The Swans will never be Sydney’s team. And that’s OK

The Swans have been a part of Sydney life for so long it seems pointless to continually examine their relevance, particularly this week as they prepare for their eighth grand final since South Melbourne’s relocation in 1982.

They pack out the SCG, they make truckloads of money, their membership is strong, and they’re the most supported team in the AFL for a second year, according to Roy Morgan research released this week.

Since John Longmire became coach in 2011, they’ve reached the finals all but twice, made four grand finals and won a premiership.

You could argue they’re the best club in any code in this football-obsessed land of ours given their sustained success.

Not content with this, the Melbourne-centric AFL media have used the Swans’ run at the premiership as an opportunity to slip their Gucci loafers into poor old rugby league.

Rugby league, forever paranoid about its place in the world, was deeply offended.

Brodie Grundy and the Swans are riding a wave of excitement.Credit: Getty Images

It all started last Friday night when the NRL semi-final between Cronulla and North Queensland at Allianz Stadium was held at the same time as the Swans’ preliminary against Port Adelaide at the neighbouring SCG.

“Lovely scenes here at the SCG, prelim finals of course,” veteran Channel Seven caller Brian Taylor observed as a drone shot took in the magnificence of Moore Park all lit up. “Next door, an NRL game looks half empty there with about 10,000 people.”

It wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t that good: only 19,124 attended the match at Allianz while 44,053 were crowbarred into the SCG.

Regardless of how anyone at the NRL or the Sharks want to spin it, this was an embarrassing look for a professional code that shouted louder than every other sport about getting a $900 million rebuild of Allianz.

The NRL counters the AFL’s chest-beating about crowds with a well-worn line: more people watch us on TV in Sydney!

Asked on Channel Nine about AFL 360 host Mark Robinson’s claim that “AFL will take over rugby league before I die”, ARL Commission chairman Peter V’landys said, on average, only 23,000 people in Sydney watch AFL matches.

He was parroting a News Corp report the day before that claimed 23,853 people in Sydney on average watch AFL on Channel Seven.

A representative for the network did not respond to messages asking for a clarification, although that doesn’t surprise. Free-to-air and subscription TV networks no longer freely give out capital city figures, no doubt wary of the type of clickbaity stories and comments that have popped up this week.

Isaac Heeney training at the SCG on Wednesday.Credit: Phil Hillyard

The Swans will never be Sydney’s team and that’s OK.

Sure, inner-city pubs are full of people wearing newly purchased red-and-white zip fleeces, but Sydney is too vast, too fragmented, and too different to collectively support one team.

The Swans have already won a war of sorts; not against rugby league but those in Melbourne who not that long ago questioned their relevance and actively worked against its existence.

For decades, they relied on big, bustling, goal-hungry, media-shy superstars shipped in from interstate to sell their brand: Lockett, Hall, Franklin.

Now, their superstar is Isaac Heeney, who was born and raised in Maitland in the Hunter Valley and attended All Saints College, the same school as Matthew and Andrew Johns.

If they were an NRL team, though, the narrative in the lead-up to the grand final against Brisbane at the MCG on Saturday would be much different.

Having lost their past three grand finals – the last by 81 points to Geelong in 2022 – they would’ve been branded “chokers” long ago with questions regularly posed about Longmire’s ability to deliver.

The players would have been reminded of this at every media conference and every match.

If an NRL team lost five from six matches midway through the season as the Swans did, frustrated fans would have booed them from the field and written really angry things on the internet.

Why would anyone want to become Sydney’s team?

Where to next for Kalyn Ponga?Credit: NRL Photos

Ponga’s ‘Knights commitment’ will be watched

Newcastle fullback Kalyn Ponga’s withdrawal from the Australian squad is not the international incident many have claimed it to be.

Rather, it’s more about his father/manager Andre and Knights chief executive Phil Gardner not knowing the rules about players making themselves unavailable for representative selection without a fair dinkum excuse.

Not everyone at the Knights knew the club was releasing a statement about Ponga ruling himself out. In fact, one official advised him to call Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga first but was ignored.

