Cellar dwellers to finals-bound: How the Sydney Swans turned their AFLW fortunes around

The Swans have gone from being winless in the AFLW to on the cusp of finals. It’s a remarkable turnaround considering the position they found themselves in only 12 months ago.

The Bloods culture has shone through in the Swans’ remarkable AFLW turnaround. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Twelve months ago, the Swans had just completed their first AFLW season.

They sat rooted to the bottom of the ladder and were the only team without a victory to their name. They had averaged 20 points per game and their percentage for the season was a miserly 35.9 per cent.

Ahead of this weekend’s clash against Fremantle, they’re no longer just dreaming of finals.

“I’m pretty competitive, I would say that I’d be pretty disappointed if we don’t make finals,” Kate Mahony, the Swans’ AFLW manager said.

“If we talk about our processes and what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to improve little by little each year. But we’ve made leaps and bounds this season.”

The Swans are on the cusp of a maiden finals’ berth heading into the final round of the season. Picture: Phil Hillyard

On the back of consecutive victories, Sydney has put itself in the box seat for a maiden top-eight finish. Four points against the Dockers should be enough to see their season continue for another week.

It’s a remarkable achievement for Scott Gowans’ side. Armed with the fourth-youngest list in the competition, they have gone above and beyond in 2023.

The Swans’ turnaround is even more impressive considering how quickly they had to scramble just to enter the AFLW.

“I was appointed in December [2021] and I appointed Scott in March,” Mahony said. “Then we found out four weeks later that the season was going to be brought forward and we needed a team of 30 ready by the end of May.”

In those two months, the Swans’ recruitment went into overdrive. They wasted no time searching for top talent and ended up bringing in 24 players from interstate.

“[We had to] move 24 young women, and we said to them, ‘You’ve got a weekend to decide, do you want to come and play AFLW footy?’,” Mahony said.

“We were selling a dream because the HQ wasn’t built. We were moving into a space that had been built for one male team.

“Our commercial team had to work from home, and we converted their offices into a locker room for the girls … Scott and I moved into an office I think our HR guy had moved out of.

“It’s full credit to them and I think that’s why they’ve got so much resilience because the ones that said yes were the ones that could cope with that.”

Swans AFLW players receive a guard of honour from their men’s counterparts for their first ever training session in 2022. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The Swans’ AFLW locker room for day one was set up in the former offices of their commercial staff inside the SCG. Picture: Supplied

Despite the tough year they had, it became clear to Mahony that they were motivated for the good times ahead.

“When you lose all year, you expect people to spill, especially your elite performers,” she said. “But everyone wanted to stay.

“We ran a really big off-season program, which was of course optional, but because they all wanted to be part of it, they all bought in.

“One of the big things, we just weren’t fit enough last year, which is not the players’ fault. So, we had 10 weeks to prepare them and some of them had never been in the gym before.

“We knew what we were building was pretty special … we just needed time. It’s not that doubts don’t creep in, but I knew the people we had around our athletes were the right people.”

Despite poor on-field results, the Swans found they had a group of players ready to put in the hard yards to turn things around. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The Swans added elite players by bringing in Chloe Molloy from Collingwood, Lucy McEvoy from Carlton and Laura Gardiner from Geelong.

The trio have been three of the Swans’ best this season, leading to some criticism of the Priority Signing Period system. But without the infrastructure of a big women’s footy competition in the state like the VFLW in Victoria, that assistance was always going to be required.

“We threw at the stumps many times and missed,” Mahony said. “We cast the net far and wide to try and get that top talent to come up.

“It’s not an easy decision to pack up your life and decide to move to a different city. It’s a brave decision. So, it wasn’t as easy as possibly people think.”

Molloy and McEvoy came into the group and were quickly voted co-captains for their first season in the red and white. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The Swans have also been the beneficiaries of a draw that has seen them take on the bottom six teams on the ladder.

“It’s no secret we got a softer draw this year,” Mahony said. “But you can only do what you can do, and Collingwood was definitely not a soft opponent.”

Yet as the club prepares for the most important AFLW match in its history, win, lose or draw, this is just the beginning for a club that now has all the pieces in place.

“We want to build a program that’s got sustained success,” Mahony said. “Everyone wants to win a flag, but if you focus on the process, you can build something that people want to be a part of.”

“We’ve set high standards and we’ve done that deliberately. Women’s sport, if we want to make it a sustainable product, we have to get the game to a point where it’s great to watch. The playing group have embraced that.

“There’s a clear three or four teams at the top of the competition, and we’re probably in that next group down now. The next task is how do we bridge that gap?

“I don’t think in any elite sport you can just jump it suddenly. But who knows? We’ve got a really young group; I think we’ve got probably the most talented young list in the competition.

“We’re in a pretty good spot.”