With fingerprints all over the Brisbane Lions’ premiership three-peat, followed by Sydney’s 20 years of excellence, footy has had few better talent spotters than Kinnear Beatson. He unpacks more than three decades of list management hits and misses with LINDA PEARCE
Kinnear Beatson has an intimate, decades-long familiarity with the AFL recruiters’ version of the old leadership proverb: success belongs to others and the mistakes are all yours.
“No doubt about it. That’s always the case,” quipped the celebrated former list architect, whose CV includes four flags from nine Grand Finals with the Lions and Swans from 1994 to 2025.
“If a player turns out all right, it’s always (because of) the coaching. If the player turns out to be no good, it’s always the recruiting. That’s the same for everybody.”
Beatson is clear about something else, too.
“I’m quite open in saying I’m yet to see a coach win a premiership on the back of a crap list, no matter how good they are or what their reputation is.”
Fortunate, then, that he has helped to build many exceptional rosters during long associations with Leigh Matthews and John Longmire and shorter stints with Robert Walls, Paul Roos and, briefly, Dean Cox, while working with administrators of the calibre of Andrew Ireland, Tom Harley and Dean Moore during a 30-plus-year journey from physical education teacher to one of the game’s elite talent whisperers.
Last December, after a succession-planning strategy hatched during the Covid pandemic, Beatson stepped back from his day-to-day duties as general manager of list strategy and recruitment into a part-time role with the Swans’ Academy.
And if Beaston, 69, laments that semi-retirement isn’t yet all he hoped it would be, given that his job was also his passion and hobby, he is happy to dig into the memory vault and share recollections from a “fulfilling” career.
The best picks, some of them plucked sight unseen, and a few he wishes he’d made; the sentimental successes, and the line-ball calls.
A sneaky manoeuvre or two, and an uncomfortable moment in a lift where he asked a youngster’s mum how tall his dad was, for height-predicting purposes, only to be eventually told that was irrelevant as the kid was adopted. Oh. OK. Awkward.
And the ‘if-only’ scenarios, such as going to watch a smoky in the Bendigo Football League called Dustin Martin, then working out he was ineligible until the following season’s draft. Or identifying a mature-aged prospect called Isaac Smith, only for Alastair Clarkson’s Hawks to nab him first.
Beatson is still waiting to hear from Roos about the 2009 National Draft coup, after analysis of the list demographics identified a specific gap in 21-25-year-olds (leading to trades for Josh Kennedy, Shane Mumford, Ben McGlynn and Mark Seaby), as well as a deficiency in kicking skills and a need for speed.
The Swans had picks No. 6 and 14, and Roos was keen on grabbing Lewis Jetta first and hoping Gary Rohan was still on the board at 14.
Those were the simpler days when draft selections could not be traded, and Beatson told the list management group he believed taking Rohan first would mean also getting Jetta at 14, but the reverse wouldn’t be true.
“‘Roosy’ probably won’t admit to this, but he did say ‘if you can pull this off, you’re a genius’,” Beatson said.
“I’m still yet to hear from Roosy about being a genius, but that was the intel I had.”
Longmire also fondly remembers that draft coup, while praising the collaborative approach of his close friend that generated strong buy-in from coaches and staff.
“I just loved working with Kinnear. I loved the interactions that we had. I loved the fact he was so passionate about the kids coming through,” said Longmire, who appreciated both the broadness of vision and ability to mine the rookie draft for “long-term quality A-grade senior players who were important culture people as well”.
Back in the day, Walls left list-building strategy to the recruiters. Matthews? Zero interest. Not his job. Roos was all over it. Longmire next level again. There were “plenty of spirited discussions”, the latter admits, and much communal studying of the list matrix, but the key trait Beatson has always sought is competitiveness, combined with a drive to succeed.
There’s also decision-making at key moments when the heat in the kitchen is hottest. Athleticism. Positional flexibility, if your main spot is filled.
Everyone, he says, gets seduced at times by the “sexiness” of exquisite skills, silky movement or sublime physical attributes, but there is so much more to what makes a player. And, collectively, a club.
“If you screw it up you can be in trouble for a long time,” said Beatson, for whom the biggest change has
been the shift towards data and analysis rather than relying on
gut feel, instinct, experience and the interview process.
