Sydney Swans AFL news: Tom Papley opens up on his journey to 100 games after starting on the rookie list
Tom Papley doesn’t take a backwards step on the field and he is approaching his expectations for the Swans in the exact same way.
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Tom Papley has adopted his trademark on-field feistiness in responding to critics who dare to write off Sydney’s chances of gatecrashing this year’s finals series.
The Swans are amid a full-blown rebuild and won only five matches last season, but there’s a genuine buzz around them because of their growing collection of young talent.
Add in the fit-again Isaac Heeney and Dane Rampe and the impending return of Lance Franklin, and Papley is bullish about his team’s 2021 prospects.
“We haven’t made finals the last few years, but it’s good to see a few blokes come through and develop, then this year the likes of Nick Blakey are emerging,” Papley told The Daily Telegraph.
“He’s really establishing himself as a player, can break open the game and I think he’s a big part of our team this year, then obviously Braeden Campbell, Logan McDonald and Errol Gulden are playing their first games.
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“Anything can happen. All the media can talk about how we’re not going to make finals, but inside the four walls we’ll always believe it.”
Papley and teammate George Hewett will each play their 100th AFL game against Brisbane at the Gabba on Saturday night, five years after making their debut together in a win over Collingwood.
Callum Mills also played his first match that day and racked up 91 more since.
Papley kicked three goals, and Hewett won 15 disposals and kicked a goal of his own, and they’ve become close mates in the years since.
“Georgie is a good fella, so it’s good to be playing my 100th with him. He’s a dad now, so he’s a bit different to me, because I can’t even look after myself,” Papley said.
“He’ll do anything for the team and just plays his role every week. He’s a good country boy who gets along with everyone.”
They shared a laugh this week about the quirky circumstances that see them reach the milestone in the same game.
It looked unlikely when Hewett entered last year having played 93 games to Papley’s 82, but a serious back injury ruined Hewett’s season.
Papley’s risen from the rookie draft scrap heap to become one of the game’s best small forwards – and was unlucky not to earn All-Australian selection in 2020.
The 24-year-old is only four goals short of 150 for his career, but still has plenty more he wants to achieve.
“You can reflect on it all when you finish, but being on the rookie list, I didn’t expect to play many games, so making it to 100 is good,” Papley said.
“But I’d love to play 100 more and win a premiership. I’m not happy or satisfied with my career so far just as yet and I want to keep building on it.”
WHY STAR NEEDED ‘LIPOSUCTION ON MY BUTT‘
Isaac Heeney has conceded he will be sore after every game this season, as he makes his return from a gruesome right ankle injury.
The Sydney Swans star forward is almost back to 100 per cent after his serious setback last July, which included a dislocation, ruptured medial ligament and torn tendons.
The good news is Heeney will be fit for Round 1 and made it through two pre-season hitouts: firstly half a game, then a full match against the Giants two Sundays ago.
As recently as the start of February, there was still doubt about whether the 24-year-old would be ready for the season opener.
That’s no longer a concern but Heeney is still regaining his confidence.
“The only thing I’m trying to get back to normal is just leaping off it,” Heeney said.
“Running and sprinting is good, but the jumping and landing on it is probably the only thing. It might be more in the back of my mind than anything else, which is a bit frustrating.”
Heeney’s toughness was evident in his ability to return to the field after first noticing something wasn’t right in the Round 6 game against Richmond. He went to the bench, thinking the tape on his right ankle had snapped.
Once Heeney removed his boot and sock and saw the tape was unbroken, as well as the swelling which had already started, he knew there was a problem.
“Restriction-wise, I couldn’t get to full speed and I couldn’t fully jump, but I could move pretty well, so I went back on,” he said.
“But it was so unstable that a little pivot on it later in the game and it just slipped out (dislocated) – and I felt a different pain to what I’ve felt before. I was a bit worried when I grabbed my ankle that it would be dislocated … then I tried to stand up, and it was a springing pain through my leg and I couldn’t put any pressure into it.”
