people in because we're more competitive? Because you risk losing guys these days. You risk losing them because they might not want to wait around for four or five years like they used to."

"I know where you're coming from," said Richardson. "I'm just thinking, in my mind, that it's 2018, 2019, 2020 for us. I want us to make the right decision and get the best player for us given everything we've just discussed. I don't think we can ignore what happened with Boyd and I agree with Trout. We're not going to win one unless we have one."

"That's what history says," said Elshaug. "Hawthorn had Roughead and Franklin and Gunston. Geelong had Hawkins, Mooney and Podsiadly. Brisbane had Brown, Bradshaw, Lynch. We had our chance, too, but now here we are. And one of the reasons that's happened is because we spent all our money on too few players. We spent it on 10 players, and it left a big gulf. We had 55 per cent of the money going to 10 players."

"More," said Bains. "Just over 60 per cent."

"So you can see why we don't think we should go out and spend a lot of our money on just one player. Paddy's here, and we have the pick, and we're picking him."