Garry Lyon: How Sydney Swans’ mature-age draftee Riley Bice proves AFL dreams are never over

Eighteen months ago, Riley Bice was running around for Albury. Now, he’s stepped into Errol Gulden’s role – and filling it with aplomb. Garry Lyon says footy is better for Riley Bice’s story.

Imagine this. Desperate to recover from what was a hugely disappointing grand final result, the Swans take out their frustrations on the Suns in the opening minutes of the AAMI Community series.

The score line is 25 to 0 and while the game counts for nothing, the redemption year has commenced. And then, with exactly 11 minutes and 50 seconds remaining of the opening quarter, arguably, your best player is tackled to the ground and stays there.

Errol Gulden is a tough kid. The grimace on his face is cause for concern.

He struggles to his feet, attempts to take a step, and then slumps to the ground. Helped off with the aid of trainers, the outlook is grim and is quickly confirmed. Broken ankle, months on the sidelines, the Swans have lost their devastating playmaker and spirit animal before a ball has barely been kicked in anger.

Errol injury

Errol Gulden is helped from the field after injuring his ankle in a moment of horror for the Swans.

Just how big a hole does the Gulden injury leave? He has been All Australian the last two years, he won the Bob Skilton award for Best and Fairest player in 2023 and was runner up behind Isaac Heeney last year. He was 4th in the ’23 Brownlow with 27 votes and eighth with 25 votes last year. He won both Brett Kirk medals for best on ground against the Giants to go with the medal he won the previous year.

He is a genuine star of our competition, a top 10 player in my eyes and given some access to behind the scenes vision of the Swans at training and on game day, he’s so much of a driver of the standards that the Swans set that has made them the envy of the competition for a long time.

He works so hard at keeping the players engaged and connected, I imagine his injury and absence would have sat the club back on its heels when they could least afford it.

So, how do you cover for someone so pivotal to your on and off field success? If anyone envisaged it could possibly come from a young man who just over 12 months ago was running around for the Albury Tigers, before trying his luck at Werribee, then you would have been laughed out of any football forum that you were a part of.

But here we are – four games into a season – and Riley Bice is doing a bloody good job of covering for his injured, megastar teammate.

Riley Bice sends a tracer bullet inside 50

Cue the outrageous analogies. It’s like replacing the Ferrari with an old GT Falcon that’s been sitting at the back of the barn, covered in dust. Dragged out, given a thorough wash, vacuum and polish, the engine given the once over, the high grade fuel injected, oil replaced and new tyres added. And while it may not quite hit the speeds of the Ferrari, there is no doubt the reworked GT holds its own and, in a very short period, has been lapping at very impressive speeds indeed.

It is quite staggering to think that Guldens absence, given all that we have come to know and respect him for, is being mitigated to a substantial degree by a three-game Ovens and Murray/VFL mature age addition. Bice was taken by the Swans at pick 41 in last years draft. He did his best Gulden impersonation in his second game, in particular the last quarter against Fremantle.

His ball use was exquisite; his running goal to help secure victory had Gulden class written all over it. He was the highest rated player on the ground in that last quarter.

Riley Bice kicks his first goal in AFL footy

And then, last Saturday night against the Kangaroos at Marvel stadium, he well and truly announced himself. Just winning selection for someone who has travelled the journey that Bice has, can be achievement enough. The hope is that in time and with experience and comfortability at the elite level, a player will begin to have significant moments within games. With two games under his belt, Bice not only had moments, he influenced the result of the game. 26 possessions, 15 marks (most marks by a Swans player since Jordan Dawson in 2021) and six inside 50s (5 retained) and seven score involvements from half back was huge. Only three Swans players have taken 15-plus marks and five-plus intercept marks in a match since 1999. Adam Goodes and Andrew Dunkley were the other two. Pretty good company to keep after just three games.

And what had most football followers scratching their head and wondering why it has taken until age 24 for this man to find his way onto an AFL list, was just how perfectly suited his skill set is to the way modern football is tracking. Hard running, clean and a left boot that is precise, probing and penetrating and will challenge every defence he comes up against.

Having spoken to those involved with him at both country and VFL level, the swiftness of his ascension has surprised them a little, but not the execution of his skill set. Those arrows have always been in his quiver, it was more some of the other nuances of the game that he has had to work at to satisfy the assessors that he was ready.

Riley Bice was one of the Swans’ best players against North Melbourne. Picture: Michael Klein

The environment has accelerated his development, his increased willingness to put and keep his head in the hole has won admirers and his performance in big moments in big games won him his ticket.

Footy is all the better for Riley Bice stories. He’s not Errol Gulden, but he’ll do nicely, thank you very much.

He and his Swans mates take on Collingwood Friday night, with one of the poster boys for patience and perseverance again the cornerstone of their attacking half. Brody Mihocek was the Riley Bice story, back when he was taken at pick 22 in the 2018 Rookie Draft, after initially being overlooked in the 2011 Draft, despite making the All Australian Under 18 team. Mihocek played with Burnie Dockers Werribee and Port Melbourne before the Pies took a chance. A chance that has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Since 2018, Mihocek has kicked 236 goals, the 14th most in the AFL. The next best at Collingwood during that time is Jordan De Goey with 167, Jamie Elliott (154), Will Hoskins Elliott (126) and Mason Cox (96). De Goey and Hoskin-Elliott were top 5 picks and Elliott was pre-listed by the Giants before the Magpies traded for him.

Brody Mihocek, with son Arthur, has been one of the best mature-age pick-ups of the past decade. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images.

They may not have experienced the success they have without their big number 41 throwing himself at everything that comes is way.

He has also been in the top 5 for score involvements at Collingwood during that time. The 4 above him are Scott Pendlebury, Jordan De Goey, Jack Crisp and Steele Sidebottom. That is blue chip company that Mihocek is keeping, yet he was picked up for peanuts and plays hard, week in week out. When you’re talking about value for money acquisitions, Brody Mihocek is as good as any in recent times.

The great news, and by-product of stories such as Bice and Mihocek, and, happily, a host of others, is that AFL dreams remain alive well past the end of your draft years. How many of those hopefuls will be tuned into Fox Footy on Friday night, for the blockbuster Collingwood and Sydney game, with a very close eye to the continued success of both Mihocek and Bice?

The AFL is once again an ‘anything is possible’ league.