apologies, I got it. Had to walk away from it and try a few more things before I clicked the 'Sequence Options' beside the Import As: Composition - Retain Layer Styles
Sequence Options as Illustrator/PDF/EPS sequence
I guess its a sequence.
and my next try would be the force alphabetical order, as all the layers import alphabetically without checking it
EDIT - force alphabetical order doesn't seem to do anything for me, its all alphabetical either way - how about an original order?