West Coast Eagles CEO Don Pyke defended the club's decision to split Pick 3 in this year's draft.
Much to the displeasure of fans and pundits alike, the Eagles traded their third pick in this year's "superdraft" for Carltons Pick 12 and 14, along with Matt Owies. The Eagles then turned that Pick 14 into Liam Baker.
Don Pyke acknowledged that the deal seemed strange but urged fans to look at the bigger picture.
"The choice was made, and I guess it was not going to be popular with everyone," Pyke said on SEN.
"But we are going to get a good player, we believe at 12, not as good as we would get at three, we recognise that, but we believe there is going to be a really good player available to us at 12.
"And we'll now do work to try and close the Barrass deal and hopefully get ourselves back into this draft in some form or fashion."
The club was able to identify the holes in their list and sought to rectify them by recruiting a trio of proven talents out West.
"We're looking at how do we build the list, and to a point where we've got a recognised gap between 23 and 27-year-olds on our list through various reasons, but a gap is there.
"We looked at how do we help fill that gap... to allow the guys that we're bringing in like Baker and (Jack) Graham and Owies are all consistent, good performing AFL footballers," he said.
As well as addressing the decision to split Pick 3, Pyke confirmed the Eagles are interested in acquiring contracted Lion Deven Robertson.
"Those conversations are ongoing and its now just a matter of where does he fit in the overall package and what does it look like, but we'll continue to explore the possibility of bringing Dev into the club as well," he said.
West Coast Eagles currently hold one first round pick but look to bolster their draft hand as trade talks over Tom Barrass resume with Hawthorn.
