THE SYDNEY Swans have defended their decision to make room for just three selections in this year's NAB AFL Draft, despite the recent challenges of an ageing squad.

Talk the Swans were approaching a generational change warmed when they lost six of eight games between rounds 14 and 21, suggesting a side that had featured in the finals for five years – claiming the 2005 premiership – was finally falling behind its opponents.

They wouldn't be denied a sixth appearance but ruckman Peter Everitt and midfielder Ben Mathews saw their time to retire.

Still, the Swans have five players on their list over 30 with co-captain Brett Kirk the oldest at 32.

Despite the widespread notion that it was the last 'uncompromised' draft – before Gold Coast enters the competition in 2011 – coach Paul Roos stuck by the club's planning.

He said there was a danger of having too many young players arrive at once.

"The reality is in a footy team is that you can only play 22 players, so if you've got 15 kids on the list it's unlikely they're going to play anyway," he said from Terrigal on the New South Wales central coast.

"But we took three [draftees] last year, we elevated a couple of rookies – Nick Smith and Matty O'Dwyer – we had six kids playing their first game last year and now we've added another three, so we were starting to become a lot younger.

"You don't want to take kids or rookies just for the sake of it, you've got to be pretty sure they're going to play AFL football because it's an expensive exercise developing kids, and you can tend to waste money."

The Swans added three 17-year-olds – Lewis Johnston (pick 12), Dan Hannebery (30) and Campbell Heath (61) – in last Saturday's draft, with Hannebery and Heath to complete their schooling in Melbourne next year.

And former Magpie Rhyce Shaw became a Swan in October's exchange period – the fourth player traded in from another club in the last three seasons after Martin Mattner (Adelaide) and Henry Playfair (Geelong) in 2007 and Everitt (Hawthorn) in 2006.

"It's just the way our list works at the moment," player personnel manager Stuart Maxfield said. "I suppose you've got to weigh up how many players are in contract.

"We were only left with the minimum three selections.

"I think it was a great draft, particularly the amount of talls on offer. A couple of clubs went tall with all their selections. But it gets back to the dynamics of the list and we were happy to pick up three really talented players."

The Swans confirmed on Tuesday that international rookie positions had been accepted by Canadian Michael Pyke and Irishman Kyle Coney.

"We're pretty confident about the players we've got on our list right now," Maxfield said. "We've got a few international players on our list which we'd expect to upgrade in the next few years.

"And we're really confident in the players we've chosen in the last two years."

Maxfield added that attention had now turned to the NAB AFL Rookie Draft on December 16.