Sydney Swans double-header: Women’s and men’s teams return to SCG after club’s week of scandal

Embattled and understrength Sydney have beaten North Melbourne by 53 points in the Swans’ first game since the sexual assault allegations that rocked the AFL club.

Five players – Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, Riley Bice and James Jordon – were suspended on Wednesday for the rest of the season for “breaching club standards”.

The sanctions are separate to the police investigation into sexual assault allegations and the events at East Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel in the early hours of Monday morning.

Those events completely overshadowed a maiden AFLW-AFL double-header at the SCG, where, after Sydney’s women’s team beat Essendon by 24 points, the men won their game 17.21 (123) to 10.10 (70).

After the AFLW team won in front of a record crowd of 16,672, a number of fans walked out – an action forecast by some as a reaction to the Pullman hotel storm.

Sydney’s men won what was effectively a dead-rubber in front of 30,058 fans – the club’s lowest AFL home crowd of the season.

Their previous low mark this year was 33,413; every other home crowd had breached 35,000, and with six attendances of 40,000 or more.

Sydney were already locked into second place on the ladder and will face either Brisbane or Hawthorn in a home qualifying final.

While the Swans will have next weekend off during the AFL wildcard round, in reality they face two more weeks in the spotlight before the finals.

No charges have been laid and AAP is not suggesting any wrongdoing on the part of the five suspended players.

Before the game, coach Dean Cox told Fox Footy he was confident the Swans had still prepared well despite the tough week.

His undermanned Swans were clearly the better team and kept the Kangaroos at arm’s length.

Star Errol Gulden (41 disposals) stood tall along with skipper Callum Mills (26 disposals), Brodie Grundy (26 disposals, 27 hitouts), Braeden Campbell (20 disposals and two goals) and Tom Papley.

Mills and Gulden were in tears on the final siren, the emotions of the week spilling over as the crowd showed its vocal support for the club.

Boom recruit Charlie Curnow kicked 3.4 to finish his first season in Sydney with 69 goals, winning his third Coleman Medal as the AFL’s leading goalkicker.

Billy Cootee and Logan McDonald also kicked three goals each.

James Rowbottom, Harry Cunningham, Angus Sheldrick, Caiden Cleary and Tom Hanily were the five inclusions.

For North, former Swan Luke Parker (26 disposals) was busy along with Jy Simpkin (26) and Caleb Daniel (26), while Cam Zurhaar kicked two goals.

Sydney took the early ascendancy and shot out to a 39-point lead midway through the second quarter.

The Kangaroos responded late in the second term and in the third to claw the margin back to 21 at the final break.

Cootee kicked a settler at the start of the fourth quarter and from there, the Swans cruised.