There’s talk the Ponga camp has its nose out of joint about Meninga not calling last year to tell him he wasn’t being selected. I find that a little rich considering Ponga hadn’t played a Test.

Ponga doesn’t want to play for Australia so he can concentrate on having a solid pre-season with the Knights and that’s fair enough. We can only assume he’ll also forgo playing three brutal State of Origin matches for Queensland in the middle of next season.

This whole kerfuffle is another reminder of why the NRL needs to have a shorter season, a point former player Josh Mansour made on the ABC, which the RLPA reposted on its social media accounts.

I’m not sure if Josh or the RLPA got the memo, but Peter V’landys and Andrew Abdo have been banging on for some time about a 20-team, 20-round competition.

We can reduce the number of games now, but are players prepared take a significant pay cut?

Another cashed-up Roosters fan

NBA superstar Jamal Murray has backed the NRL’s ambitious push into the US after attending the Roosters-Manly semi-final at Allianz Stadium last Saturday.

The Denver Nuggets point guard was in Sydney on holidays and watched the match in a private suite.

New Roosters fan and NBA star Jamal Murray.Credit: Getty

“I can definitely see it taking off in the US,” he told this column. “It’s fast, there’s an intensity, and you can see the skill level of the players without knowing too much about the game. That makes it really easy to understand and appreciate.”

Murray indicated he would buy the Watch NRL pass to keep track of his new favourite team.

“I met a few of the Roosters boys, so I guess I’m a Rooster now,” he said.

Murray just became one of the wealthiest players in the league after signing a four-year, $300 million extension with the Nuggets and a lucrative sponsorship deal with New Balance.

Sounds like a Rooster to me.

Hang it in the Louvre

Roosters chairman Nick Politis is so fond of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves that he has bought a painting of the veteran enforcer covered in blood.

The image is from the match against St George Illawarra at Allianz Stadium in July in which Waerea-Hargreaves broke Mitch Aubusson’s record as the most capped Chook.

Nick Politis commissioned this painting of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves.

He left the field with blood streaming down his face after a head clash in the first half, much to the pleasure of the crowd who rose as one and roared. He responded by smiling and punching the air.

“He looked like Braveheart,” Politis laughed of the painting, which was done by Sydney artist James Brennan.

Waerea-Hargreaves will join Hull KR when the Roosters’ season ends, possibly on Friday night when they meet arch rivals Melbourne.

“You can’t be sad because of the magnificent contribution he’s given our club over the past 15 years,” Politis said. “We hope to have him back at the club working at our academy, showing a new generation players what it means to be a warrior. He might be going overseas – but he hasn’t left the house.”

THE QUOTE

“It’s Peter V’landys!” – So exclaimed several pollies when Independent MLC Mark Latham’s phone rang as he pushed for an inquiry into claims the racing regulator was trying to smoke out whistleblowers who provided evidence at a recent parliamentary inquiry into the proposed redevelopment of Rosehill.

THUMBS UP
When Sharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall tested positive to cocaine following a police roadside test in April, he didn’t duck and weave but accepted his punishment. The club backed him, and he’s now one win away from a grand final, playing the best football of his career and eyeing a significant upgrade to his contract. Credit to him, and Cronulla.

THUMBS DOWN

Graham Arnold’s closest friends tried to talk him out of quitting as Socceroos coach until the very end, but he knew his time had come. It was the right thing for him and the national team, but Football Australia can spare us its nice words: he rarely had the support of head office and deserved better.

It’s a big weekend for … Adam Scott, Jason Day, and Min Woo Lee, who are part of the International team competing against the USA in the President’s Cup at Royal Montreal Golf Club. The International team hasn’t won the tournament since it was held in 1998 at Royal Melbourne.

It’s an even bigger weekend for … the Wallabies as they take on the All Blacks at the famous “Cake Tin” in Wellington on Saturday with Joe Schmidt’s men trying to improve on their exciting 31-28 loss last weekend. Even though New Zealand were down to 13 players for the final 15 minutes, the performance provided a glimmer of hope of better days to come. Or was that the torch on my phone?

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