‘No one cares about your story’: Dane Rampe on the harshness of grand final day

The AFL’s official slogan for this grand final is: “2 stories. 1 ending.” Try selling that to Dane Rampe, or any of the Sydney and Brisbane players who have been to this stage before and didn’t get the ending they wanted.

“What I’ve learned over the last couple of losses I’ve had is that no one cares about your story, really,” Rampe said.

“It would be great for us to get back there and win after ’22. It would be great for Brisbane to get back and make amends for last year. But they don’t care about our story, and we don’t care about theirs.

“And that’s the way it is.”

That slogan rotated through the digital advertising boards at the MCG as the Swans and Lions put the final touches on their preparations with open training sessions on Friday in front of at least 5000 fans - an easy, cruisy stretching of the legs before one of the biggest days of their lives.

As the two most recently beaten grand finalists, they know sporting heartbreak in its various, crushing forms. There’s an extra layer for Rampe, who was part of two other defeats in 2014 and 2016.

Dane Rampe and John Longmire at Friday’s official pre-match press conference.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images

“I’ve experienced the worst, to be honest,” he said. “I’ve experienced that and been able to work through that and get back here.”

But there’s another layer on top of that, because Rampe will serve as the Swans’ stand-in skipper on Saturday in the absence of Callum Mills. And that hurts, too, in its own little way, because it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.

Rampe and fellow Sydney veteran Luke Parker had been co-captains with Mills until this season when they handed the reins over to him as the club’s sole leader. It hasn’t turned out the way anyone wanted; an infamous Mad Monday wrestling incident ruled Mills out for two-thirds of the season, a setback that precipitated further injuries to his calf and then his hamstring, ruling him out of the biggest day on the AFL calendar.

“I think bittersweet is exactly the word,” Rampe said.

Dane Rampe and coach John Longmire of the Swans.Credit: Joe Armao

“First of all, shout out to our mate, one of my great mates, and leaders of our club. We’ve been through a lot together. We’ve had to push that aside. Me and him had a cry after the news on Wednesday afternoon - but as soon as that was done, and the way Millsy wanted it, it was moving on and business as usual, and that’s what it had to be.

“That’s my prep. I don’t think anything changes. I’ve been doing what I can in terms of a leadership sense all year ... I’ll be going out and doing what I need to do.”

With the Mills matter dealt with nice and early by the Swans, instead of letting the mystery endure until the first bounce, they seem to be as settled and level-headed as a team could want to be at this juncture.

A lot of Sydney’s emotional maturity probably comes down to their coach, John Longmire, who is as settled and level-headed as they come. In his head, it might be a different story; nobody can lose three grand finals in a row without some sort of ongoing inner torment. But you wouldn’t know it.

“You go through different experiences. Both clubs go through different experiences. We know that doesn’t give you the right though,” he said.

“You’ve still got to earn it, and so both teams will be trying to do that, regardless of what’s happened in the past. It’s about tomorrow now, and we know that you’ve still got to get out there and do your job, and you’ve got to earn it, regardless of anyone’s story leading up to it.

“The job’s got to be done. You sit here, and obviously, everyone’s not sure about how it’ll unfold, but we’ve just got to focus on that tomorrow: doing our jobs, coming in early and ready to go. That’s all we can really focus on.”

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