It might be a little premature to label Gold Coast SUNS young gun Touk Miller as a draft bargain just yet, but after only one season he has already demonstrated enough to suggest he could be one of the premier players from his draft class over the next ten to twelve years.
 
Miller was selected with the SUNS third pick in the 2014 national draft, at No. 29, and quickly got his hands dirty in his debut season. The tenacious onballer played all 22 games in 2015, and did so in such a convincing manner he finished fourth in Gold Coast’s best and fairest.
 
Recruiting isn’t a race of who plays first or who establishes themselves the quickest, it is about who can produce the best football for the longest amount of time.
 
And whilst Miller has leapt out of the blocks, and quicker than most from the 2014 crop, he has displayed character traits that indicate he will prosper for a long time at the highest level.
 
It may be a stretch to categorise pick No. 29 as anywhere near bargain territory given it is a second round pick, but it is relative to who was taken beforehand. Miller’s draft class has hardly played a sufficient amount of football yet make an accurate assessment, but already he looms as one of the more enthralling picks, particularly from outside the first round.
 
Since the inception of the draft in 1986, players taken with pick No. 29 have accumulated an average of 75 games. In this millennium, the pick has acquired a handful of quality, including Jamie Charman, Lewis Roberts-Thompson, Eric MacKenzie, Jack Gunston, Dayne Beams and new Gold Coast recruit Matt Rosa.
 
In the case of Miller, who averaged 17 possessions and five tackles in his first year, the writing is on the wall. In a short space of time he has earmarked himself as someone who has a big future in the game and who could, over time, emerge as the biggest steal from the 2014 cattle call.