The inside story behind Dane Swan’s 2011 Brownlow Medal winning season
Midway through the 2011 season, the ‘Flagstaff Five’ - headlined by Dane Swan - headed to the US for a high-altitude camp. And there was one extremely quiet night at dinner following an incident during a tough hike.
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It may not have been the greatest individual season from a Collingwood player; it may not have even been his own greatest year.
But Dane Swan's extraordinarily rich vein of form from the middle of 2011 through to the finals proved one of the most damaging displays any Magpie has produced across a three-month period.
When the Herald Sun quizzed Swan this week, he pinpointed 2010 as his most consistent – and best – season.
But he added a quick disclaimer: he rates his 2011 streak from Round 14 to the preliminary final as the best burst of form he displayed across a short period.
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"The last 10 or 11 games I played in 2011 was probably my best patch," Swan said.
While he didn't win the 2011 Copeland Trophy – Scott Pendlebury ended Swan's streak of three B & F's in a row – the Magpies' No. 36 won that year's Brownlow, an award many felt should have been his the previous year.
Swan polled 34 votes – the most any Collingwood player has polled in a season – to win the 2011 Brownlow, with 21 votes coming from his last 11 games.
That form came off the back of one of footy's most unusual mid-season breaks.
Swan and three teammates – Darren Jolly, and Brent Macaffer – travelled to Arizona for a 12-day, in-season high-altitude camp.
That trip fuelled a stunning 2011 back-end from Swan, even if he didn't want to go.
'F--- IT, LET’S GET OVER THERE!"
David Buttifant, Collingwood's respected sports science director at the time, had been the architect of the club's pre-season trips to Arizona dating back to 2004.
Immediately after the 2010 Grand Final draw, coach Mick Malthouse used the trek to the top of Mount Humphreys in freezing conditions 11 months earlier as a reference point to drive the players onto premiership success a week later.
Buttifant advocated a new strategy in 2011 – taking a few players away in-season to reinvigorate them – and Swan was the ideal candidate.
"He definitely didn't want to go … I remember that clearly," Swan's manager Liam Pickering said.
Swan recounted: "They flagged it early, during the pre-season, but I wasn't keen.
"Players want to play and they want to win.
"Besides, players get bonuses for best-and-fairests and All-Australians. I suppose there was a selfish side to it. I was thinking 'what if I don't finish top five in the best and fairest?', or 'what if I get beaten by a vote or two?'."
Swan's first half of 2011 was strong – he ended up polling 13 votes from his first 10 games – but he was playing sore.
"I nicked my quad early in the year and I was playing with a sore shoulder," Swan said. "I had about three or four things … if it had only been one or two, I might have been all right, but the three or four of them got to me.
"One day (at Marvel Stadium) I ran off and Mick (Malthouse) said 'What are you doing?'. I said, 'I've got no power. I can't keep going'.
"I was probably going better than 90 per cent of the people in the league, but I just couldn't hit top speed.
"When we were about three weeks out from the (mid-year) bye, I was just like 'F--- it, let's go over there."
The 12-day trip meant Swan would have to miss Queen's Birthday clash with Melbourne.
Buttifant convinced him it was the right course of action: “He goes to me, 'Butters, I am not doing the canyon, I f------ hate the canyon’. I said, 'OK mate, we will just train.'"
Swan trusted Buttifant, but still made him promise to stick to his "no hills, no hiking" plan.
"I hated walking up hills," he said.
THE FLAGSTAFF FIVE
The 'Flagstaff Five' – Swan, Jolly, Macaffer, Brown and Buttifant – jetted out soon after the Magpies' 57-point Round 11 win over St Kilda.
Swan had kicked four goals in that game.
While previous pre-season trips to Flagstaff, Arizona had seen Magpie players pack their winter woollies, this time it was shorts and sunscreen in a northern hemisphere summer.
Swan tweeted on the first day he was "just relaxing by the pool now after nearly 23 hours in transit."
Another tweet later that week was aimed at drug testers who woke the Magpies up early one morning: "Nice of the drug testers to wake us up … for another test. I really hope they come tomorrow, too."
Buttifant said the group worked hard in the high-altitude training (at 2134m) environment, but also had down time relaxing in the Arizona sun.
"I loved working with Swanny," Buttifant said.
"He was always compliant and worked harder than he liked to let people know.
"When he was at the club, he would do things in secret. He would go into the altitude room on the treadmill and flog himself.
"He cracked in over there.