Heeney’s first surgery involved three procedures, including repairing the ligament damage, stitching the peroneal tendons back into place, and a keyhole operation to remove cartilage and bone from the joint.
Three months later, he went in again for stem-cell surgery.
“That was interesting. I had to do liposuction on my butt and back and they pulled out as much fat as they could,” Heeney said. “Then, they spun it and got the stem cells out of it and mixed it with my plasma and whatever else – I don’t know the scientific word for it – then injected it back into my ankle.
“That’s why it was such slow progress, because we had to wait another three months before we could get into training. We had to let the stem cells do the work and hopefully regrow some cartilage.”
After all that, Heeney is ready to again be a key part of the Swans’ plans.
The 108-gamer knows he, Tom Papley, Sam Reid and, hopefully, Lance Franklin will bear the responsibility if the Swans are to regularly kick a winning score.
With draftees Logan McDonald, Braeden Campbell and Errol Gulden primed to make an instant impact, Heeney is optimistic about 2021.
“We just want to build on the last couple of years,” he said. “We’ve got some serious talent coming through and there is a bit of a buzz.
“I don’t think the top eight is out of the question at all.”
TRIPLE TREAT: SWANS COMMIT TO 31-YEAR FIRST
The Sydney Swans’ next great forward will have company when he makes his AFL debut against Harris Andrews and Brisbane on Saturday night.
Prized spearhead Logan McDonald – the No. 4 pick in last year’s AFL draft – and Academy products Braeden Campbell and Errol Gulden have all scored a ticket to Queensland.
It’s the first time Sydney’s picked three Round 1 debutants since Brownlow medallist Paul Kelly, Brad Tunbridge and Shane Fell did the same in 1990.
Coach John Longmire broke the news to McDonald, Campbell and Gulden during training on Tuesday morning, as the Swans’ future also becomes their present.
None of their selections comes as a shock, given how seamlessly they’ve fitted in at the SCG.
McDonald is viewed as Lance Franklin’s heir apparent, but is keen to join forces with the 34-year-old superstar as often as possible before his career comes to a close.
Fresh from kicking 21 goals in nine senior WAFL games last season, the teenager plans not only to play but to make a splash.
“I’d love to play every game, but it’s up to me to keep playing good footy and help this club get a win,” McDonald told The Daily Telegraph.
“I understand not everything will be sunshine and rainbows – there will be hiccups, especially being a young key forward.
“But I don’t think I’m just like any other key forward. I think I can make an impact straightaway and help this team win.”
That much was evident when McDonald instantly made Sydney more dangerous in the second half of the club’s Community Series clash with the Giants two Sundays ago.
The West Australian phenom finished with nine disposals, five marks and one goal from three scoring shots in a performance that left no doubt about his vast potential.
“To have that little taste is something that’s going to fuel me even more,” McDonald said.
“I can’t wait to share the field with Sam Reid and ‘Buddy’ (Franklin), but also guys like Dane Rampe, Josh Kennedy, Isaac Heeney and Luke Parker.
“It’s awesome, and you still pinch yourself out on the field every now and then, like, ‘Wow, I’m really playing AFL football’ but this is a dream come true and it still doesn’t feel real yet.”
McDonald is living with second-year midfielder Dylan Stephens and Tom McCartin, and has formed a tight bond with Campbell and Gulden, who he’s thrilled to be sharing his debut experience with.
“Ever since I got to the club, Errol and Braeden have probably been two of my closest mates and we’re on this journey together,” he said.
“To share this special moment with them is something I’m going to treasure forever. They worked so hard to get to this position and I’m so happy for them.”
REBUILDING BUDDY: INSIDE PLAN FOR STAR’S RETURN
Operation: Rebuild ‘Buddy’ began in earnest when Sydney pulled the pin on the superstar forward’s season in August last year.
That decision meant Lance Franklin failed to play a game for an entire season for the first time in a celebrated AFL career, which enters year 17 in 2021.
