ONE day, maybe a year or three down the track, the Swans hope their latest recruit, Lewis Johnston, will fill the boots of Barry Hall. But that is in the future and, as he unwittingly discovered yesterday, it's a bit early to be stepping - or sitting - in for Hall.

As the case was last year, the Swans again added youth to their playing roster from Saturday's national draft, a key ingredient considering their much-publicised ageing list, with the likes of Hall, Brett Kirk, Michael O'Loughlin, Leo Barry, and Jared Crouch all on the other side of 30. With pick 12 they got Johnston, a tall, athletic, key position player, with 30 midfielder Dan Hannebery, and pick 61 brought them young defender Campbell Heath.

"It's really good to have the opportunity to be with them and learn from them, learning from the best hopefully I can achieve my best potential," Johnston said of working with Hall and O'Loughlin. "To be a key position forward for the Swans would be my dream."

Then he explained how he had met Hall moments earlier. "Yeah, I sat in Barry Hall's seat at the meeting," he said. "There was a bit of yelling and that woke me up straight away. He just sat on me, and everyone just laughed. I was a bit nervous. I didn't know what to say, so I just moved away, didn't saying anything."

Johnston, 17, from Port Pirie, will move to Sydney to live, train and play in the reserves next year. The other pair will continue to live in Melbourne while finishing school, and will play junior football in the TAC Cup. While two of Sydney's three draftees from 2007 - Patrick Veszpremi and Craig Bird - made their senior debuts last season, coach Paul Roos said there was no pressure on the latest crop to do likewise.

"It's a longer-term view and obviously we've got to get some young kids in the club and look forward beyond Hall and O'Loughlin and 'Kirky' and guys like that," he said. "Hopefully, they will develop over the next couple of years.