ROB SNOWDON called it the "war room" of his Port Adelaide football department.

"And it was always locked," recalls inaugural Port Adelaide AFL national recruiting manager Alan Stewart.

From the club's AFL foundation stage in the mid-1990s to the breakthrough premiership success in 2004, Stewart was putting names on the whiteboards in that war room - players to consider for trades each October, teenagers to draft in November.

One whiteboard in that locked room summed up Stewart's key philosophy that should be the basis of every recruiting department's work - the board with the premiership puzzle. Of the 20-odd positions that make up a premiership team (22 in 2004, 23 today), Stewart would underline the name of the player he considered a flag winner. The gaps highlighted how much work he had to do.

"At the start," recalls Stewart of the mission he began once Port Adelaide's draft concessions were outlined in 1996, "we probably had six or eight names on that whiteboard. With each draft and each trade period, we kept adding until I say we had 16-20 ... a good number to explain why we had sustained good performances from 2001-2004 (when Port Adelaide won 16, 18, 18 and 17 games in 22-round home-and-away series).

"The last pieces of the puzzle were not from the draft but trades for experienced players - first Damien Hardwick (in 2001 from Essendon) and then Byron Pickett (from North Melbourne in 2002). The puzzle was complete," adds Stewart with the 2004 premiership triumph against Brisbane highlighting his career work at Alberton.

Stewart was the "outsider" when he came to Port Adelaide from SANFL club Central District and the SANFL junior programs in 1996, yet his values were as true to Port Adelaide as anyone born and bred at Alberton.

Unlike other AFL recruiting managers, Stewart would be found at scouting grounds - such as under-18 national championship matches or under-age games in Victoria - as the lone wolf working to a strict agenda. He was not distracted by other voices. He did not second guess. He did not compromise.

"My strong advocacy was to pick players who would make up a premiership team," says Stewart of a theme that seems quite logical.

In the speculative field of drafting - where some recruiters feel they are measured by the number of games or personal awards won by a player - Stewart says he never "speculated".

"I worked to a plan," he says. "First of all, you picked players for the 'Port Adelaide way'. The best example, Josh Carr.

"From my time at Central District and at the SA Teal Cup (under-18) program - where you are looking at the best of the crop in the SANFL - there was a formula I never moved away from. There was no speculative pick. There was for me, from the mid-1970s, a clear picture on the player you needed to recruit to win a premiership.

"The same philosophy, the same formula applied at Port Adelaide when we set up the inaugural squad in the 1996 draft and the premiership side for 2004.

"Every game I watched was about finding players who lived to three basic demands of that formula:

"First, did they have a clean ball take?

"Second, did they make good decisions?

"Third, could they execute the basic skills of foot and hand?

"What do those three basics lead to? A player who can link the play from backs to forwards. Do all three, you have a player who links up to his team-mate further afield. You get the ball from one end of the field to the other.

"The clean take is important. I always looked for players who did not fumble. They had an extra second or two to then work on the second element of the formula - making good decisions.

"And the clean field kick is a must. An absolute must."

But there are intangibles in a draft prospect, the themes that lead to psyche testing and background checks.

"I wanted players with a competitive spirit - that is Josh Carr and Dom Cassisi," says Stewart.

"I wanted players with character - and I put the Cornes brothers in that category, even if they had different characters. Kane was obsessive; Chad was flippant. And all four players are premiership players.

"But from all these themes, I still looked at what they did on the football field - or, more to the point, what they did not do. They did not fumble. They had good field kicks - and that is more important now than the coaches have congested the field.

"And every decision on which player to recruit was based on filling up that premiership team on the whiteboard in the war room as Rob Snowdon called it."

Since 1996, Port Adelaide has averaged 10 changes to its player list each year - eight by draft picks and two through trades. Trades - which are more specific - have often delivered more than draft picks, by the numbers. From the 226 draft picks, the average game count from the draftees is 43 matches; trade recruits have delivered a game average of 63.

The 2000 draft-trade period stands as Stewart's most memorable.

Darryl Wakelin returned home from St Kilda to become an AFL premiership player during the trade period.

Stewart called at 12, 20, 35 and 50 in the national draft - Shaun Burgoyne, Kane Cornes, Allan Murray and Domenic Cassisi.

"There is so much tension in that draft," says Stewart.

"Shaun Burgoyne was certain to be a super superstar. But it meant giving up Matthew Bode who was a good player.

"Kane Cornes ... we know what the Cornes name meant at Port Adelaide at that time (as the sons followed the angst created by their father, known Port Adelaide antagonist Graham Cornes).

"And Dom Cassisi created so much debate. (Senior coach) Mark Wiliiams was not so sure. (Assistant coach) Phil Walsh was. Phil, Dean Bailey and Matt Rendell insisted that you back in the recruiting staff; they were very strong on backing in the recruiting manager. We picked three players who were perfect for our needs - they became part of completing that premiership puzzle for the Port Adelaide Football Club."