VERY few would have had a better insight to the evolution of recruiting than John Beveridge.

The veteran recruiter who next year marks 30 years with the Saints, first became involved in football in 1965 when he took notes for the now defunct Melbourne newspaper The Sun.

Beveridge’s role with the Saints began in player development but he found that he spent more time in recruiting and officially became the Saints’ recruiting manager in 1994.

Beveridge stepped aside from the position at the end of 2006 but still serves as an advisor to Saints recruiting manager Tony Elshaug.

November 22 marks the 27th National Draft, with 18 clubs approaching it with a team of recruiters armed with every possible detail on hundreds of potential draftees.

It is a far cry from the very first draft in 1986 according to Beveridge.

“There were club development blokes but there wasn’t much happening in recruiting. The preparation for that ’86 draft was almost ringing the secretary of a country league and asking who their good players were,” he said.

“St Kilda drafted Steven Sims from West Torrens and I think he signed a contract but never came. It was pretty hit and miss in those days.”

Sims was the second ever player drafted, after the newly formed Brisbane Bears took Martin Leslie with the first selection.

The early years resulted in plenty of West Australian and South Australian players drafted to the eastern states only to never leave their home towns.

In many cases the players knew as little about their new teams as the recruiters knew about the talent.

“We probably had only one part-time recruiter in South Australia and one part-timer in Western Australia. We’ve now got three in each of those states,” Beveridge said.

“In Western Australia now they don’t do much on Sundays whereas they used to play footy every Sunday. That means the cost-effectiveness of covering Perth is not as effective as it used to be. But we’ve got more experience than we used to have.”

After Adelaide’s introduction to the AFL in 1991, the traditional zoning system was officially phased out and the draft became truly national.

The Saints could pick one more crop from their traditional zones but just missed by a few months on grabbing hold of a lifelong Saints fan who went on to be a number one draft pick a few years later.

“At the end of ’91 you could add to your list anyone in your zone who was 15 years old or older. We were able to list Peter Everitt, Damen Shaw and Johnny Georgiou,” he said.

“Jeff White played in our schoolboys team that year and he was in our zone but he was only 14 so he was just too young for us to list him.”

White was drafted by Fremantle with the first pick in 1994 and went on to have a 268-game career with Fremantle and Melbourne where he became a best and fairest and an All-Australian ruckman.

With the national competition came a wider net for recruiters to cast and more detailed methods of observation.

Once upon a time, a player could carefully hide an injury from an interested club but little escapes the recruiters in the modern day.

“The draft camp or the combine as they call it now didn’t come into being until about 1996. The testing of players and the thoroughness of the testing is far better than it was,” Beveridge said.

“The running, jumping, the psychological testing that is done now and the medical testing is very detailed. There was a time when players didn’t have to declare their medical history. A player could have something fairly significant affecting them but clubs wouldn’t know.”

The Saints have scouts all around the country, closely following local and school competitions all around Australia.

But while the tyranny of distance may have once been a disadvantage for some interstate recruits, clubs now have access to footage from a variety of competitions.

“It wasn’t so long ago that vision was at a premium. Now that Champion Data has really become strong on the scene there is vision of every TAC Cup game, every West Australian and South Australian seniors, reserves and colts game and you get selected Tassie games and the NEAFL games,” he said.

“Back then if you wanted a highlights tapes, you’d get it through VHS and there were no IT people to do the tapes for you. Nowadays you can watch them that many times and you can’t just draft on vision but it certainly is a big help. Hopefully with Tony Elshaug’s thoroughness and the assistance of his team, we can bring the Saints the best possible result.”