With six picks inside the first two rounds of Thursday’s AFL National Draft on the Gold Coast, the Brisbane Lions can afford to be strategic when it comes to selecting from the available talent pool.

The Lions have identified a need for more depth in the midfield and in defence, but are also still on the hunt for a key forward to replace veteran Captain Jonathan Brown in the long-term.

“We are looking at a mixture from this Draft,” National Talent Manager Rob Kerr told The Courier Mail on Sunday.

“Because we've got six picks, it allows us to take a broader list view. We can address a number of areas and be quite strategic.

“We should be able to get a good handful of players who can kick on and cover a few areas of the ground for us.

“I'm pretty confident that even with our last live pick at No.34, we should be able to find a player who has a decent chance of becoming a good AFL footballer."

The Lions are being most strongly linked to Northern Knights half-back Marcus Bontempelli and West Australian forward Cameron McCarthy with their first round selection (Pick No.7 overall).

Despite recruiting young key forward prospects Jackson Paine (from Collingwood) and Jonathan Freeman (from the Hyundai Lions Academy) already during the off-season, McCarthy remains firmly on the Club’s radar.

“They’ve picked up a few talls, but probably not the type of talls with (McCarthy’s) sort of range,” resident afl.com.au Draft expert Callum Twomey said.

“He’s one of the options there for Brisbane at Pick 7, along with Bontempelli and maybe a couple of others if they fall through.”

Twomey’s Phantom Draft will be published on afl.com.au on Wednesday, while The Courier Mail has already predicted that Bontempelli will land at the Lions with Pick No.7.