Sydney Swans Recruiting and List Strategy Manager, Kinnear Beatson said the Swans will need to ‘think on their feet’ at Thursday night’s AFL Draft on the Gold Coast.

Following the outstanding 2012 season and premiership win, the Swans’ highest pick in the Draft is selection 23, which is the final selection of the first round.

With most clubs ahead of the Swans in the draft order, Beatson told SwansTV the club’s recruiting team would need to adjust their selections as the draft progresses.

“Given our first pick is 23, in years gone by that’s a second round pick but because of all the compensation picks that have gone around, it’s still our first round pick, but it’s very late,” he said.

“You try to read how the draft is unfolding and look at what the options are when the selections come around and work out if you can take a type of player there and still get another one later on.

“For us, we’ll have to think on our feet a little bit. I don’t like the strategy of just having a list of 1-50 and just crossing them off.

“If you did it that way you could end up with three on-ballers and your needs with a list of 38 could be that you don’t need three new on-ballers coming in.”
Beatson added that this year’s draft pool was rich in midfielders rather than bigger, key-position players and ruckmen.

“(The strengths would be) more so the midfield group and the medium-sized utilities,” he said.

“It’s not a special draft in regards to key position players or ruckman or genuine leg speed. There’s a few - but we’re anticipating that most of those will go pretty early in the draft.”

The Swans have a long history of developing late picks into quality senior players, including the likes of premiership-winning trio Sam Reid (pick 38, 2009), Luke Parker (pick 40, 2010) and Alex Johnson (pick 57, 2010) in recent years.

Despite holding a late first round pick and another selection deep in round two, Beatson said the Swans were still confident of again finding quality young players within this year’s selection pool.

“We remain confident that we will be able to get some players who will develop into good AFL players,” he said.

“Selection 23 is one of those numbers when you just sit there and keep crossing off a lot of names, but we’ve got a list now where there are 24 players we would consider at (pick) 23, so obviously one of those players will have to get through.”

The Swans coaching staff and recruiting team have put in countless hours studying this year’s draft options, a process Beatson says is a lot more than simply watching potential draftee’s on-field vision.

“(Recruitment staff) Michael Agresta, Ric Barham and myself came up to Sydney to go through the options with the match committee and get their views on where the game is going and what our list needs are,” he said.

“From there it’s a work in progress, if you like, and involved in that is sitting with Grant Brecht, our psychologist, and going through the psych programs which are compiled at the draft combine, as well as sitting down with Nathan Gibbs our doctor and Matt Cameron out physio and going through the medical screening which occurred and see whether or not we need to change that list around.”

Following Thursday’s draft, there is only a short turnaround before the club’s newest players arrive at the SCG and Beatson said he expected the new draftees could begin training as soon as next week.

“The draft is on Thursday the 22nd, so immediately after that on the Friday and the Saturday, Dennis Carroll, our Welfare Manager, and I will go and visit the players and their family, and try to have them set up to relocate on the Sunday, so they are here on the Monday to do their medicals and training,” he said.

“Our other group of first and second-year players return on the 23rd (of November) so we don’t want them too far behind that.

“By that stage most of the boys have finished their year 12 or university studies and are in a position to relocate, and they are probably eager to get going or arrive at their new club and meet the staff and the coaches and new team mates.”

Re-visit sydneyswans.com.au on Thursday night and Friday to get the lowdown on the Sydney Swans’ newest draftees.