‘It doesn’t matter who puts the jumper on’: How the Swans replaced the irreplaceable

Away from football, Sydney Swans chairman Andrew Pridham has built a successful career in finance, a world in which assessing risk and preparing for the consequences are essential tools of the trade.

When the Swans suspended five key players on August 18 for breaching club standards, Pridham was well aware it would likely end their season, and admitted publicly the club had “effectively torpedoed” its premiership chances. It was, he believed, a necessary step.

The Swans arrived at the SCG last Saturday to take on back-to-back premiers Brisbane in a qualifying final without Riley Bice, Nick Blakey, Isaac Heeney, James Jordon and Chad Warner. The corresponding magnets on the whiteboard of coach Dean Cox were impossible to replace.

Heeney is ranked second in the league for score involvements while Warner is ranked first for goal assists. Blakey is one of the best rebounding defenders in the game, with Bice a key emerging talent, while Jordon can nullify the opposition’s best players as a tagger.

Outside of the Swans, little was expected of their replacements: Caiden Cleary, Angus Sheldrick, Jake Lloyd, Harry Cunningham and James Rowbottom.

All were talented, but unheralded. Reliable veterans such as Lloyd and Cunningham, raw youngsters like Cleary and Sheldrick and finally, the selfless Rowbottom, who was carrying a hand injury. The talent of the suspended “Pullman Five” players could never be replaced, but those in the club’s inner sanctum were quietly confident they could make up for it in other ways.

Few could have predicted what transpired next. The Swans simply blew the Lions away with a performance built on resilience, pressure and, above all, relentless work ethic. Pridham is a lifelong fan of the Swans, but had never seen anything like it.

“Without question, it was our best ever performance on the SCG, and I don’t think anyone would doubt that against the odds,” Pridham said.

“It’s just a credit to the players and the coaches ... the circumstances leading into it clearly were very challenging for everybody.

“I’m talking about very challenging loss of sleep, just confusion as to how this has happened and all that sort of stuff.

‘Without question, it was our best ever performance on the SCG.’

Andrew Pridham

“And I think to be able to gather themselves, I think it certainly unified the group that, if you’re out there representing the club, that’s really, really important.

“You’re putting the jumper on, It doesn’t matter who puts the jumper on. Once you’re out there, you’ve got to play your role.

“So I think what it showed is, as a club, but certainly the players and the coaches, we’re very resilient. We’re very unified. And I think they were relentless ... I think that what has been forgotten a bit, we’ve actually still got a very, very good team.”

According to Champion Data, the Swans made 24 tackles in the third quarter to Brisbane’s 10, highlighting an ability to sustain immense pressure.

At the centre of the effort was Rowbottom, one of the club’s quiet leaders and potentially, a captain in waiting. The UNSW commerce student finished the game with seven tackles and six centre clearances. Finals football demands sacrifice, and Rowbottom epitomised it for the Swans.

Gerard Healy, a member of the Swans’ team of the century, pointed to a memorable performance by Errol Gulden, who finished the game with 34 disposals and a goal, but believed it was Rowbottom’s selflessness against Brisbane that provided the platform for others to shine.

“It was manic pressure and ultimately pressure can unravel even the greatest teams,” Healy said. “If the greatest teams like Brisbane aren’t going to apply the same sort of level of pressure and meet the oncoming pressure head on, well, they’re going to fall over – no matter how much skill they have.

“Everybody wants to focus on Errol [Gulden], and he was brilliant, obviously. But from the very first minute, Rowbottom – who, if you think back to the start of the year, there was a question mark on his future. And I remember saying on radio, I was going to sell my life membership if they traded Rowbottom.

“Rowbottom is, in my view, such a pivotal piece of that Swans club and team. His performance was amazing, and I was very proud of the way he went about it.”

Six members of the Swans team that defeated Brisbane had never played finals football. Harry Kyle and Billy Cootee only made their club debuts this season, while Cleary, Sheldrick, Jesse Dattoli and Tom Hanily had not previously experienced the pressure of September football.

Two years ago, forward Logan McDonald played on an injured ankle in the grand final and was powerless as the Swans slumped to an agonising 60-point defeat to the Lions.

McDonald then sat out the whole of last season. On Saturday against Brisbane, he stood up when his team needed him most, kicking a career-high six goals alongside fellow forwards Charlie Curnow and Tom Papley who finished with five majors each.

“I just sat there in awe,” Healy said. “It was therapeutic, it was inspiring, it was all those things.

“And I was just thrilled for the playing group and the club – and football, in many ways – because it had received a big black eye ... I thought the club always was going to take some time to rebuild its position and in many ways, that’s still true, but they made a good start last weekend.”

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