Sydney Swans and GWS Giants must work together to conquer the monsters that confront them

SWANS and GWS must put their heads together to conquer the monsters that confront them, both in this market and across the border, writes Rebecca Wilson.

IT IS A hell of a job running an AFL team outside Melbourne.

In Bleak City, you can be broke, bereft of player talent, have no sponsorship and lose for a living.

Teams like Richmond and Collingwood can drown in mediocrity every week and still boast home crowds that make rugby league look like the under eights.

But in Brisbane, you can win three premierships and still threaten to go belly up the moment things look a bit grim.

At the Gold Coast, millions of dollars have been ploughed into the Suns and they don’t look like a team that could beat time with a stick.

There is no culture, nothing to recommend going to a game for a non-AFL person keen to be part of the allegedly thriving Aussie rules scene at the Gold Coast.

Don’t tell the AFL but a dicky little code called rugby league with a team called the Titans suddenly has some momentum behind it.

AFL want the GWS development program shredded. They’ve done that to the Swans, along with other actions that no Melbourne team would ever be asked to accept.

The fickle white shoe brigade has deserted the Suns in their droves and headed back to the beach.

Then we find ourselves in Sydney, where the Swans chip away at finals footy nearly every season, membership numbers are on the rise and the grand old dame at the SCG welcomes the red and whites with a warm heart at every home game.

Even for a team that boasts the code’s number one player in Lance Franklin and a winning percentage Eddie McGuire would kill for, there is a down side.

As hard as the dedicated team at Sydney work, as much as fans say they love the Bloods and promise they will go to a game, the Swans rarely sell out.

You can always find a seat at the SCG.

Despite boasting the No 1 player in the code Lance Franklin there are plenty of downsides for Swans

The directors bailed them out once in the 80s and turning a profit worth not much more than the price of a player is a regular occurrence.

Little wonder the Swans administration wanted to strangle themselves with their red and white streamers when another lot turned up down the road with a fat $18 million cheque from AFL headquarters.

The GWS Giants are an invention of Andrew Demetriou who defiantly dived into the Melbourne and Swans dogfight to offer up a second Sydney team that boasts just about everything but the kitchen sink. They set up camp in Blacktown, Homebush or wherever else they could annoy rugby league and lit the campfire.

The Swans thought it would take 20 years. Demetriou thought around 15. The Giants said they would play finals within a decade (and real optimists said five).

This weekend we get a glimpse of how they are traveling and I suspect that the answer is pretty damned well. You know you’ve achieved something when Eddie McGuire wants to cut your legs off.

Two Sydney teams staring down the barrel of enormous success can thrive and conquer only if the enemy stuff stays on the field.

Here again, however, comes the crunch. The player group gets a big tick. So, too, the coaching staff. The home ground is perfect for a young franchise. The crowds? Don’t mention the war but they are rubbish.

For no matter what Demetriou did and Gill McLachlan is now doing, not many people want to go and watch the Giants play. Just last weekend, the suburban rugby union competition outrated the GWS/Geelong game on Channel Seven’s two minor channels.

While the media rave about them, while Fox Footy preaches to the converted about this side’s ability, home games attract crowds that are lucky to top 10,000 unless the team happens to be playing the Swans.

This is a seriously long and worrying haul. It will take both the Swans and GWS to put their heads together to conquer the monsters that confront them, both in this market and from across the border in the Wicked Empire.

GWS play their 100th game this weekend

One GWS tragic (there are a few) told me at a recent Sydney home game that he’d signed up with the Giants because he hated the Swans so much.

He singled out for particular attention the Swans chairman Andrew Pridham.

My only thought was how bloody pointless. You can hate whoever you like when they are playing against each other. But unless you want to end up like the Suns and the Lions in Queensland — no success, no money and no crowd — you’d better learn how to work together to conquer the giant that is Melbourne.

For the Bleak City teams, anyone from the east coast represents broadcast fodder and not much else.

Already, the AFL want the GWS development program shredded. They’ve done that to the Swans, along with other actions that no Melbourne team would ever be asked to accept.

Two Sydney teams staring down the barrel of enormous success can thrive and conquer only if the enemy stuff stays on the field. Form a working group called “The AFL commission did what?” and take the baddies on.

This battle is for the whole of Sydney to win and only then can we expect to see those house full signs up every weekend.

DOG ACT DONE AND DUSTED

Remember Jack Warwick? He was the man falsely accused of filming, and then selling, Mitchell Pearce’s infamous Australia Day antics inside a Bondi apartment.

For the past four months Warwick’s lawyers have been in talks with Channel Seven, the network that first named him as the man responsible. Warwick immediately denied the story and Channel Seven promptly apologised.

There’s since been reports the matter was settled for as much as $150,000. The truth is the two parties only agreed to cease the dispute in the past week.

The final settlement was well short of the speculated figure. Seven agreed to cover Warwick’s legal costs and he also received a modest personal pay-out.

ARTHUR’S SEAT

Something is not quite right about Brad Arthur’s role at Parramatta. Everyone else cops the blame over the disaster but the coach emerges hero like from the Ashes.

Surely the coach had some inkling about the dramas enveloping the club? Accepting he didn’t know about the salary cap, how did he miss some of the players obviously going off the rails by allegedly using drugs and Kieran Foran’s chaotic rehabilitation process?

Arthur’s management has now contacted the Warriors looking for another job for the embattled coach. The Eels mentor is obviously weighing up his options even after claiming his abiding and lasting affection for Parramatta.