Tom Harley vows Sydney Swans won’t prioritise rebuild over finals ambition

Sydney Swans chief executive Tom Harley has declared the club isn’t interested in “bottoming out” and will keep striving for finals and maintain its “high standards”.

Sydney has no plans to trade Lance Franklin. Picture: Michael Klein

Sydney Swans chief executive Tom Harley has declared the club are not in the business of “bottoming out” and won’t sacrifice the here and now for a rebuild.

Co-captain Dane Rampe says the Swans’ season is “on the line” this Saturday night against GWS after an ominous 1-4 start, and critics have weighed in quickly with the doomsday prediction that the bloods’ era of sustained dominance is on its knees.

The Swans have flatly dismissed as nonsense suggestions from south of the border that they could trade superstar Lance Franklin as a rebuilding mechanism, and Harley has pledged to fans that the club will fight to maintain its “high standards” and refuse to yield to an AFL system designed to equalise the field.

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In AFL speak, “bottoming out” is a tactic employed by many clubs who might see the writing on the wall and accelerate the development of youth at the expense of staying as competitive as possible in the current season.

The inescapable reality for the Swans is that 70 per cent of their list is made up of players under the age of 24, but Harley said challenging for finals every year is in Sydney’s DNA and critical to the club and its fans.

“It’s an equalised competition. There are ebbs and flows and we’re trying extremely hard and working very diligently to continue to buck that trend,” said Harley.

“We’re not interested, and we’re not in the business of bottoming out. We’re very confident that with the players we’ve got on the list that we’ll continue to do that (compete).

“We’ve (qualified for) 20 from (the last) 23 (finals). The football club has pulled out all stops to ensure our fans enjoy coming through the gates and watching us play and we’ll continue to do that.

“We’ve got high standards and we’ll continue to explore every avenue to make sure we remain as competitive as we can for as long as possible. It’s a tough competition and we’ve got absolute confidence that we will get on the winners’ list more often than not.”

Tom Harley says the Swans will keep striving to play finals. Picture: Phil Hillyard

Meanwhile, the Swans will consider the Newtown Jets’ cult classic ground Henson Park as home base for its very first AFL Women’s team.

A significant $15 million pledge from the Federal Government to Sydney’s new state-of-the-art high performance headquarters to be built at Moore Park later this year has the Swans equipped and ready to introduce an AFLW team from 2021.

However, there is still uncertainty around where the team would play, due to the critical shortage of quality oval fields in Sydney’s east.

It’s understood the Swans first choice would be to put further infrastructure around their new first-class training facility Lakeside Oval across the road from the SCG, but as it stands there are no stands or facilities there to adequately cater for professional football matches.

The next realistic option shapes as Henson Park.

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