Four weeks ago, the Sydney Swans were preparing to play North Melbourne in the final round of the home and away season. By that point of the week, five of their players had been suspended for the rest of the year for a breach of club standards. We’d been bombarded with think pieces. We’d been lectured to by personal injury lawyers. Sydney’s chief executive Matthew Pavlich, who’d previously been reading the sports news on Perth television and reporting on dressage from the Paris Olympics, was central to a national conversation about how we talk about violence against women. The prime minister, the governor general and the Victorian premier had all weighed in.
At that stage, much of the outrage had been directed at the way the story was framed as a footballing story. As a result, nearly every single comment on the Swans by the football media was prefaced by an acknowledgment that our thoughts were foremost with the alleged victims. Most of the time they sounded like one of those disclaimers at the end of a betting ad.
Our judgments, conclusions and outrages were clouded, though not necessarily tempered, by the fact that almost none of us knew what had happened in that hotel room. The anger turned towards a few tactless tweets and comments by pundits who make a living saying objectionable things. And it blunted something that was secondary to the police investigation but still relevant – this was an extraordinary sports story. It was a story of a club shorn of several of the best players in the competition, and which had claimed to have torpedoed its own season. It was something we’d almost never seen before in the sport.
Sydney won well that Sunday against North Melbourne. The opposition were feckless, and already half on holiday. For Sydney, it was a reminder that they still had champions on their list, that those who had replaced the suspended players were all hungry and disciplined, and that most of their supporters still wanted to believe in them.
A qualifying final against Brisbane seemed like an impossible task however. It wasn’t helped when Tom Papley appeared to be lame in the warm-up. He’s a fidgety figure at the best of times but the man who stood for the national anthem didn’t seem like someone capable of playing a game of finals football.
But he played, he wrought havoc, and the Swans were magnificent. They slaughtered Brisbane in every aspect of the game, and especially at centre clearances. They had half a dozen players in their first final, all of whom were put in positions where they were best placed to succeed. They were all quick. None of them were defensive liabilities. And all of them had moments – whether it was Tom Hanily’s tackle on Lachie Neale or Jesse Dattoli’s on Kai Lohmamn – where they demonstrated significantly greater intent than their more bemedaled opponents.
In doing so, it forced a reassessment of what makes a winning team, and the importance of landing on the right mix of superstars, middlers and jobbers. Sydney went in without three of their best players, and then lost their captain Callum Mills in the first quarter. Yes, their spirit and effort stood in direct contrast to the Lions. But it was a structural triumph as well. No longer did the team orbit around a constellation of stars whose talent was indisputable, but who weren’t necessarily renowned for doing the dirty work. With a truncated team, they played simpler, more direct football that suited the ground and exposed the opposition. They eschewed their normal forward handball game and instead whacked the ball in long and deep. All of their inclusions stood in the right spots, squeezed space and tackled ferociously.
So many questions remain regarding the five missing players. Will they ever play for Sydney again? Would the club have buried the story if Victoria Police and the Herald Sun hadn’t been first on the scene? What happens, as Rana Hussain asked, if no police charges are laid?
Several of them were players who immediately drew the eye, the sponsors, the adulation, the attention of opposition coaches. Right now, they are footballing unpersons. Substituting them are a handful of players most of us wouldn’t recognise if they popped up in our soup, and who helped take down one of the greatest teams of the past half century. It’s been a sordid affair. But the club has somehow managed not to self-annihilate. If they can topple Fremantle tonight, it would continue one of the best and most improbable finals runs we’ve ever seen.