There are still two seasons left on his extravagant nine-year, $10 million megadeal that helped the Swans rip him from Hawthorn’s grasp and blindside their arch rivals, the Giants, and the rest of the AFL.
Groin soreness was the technical cause of his premature end to last year, but a serious right hamstring tear was what destroyed Franklin’s campaign, after he had a knee arthroscope in January.
When the 34-year-old sits out Round 1 next weekend, as coach John Longmire has already confirmed — this time after a calf muscle setback in late January — he will have missed 26 of Sydney’s past 27 matches.
The only game Franklin played in that period was in Round 23, 2019 against St Kilda, which doubled as his 300th.
He skipped the previous eight contests because of his second left hamstring injury of that season, with the first costing him a month of play.
Franklin’s horror injury run started in 2018, even though he racked up 19 appearances that year.
The bruised heel he sustained in a stunning eight-goal performance against West Coast in the historic first match at Perth Stadium haunted him all season.
A mid-year Longmire sound bite became part of Franklin’s narrative: “He’s probably trained about 20 minutes for the season.”
Then, Franklin suffered a groin injury in the Swans’ elimination final loss to the Giants, which they initially hoped would recover with rest but ultimately needed surgery.
“That’s when we started to see the deconditioning and impact of him missing a substantial amount of training and footy,” the club’s football boss, Charlie Gardiner, toldThe Daily Telegraph.
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“He suffered a couple of hamstrings in 2019, then a big hamstring at the start of 2020 — just when he was returning to some really good fitness and was looking really good — which interrupted the entirety of 2020.
“We made the call two-thirds of the way through last year to take getting back to playing off the table, and look to try to rebuild him as best we can.”
Rebuilding Buddy
Rob Innes, who crossed from reigning premier Richmond, and Damian Raper are the new fitness staff in charge at Sydney, replacing long-serving Rob Spurrs and Matt Cameron, respectively.
But rather than a change in philosophy towards Franklin’s rehabilitation, Innes and Raper have continued the plan that was agreed upon before the previous duo departed in December.
The idea was for Franklin to complete an extensive core strengthening program across many months, which Longmire detailed after his spearhead experienced calf tightness in January.
The focus areas were his groin, hamstrings and adductors, and the results so far — bar the calf hiccup — are promising. Gardiner says Round 2 could yet mark Franklin’s return.
“He’s done a lot of work, and probably more training than he’s ever done consistently in the last 18-24 months,” Gardiner said.
“It’s been a pretty patient build; making sure we’re conservative with the way we ramp him up.
“Our medical team has put together a tailored program and he’s responding well to that and doing 8-10km sessions consistently.
“We haven’t made a call on when he’s right. It’s a bit of, ‘He’s right when he’s right’. We understand everyone’s infatuation with putting a date on it, but in terms of round two, three, four — we think it’ll be early in the season.
“We haven’t ruled out round two, but it very much depends on what he does over the next two weeks.”
The Swans’ messaging about Franklin’s calf issue was consistent from the outset: it would set him back about a week and was only minor.
The understandable hysteria that followed wasn’t about this latest problem, but rather the accumulation of injuries that threaten to prevent a fitting finish to his remarkable career.
Sydney officials hope this time will be different, but accept he will need to be monitored closely for the rest of his playing days. The critics need to see the evidence on-field.
Longmire and Sydney stars Callum Mills and Isaac Heeney have all relayed Franklin’s wish to play in Round 1, which the coach has shut down.
Franklin’s in full training with the main group and getting involved in match play and drills.
“Hopefully, everyone understands that we’ve got to get him right for the whole season and that means he might not play every game for the season,” Longmire said.
“That’s OK, too. We just work through it.”
The contract
Making matters more problematic is the back-ended nature of Franklin’s contentious contract, which has, at best, added to the Swans’ salary cap difficulties and, at worst, is their greatest headache.
Sydney’s list management crew had at least two key priorities when they structured the deal back in 2013, the season Franklin played a pivotal role in the first of Hawthorn’s premiership hat-trick.