“The role is to try to assemble a squad of players that immediately can have an impact and push for finals, as well as strategically having enough talented youth to look after the future.
“But also, to look at other opportunities such as free agency, out of contract players, international rookies, etc, that can fill gaps in your list and potentially hopefully jag a really good one.”
Referencing Dane Rampe and Jake Lloyd as near 300-gamers and Harry Cunningham at 200-plus, Beatson was amazed when arriving at the Swans late in 2006 how little attention was given to the Rookie Draft that would ultimately provide nine members of the 2016 Grand Final team.
What has also endured is the treasured art of trying to predict what a player might become rather than what they are, using all the information Beatson could glean.
“In the end, most of them get caught out if they’re not competitive beasts, and our system weeds a lot of them out anyway, but when I was in recruiting, I would look for other things they did,” he said, nominating 2003 Brisbane Lions’ draftee, 2010 club champion and 243-gamer at two clubs, Michael Rischitelli, a black belt in karate.
Recruiters watch games differently to coaches; their eyes on individuals, not game styles and structures.
Beatson prefers the side-on view rather than behind the goals. Looks for moments within games. What players do and don’t. Under pressure. And not. Decision-making. Fumbling. Not.
Given the hundreds of picks since his first draft with the Brisbane Bears as its Victorian office manager and recruiter in 1994, Beatson rates his strike rate as roughly 60 per cent
and said sometimes the highest picks were the hardest, given the volume of elite options.
Rischitelli was a good one down low – pick 61 – after some injury issues.
“That year I didn’t see him play live at all, but I did like what I saw on the vision with really clean hands, strong over the ball, good decision-maker, quick decision-maker,” he said.
Daniel Bradshaw was another. Didn’t play in the under-18s, and the Lions recruiting team did not get to Wodonga to see him live. Took the punt, anyway.
A particular favourite was Craig Bolton, the Lion-turned-premiership Swan, dual All-Australian, dual best and fairest and respected leader at his second club, having failed to win favour in Brisbane.
Another was Luke Parker, pick 40 in the 2010 National Draft, and a premiership player with Sydney two years later.
So, who would Beatson choose if he could rewind the clock?
Fremantle gun and lifelong Swans fan Caleb Serong, perhaps, when Sydney preferred Dylan Stephens (traded to North Melbourne after 43 games).
Beatson admitted: “Somehow, I talked myself out of it late … I just wasn’t sure where his body type was gonna go and whether he’d have the run.
“And David Mundy (Fremantle, pick 19 in the 2003 draft) I got completely wrong. I didn’t see him being a player.
“I think every recruiter – if they’re honest – would say there are players that they’ve missed, and if they had their time again …”
In 2017, there was a toss-up between Ed Richards (All-Australian at the Western Bulldogs) and Matthew Ling (four games for the Swans before his 2021 delisting, now at SANFL club Norwood), who was carrying a foot injury the scouts didn’t know about.
And any sleepless nights over not matching a 2015 father-son bid for Josh Dunkley, the triple premiership player with the Bulldogs and Lions?
“Not really. There’s a bit more to the story than will ever come out,” he said, noting Dunkley’s initial reluctance to move interstate, and the Swans’ deficiencies in foot skills back then.
“To be fair to Josh, and I think he would say it as well, he wasn’t a very good kick. I still wouldn’t call him an elite kick, (but) he’s turned into an excellent player and an absolute competitor … so I’ve got to wear that.
“That was my responsibility. Do I have nightmares over it? No. But full credit to him.”
So, let’s get sentimental, then.
“Aaah,” Beatson said, smiling.
“I am with most of them because you can see how for the vast majority that opportunity has changed their life.
“Tommy Papley’s always very grateful and that’s a great story with Tommy, and you see where his life’s at now, and how happy he is.
“Lukey Power, when we drafted Luke up to Brisbane, his mum and dad were, ‘well, you’d better bloody look after him’, and to see the fine young man he’s turned into now is pretty gratifying.”
Then there’s the revolving door cohort who arrive but don’t stay (“Jordan Dawson’s breaking my heart at the moment with what he’s doing”), for reasons including the pull of home and cost of living differences.
