Sydney Swans General Manager of List Strategy and Recruitment Kinnear Beatson spoke on the final day of the Continental Tyres AFL Trade Radio (Wednesday October 12, 2022).

View all the key quotes below.

NEWS: Aaron Francis will pull on the red and white in 2023, with the Sydney Swans securing a trade with Essendon. Click here for details.

Aaron Francis

We were fortunate enough to get it wrapped up pretty quickly. In the end, we were happy to slide back a couple of picks in the draft.

We are expecting at least one of those selections to be used to match the bid for Will Ashcroft so we will come in one further.

Chris Keane, who works with me in pro-scouting and data analytics had been onto it pretty early and did a lot of work watching Aaron live and on vision, and felt that he plays his best footy in defence and the role we are looking for.

He has good athleticism in terms of his closing speed and his ability to intercept mark and we are still looking for another one of those type of players.

Lance Franklin

It was good to wrap this up for Bud as well. It gave every some clarity in what that situation was and took the pressure off us.

Future draft picks

We could package them up or see what clubs might come forward with regarding one of the picks. We are open minded with that but if nothing happens we are more than happy to go to the draft with Picks 14 and 17 too. We think we will get some good players there.

But we will have a really open mind of it.

Looking at draft talent

We think the draft is really strong for midfielders and running half backs and wingmen. Not so strong in the key position stocks and the ruck so we would be happy with taking players at those selections.

Are you buoyed by players signing on with the Swans this year

It is the reason why we haven’t been terribly active in this period, and we weren’t last year.

We are pretty buoyant with the young group coming through, a lot of those players are still really young. Tom McCartin is 22, Dylan Stephens, Chad Warner, James Rowbottom are all still young. Callum Mills is still a young man. We still think we have plenty to come in that age bracket.

What did surprise us a bit towards the end of the year, was the seasons that Robbie Fox, Ryan Clarke and Sam Reid had and they were all deserved of extensions of their contracts.

Tom Papley and other signings

It’s a relief having him signed up. We have worked really hard to have players like Tom Papley, Isaac Heeney, Callum Mills and those sort of players locked away.

Chad Warner is also locked away for an extended period of time, that is really important to have those players locked in and then you build your team around them.

What it says about the club is I think it says plenty about how hard our welfare department work. It is an area we take great pride in and we have to, because we still relocate so many players so we have to get it right and we are reasonably confident we do a good job of it.