The West Coast Eagles will target the best available talent with the club’s two valuable first-round draft picks, National Recruiting Manager Rohan O’Brien says.

West Coast currently holds picks No.8 and 12 in the opening round, set to be staged on Monday evening at Marvel Stadium.

“They are good picks and we’ll just stick to the talent ranking at those picks,” O’Brien told AFL.com.au’s Draft Countdown show.

The Eagles also hold picks 20 and 26, plus a potential fifth selection at No.71 overall, which the club will decide whether to use on the second night of the draft on Tuesday depending on who is left in the draft pool.

O’Brien reiterated West Coast would continue to back itself to retain players drafted from outside Western Australia - as has been the case with the likes of current players Luke Shuey, Andrew Gaff, Shannon Hurn, Tom Cole and Liam Duggan.

“If you think you’ve got players close together in talent and one is in WA and one is outside you’ll probably lean towards the local,” O’Brien said.

“But we’ll continue to back our club in and if we think that there’s a player there that’s significantly better we’ll back ourselves to keep the player.”

West Coast’s draft hand this year will continue the strategy of transitioning the list via the national player ballot, after five players – Vic Country product Campbell Chesser and West Australian quartet Brady Hough, Rhett Bazzo, Jack Williams and Greg Clark – joined the club last year.  

“It’s been a deliberate plan. We did start last year and then we did the trade last year (with Port Adelaide) which gave us an extra (second-round) pick this year (No.26), and at this point we’ve got three picks in the first two rounds next year,” O’Brien said.

“We’ve had a list that has been quite mature and we’ve had some success through the 2010s period, if you like, but we realise that we need to refresh things and it’s been quite deliberate.”