Or the whiff of opportunity that works both ways, with Shane Mumford, denied a No. 1 ruck chance at Geelong, among the ins, but Dawson (Adelaide), Darcy Cameron (Collingwood) and Aliir Aliir (Port Adelaide) among the outs who move clubs and “turn into the player you thought they were gonna be”.
And those never taken at all?
Recruiters as grief counsellors? We discuss the top 50-rated son of a close friend of this writer who was left on the board at the end of a recent National Draft, only for Beatson to visit in the days that followed to offer feedback to the devastated lad.
Beatson doesn’t visit every kid who misses out, but sensed the “need” in this case due to the scale of the disappointment; empathy was part of his teaching days, and remains so.
Yet there is less sympathy for the hopefuls who don’t always put themselves out there at the Draft Combine for fear of failing, which is what helped to endear Jed Adcock to Beatson circa-2003 at the Lions.
“When you talk about character and grit, Jed had a lot of that, and I remember distinctly being up in Canberra for the Draft Combine, and they were doing the 3km time trial, and I said to Jed afterwards, ‘What was wrong? You looked like you were dragging a railway sleeper behind you’.
“He said, ‘I don’t know, I just don’t feel right’. So, I said, ‘Well, maybe you need to go and get some blood tests’.
He rang me back a week later and he had glandular fever.
“But what you often see at the Draft Combine is a lot of kids put their hand up NOT to test. ‘I won’t put myself out there’.” And that is a red flag, if not a white one.
Others at the Combine – where exhaustion and the repetitive nature of the interview process can cloud the picture – made an impact too.
Like Oscar Allen, the former West Coast captain, now a Lion.
“Some of the kids could have up to 10 interviews a night and by the time they get to you they’re just done,” he said.
“And being able to read the play on their emotions and where they were at, it’s a pretty stressful time for those kids, and a lot of the questions get repetitive, so a lot of the times I’d just throw in a question like, ‘what’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your life?’
“One NSW boy who lived on a farm said to us, ‘probably borrowing the old man’s ute and running the emus into the fence’, and I was ‘Oh, OK!’’’
Did Sydney pick him? No.
“Then there was Oscar Allen. Oh, God almighty. We said, ‘Tell us a little bit about yourself, Oscar’. Well, about an hour-and-a-half later … and apparently, he’d been like that with everybody. He just had his spiel ready and didn’t take a breath.”
As for the sneakiest draft manoeuvre, perhaps Papley in the 2015 Rookie Draft.
Aware a rival club was interested, Beatson called the manager of the second player in the mix to say the Swans were going to pick him first, which filtered back to the other club.
Papley snuck through to No. 14.
“But I always tried to work on the basis that it if you wanted to be a smart-arse and treat people in that industry with disrespect, the industry will find you out at some stage,” Beatson said.
Now, as it all winds down, he is proud not just of the Lions’ three-peat but the Swans’ sustained success and ability (almost) to avoid bottoming out during his 20 years in red and white, by balancing the now with the future.
The bombshell Lance Franklin poaching was Ireland’s work, but Beatson was one of just seven people trusted with a stunning secret that somehow stayed in-house.
The mark of a good club, according to a veteran whose first job was at Carlton as a full-time development officer in 1990; a 2006 dalliance with Adelaide short-lived.
Other highlights include picking the first Sudanese athlete in the National Draft (Aliir at the Swans) and the first South African (Damian Cupido at the Lions) plus the inaugural indigenous No. 1 pick (Des Headland at the Lions), while Beatson is excited about the game’s growing multiculturalism and optimistic about the future of AFLW.
It’s history now that the country kid who trialled at Melbourne in 1977 “and worked out pretty quickly I was a fair way off the mark” as a player followed a different path that included coaching the 1988 Victorian schoolboys team boasting a 14-year-old Jason McCartney, Anthony Koutoufides, Matthew Croft and others.
That, we suggest, and he happily agrees, was a pretty good list. Something Kinnear Beatson can recognise, having built a few in his time.
Linda Pearce is an award-winning Melbourne-based sportswriter (and Melbourne supporter) who started covering football in the 1980s.