"From a mental welfare point of view, getting away from the hustle of Melbourne and doing solid training with minimal distractions, and with no alcohol was a good thing."
Buttifant laughed when asked if it was an alcohol-free trip for Swan, who never shied away from the fact he loves a drink.
"If I found out he went out every night (after dinner), it wouldn't totally surprise me," Buttifant said. "But I don't think he did."
Swan was cryptic this week.
"He (Buttifant) probably doesn't want to know the answer to that either," Swan laughed. "I think we had a couple, but we didn't do anything ridiculous."
"Whether going to the Gold Coast would have had the same impact, I don't know, but Butters will swear black and blue that the attitude training helped me.
“It definitely worked for me; probably wouldn't say the same thing."
Brown was his way back from knee surgery. But he stumbled on a hike in Arizona and injured his "good knee".
Swan said: "Caff (Macaffer) and I were going down a pathway, and I thought 'F--- this, I’m not walking down this path, it's too long'."
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"So we went straight down the bottom of the hill, off the path and right through the shrubs. It probably saved us an hour.
"We were relaxing down at the bottom when Butters comes running down, yelling 'Boys, you have to come back up the hill, Browny's done his knee'.
"I was like 'F– off, Butters, you are not fooling me again; you've already fooled me (with the hike)'.
"He said 'I promise you, Browny’s done it'.
"Fair to say, it was a pretty quiet dinner that night.'"
Buttifant said Swan's sense of humour helped the group through a tough time period after Brown’s injury.
"We'd go out for dinner and Swanny made a rule where each of us had to give the person serving us a different compliment," he said. "It was funny and awkward at the same time."
"COMING HOME LIKE A STEAM TRAIN"
Buttifant knew Swan's body would benefit from a short break from the day-to-day grind of AFL football.
"He was one of those guys who didn't have the greatest running technique and he wasn't the greatest mover, but he had power and strength, and he could seriously find the footy," Buttifant said.
"I think the (Arizona) trip definitely had a positive influence on him.
"He came home like a steam train when he came back."
Swan returned for the Round 14 clash with Sydney, gathering 33 possessions and kicking a goal.
It was the first of four successive weeks of Brownlow votes – two versus the Swans, two against Hawthorn (33), three versus North Melbourne (39 and two goals) and one vote against Carlton (31).
He missed a vote in the Round 18 win over Gold Coast.
Three votes came against Essendon (45 disposals and a goal) in Round 19, against St Kilda (34 and two goals) in Round 21 and against Brisbane (33 and two goals) in Round 23.
Two votes came Port Adelaide (37 and three goals) in Round 20 and against Fremantle (35 and two goals) in Round 23.
He missed out when the Magpies were thrashed by Geelong in the final round.
Swan's tally of 34 votes was the highest of any player to win a Brownlow in the 3-2-1 voting system until Geelong's Patrick Dangerfield polled 35 in 2016.
Swan had 43 disposals and kicked a goal in the qualifying final against West Coast then produced a vital goal from a stoppage and a game-high 18 contested possessions in the preliminary final win over Hawthorn.
He won the Brownlow three nights after the win over the Hawks.
"I was staggered he didn't win the Brownlow in 2010," Pickering said. "I remember (Geelong star) Paul Couch telling me about his 1989 Brownlow, he thought his '88 year was better, but it was like the umpires needed a year to notice how good he was.
"I'm not sure why that was the case with Swanny; everyone knew he was a superstar.
"He had an awkward looking kicking style and awkward looking running style, but he was so powerful and strong through the hips."
Pickering recalled getting Swan's father, Billy, and his sister into Heat nightclub after the Brownlow Medal win, but says his client had to stay off the drink as he had a Grand Final appearance to prepare for.
"He went home to his place in Prahran at the time, but we had to be at the St Kilda Sea baths for the media opportunity at 7 o'clock the next morning.
"Then he went off to training, and we shut down all the Brownlow stuff."
Swan laughed: "In hindsight I probably should have had a drink" on Brownlow Medal night – a lighthearted dig at his 20-disposal performance in the heartbreaking Grand Final loss to Geelong that wasn't to his lofty standards.
Swan would have preferred another premiership medal instead of the Brownlow.
Almost a decade on, he says: “(The Brownlow Medal) went missing about two years ago.”
"I had a few drinks at my place one day and early one morning one of my mates had it on and just walked out the door with it on. I didn't see it for awhile after, but I've got it back now.
Then he added with a smile: "I couldn't tell you where it is now, but it's here somewhere. "