He and his then-agent, Liam Pickering, met Longmire and the club’s former chief executive Andrew Ireland before that season even began.
Firstly, the Swans had to put something together the Hawks wouldn’t match and, secondly, they had to pay Franklin ‘unders’ in his early seasons, when plenty of high-profile teammates were also on a good wicket.
Think Kurt Tippett, Josh Kennedy, Kieren Jack, Jarrad McVeigh, Nick Malceski, emerging pair Dan Hannebery and Sam Reid, and even a 34-year-old Adam Goodes.
Shane Mumford accepted a lucrative deal with Greater Western Sydney the day after Franklin’s move to the Harbour City became official.
In the immediate years following, Malceski left for Gold Coast and Tom Mitchell for Hawthorn, while Lewis Roberts-Thomson, Ryan O’Keefe, Goodes, Rhyce Shaw, Mike Pyke and Ted Richards retired.
Much was made of the Mumford and Mitchell exits, in particular, with that pair viewed — in some quarters — as sacrificial lambs, with Franklin’s payday creating a salary cap squeeze.
Sydney’s recruitment of Tippett and Franklin in consecutive years also proved the catalyst in the AFL stripping the Swans and Giants of their cost of living allowance (COLA).
Both NSW clubs argue to this day that COLA put them on a level playing field with their opponents, rather than delivering an advantage.
“That would’ve been a challenge for any club, when you have effectively $1 million ripped out of your spending capacity, together with some of the other unique market forces we’ve got in NSW,” Gardiner said.
“As a club, we don’t talk about specific contracts and players, and I don’t want to do that, but there’s no denying (the Franklin deal) was a bold move the club made.
“It must be remembered that the environment in 2014 was very different to the one we are in now. The club’s list strategy and approach to trade has needed to evolve with the significant change in landscape since that time.”
They convinced Joe Daniher to play for them in 2019, only for Essendon to refuse to budge, before the Brisbane Lions swooped on the wantaway ex-Bomber last year.
Outside of Daniher, they’ve targeted delisted or undervalued players at other clubs — the likes of Ryan Clarke, Lewis Taylor, Sam Gray, Jackson Thurlow and Daniel Menzel — and invested in the draft.
Daniher would’ve been Sydney’s latest big-name forward recruit, behind Franklin, Barry Hall and Tony Lockett.
Instead, the Swans are planning for No. 4 draft pick Logan McDonald, a highly-touted West Australian teenager, to be Franklin’s successor.
Was the deal a success?
There will never be a unanimous answer to this question, unless Franklin delivers Sydney a premiership. Even then, there will be naysayers.
Franklin played in three Grand Finals and won two flags with Hawthorn, then lost twice on the AFL’s biggest stage as a Swan in 2014 and 2016.
The first of those was against the Hawks, and both times Sydney was the minor premier.
Franklin’s matched the All-Australian (four times) and Coleman Medal (twice) feats he achieved at Hawthorn and has won the Swans’ goalkicking on five occasions compared to six in brown and gold.
But the zero in the premierships column is where many critics start and finish when grading the free agency deal.
They’ll tell you Franklin set that bar at his introductory press conference in October 2013: “Hopefully, we can win a few more premierships.”
It was never that black and white, particularly in a Sydney market dominated by the rugby codes that often needs an out-and-out superstar to drag the most casual of fans through the AFL turnstiles.
Franklin’s on-field performances for the Swans have been exceptional — 364 goals in 118 matches, including 73 or more in three seasons — and he gave them a great shot at ultimate success.
As is well documented, he is only 56 goals short of reaching 1000 in his career, a target firmly in his mind.
Not every rival list boss The Daily Telegraph spoke to this week backed Sydney’s decision to offer Franklin such a gaudy deal, but there was a common catchcry.
When you’re in that premiership window, you do whatever it takes to win one.
The Swans undoubtedly did that with Franklin.
Originally published as Sydney Swans AFL news: Tom Papley opens up on his journey to 100 games after starting on the rookie list
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