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Swans Look to the Future
Sydney looks to the future
By Tim Morrissey
September 22, 2003
AFTER a season of rebuilding that has exceeded all expectations, Swans coach Paul Roos is turning his focus to recruiting.
Sydney are in the market for emerging stars to bolster their list for next year - and Roos is prepared to trade players to get them.
Speaking the morning after Sydney's fairytale ride ended one win short of the grand final, Roos believes the Swans have closed the gap on teams such as the Brisbane Lions, Collingwood and Port Adelaide.
Brownlow Medal contender Adam Goodes in the ruck and Barry Hall at centre half forward have emerged this season as star players.
The enormous potential the Swans unearthed - especially in rookies Adam Schneider and Lewis Roberts-Thomson - also points to a bright future.
And the evolution of middle-tier players such as Jude and Craig Bolton, Tadhg Kennelly, Leo Barry and Brett Kirk into the elite class is the reason Sydney finished fourth and made it to the preliminary final.
"But I still think we are a couple of superstars short," Roos said.
"The difficulty is, where are you going to get them from?
"But at least we have bought ourselves a bit more time after the success of this season.
"There's not as much panic to make some silly decisions going into next year.
"Worst case scenario if we went in with a young team again and we had just an average year, at least we have bought ourselves another 12 months to unearth some more talent."
Roos and the football committee will sit down during the next few days to start planning for next season.
Next on the agenda will be to gauge the level and depth of talent at the 2003 national AFL draft camp at the AIS in Canberra from October 1-3.
The Swans, who have the 15th pick overall in the draft, will then decide what changes they will want to make to their list before the AFL's trading period from November 13 to 17.
"We're pretty young but obviously with Cressa [Daryn Cresswell] retiring we need to sit down and have a look at the list," Roos said.
"We certainly won't be trading for any middle of the range type players.
"If we are going to do any sort of trades it will be for an early draft pick or a really good player.
"We don't need to be topping up our list with guys who are just good players; we need really good elite players."
The Swans have already started negotiations with key players such as Kirk, who established himself as the best tagger in the competition this season.
Sydney have already approached veteran ruckman Jason Ball, who injured his shoulder against Fremantle in round 17 and missed the rest of the season.
Roos also assured that veterans Paul Williams and Stuart Maxfield would be back next season, while the club has already locked in Jason Saddington, Michael O'Loughlin and Goodes to new multi-year deals.
Sydney have also re-signed three of their most promising rookies - Schneider, Roberts-Thomson and Mark Powell - in the past month to new two-year deals.
The Swans list is clearly taking shape for next season with the club being pro-active in locking up the players they want.
What remains is to be seem is who they will be prepared to trade.
There is speculation that utility Daniel McPherson, who played just three senior games in 2003, and Rowan Warfe, with 13, are trade material.
Veteran forward Matthew Nicks, who is believed to have a year to go on his contract but has struggled to produce in Roos' system, will be on the trading block.
The Daily Telegraph
*******
Meltdown wasn't picked up by coach
By Tim Morrissey
September 22, 2003
SWANS coach Paul Roos never saw Saturday night's season-ending fourth-quarter meltdown coming.
After watching his team kick the last four goals of the third term to get within four points of Brisbane, igniting the 71,019 crowd at Telstra Stadium, Roos' gut feeling was: "We could win this."
In the last break Roos told the team on the ground that Daryn Cresswell would not be playing on next season so win the game and get the Swans' veteran star into the grand final.
However, in the first four minutes of the final quarter the Sydney Swans' season ended.
Two quick goals to Brisbane's Jonathon Brown and Martin Pike crushed the Swans sparking a 6.6 to 0.1 stunning fourth-quarter performance handing the Lions a 100-56 victory and a chance to win a third consecutive premiership.
"Emotionally and physically the guys ran out of steam in that last quarter," said Roos.
"It was always a possibility but we didn't see it coming.
"It was a long year for the younger guys and we were coming off a big game against Port Adelaide and we seemed to come to a standstill in the last quarter."
Swans midfielder Jude Bolton described feeling empty and shocked from the double blow of losing the game and finding out Cresswell was definitely playing his last season.
"That was a bit of a shock because I thought Cressa was going to play on after the way he played this year," said Bolton.
"It was certainly a shock to me ... our last quarter was pretty bloody ordinary, it was a very disappointing way to end, it left a very empty feeling."
After a stellar season Cresswell had been having second thoughts of retiring, however, with injury finally taking its toll Cresswell went to Roos before the game to discuss whether he should tell the players of his intentions.
Roos told him: "If I need to I'll just tell them during the game.
"It wasn't really much of a tactic more just out of courtesy to Cressa to say look this could be his last game if we lose so let's try and win it for him. But I did say look this is not the only reason we want to win."
The Daily Telegraph
Sydney looks to the future
By Tim Morrissey
September 22, 2003
AFTER a season of rebuilding that has exceeded all expectations, Swans coach Paul Roos is turning his focus to recruiting.
Sydney are in the market for emerging stars to bolster their list for next year - and Roos is prepared to trade players to get them.
Speaking the morning after Sydney's fairytale ride ended one win short of the grand final, Roos believes the Swans have closed the gap on teams such as the Brisbane Lions, Collingwood and Port Adelaide.
Brownlow Medal contender Adam Goodes in the ruck and Barry Hall at centre half forward have emerged this season as star players.
The enormous potential the Swans unearthed - especially in rookies Adam Schneider and Lewis Roberts-Thomson - also points to a bright future.
And the evolution of middle-tier players such as Jude and Craig Bolton, Tadhg Kennelly, Leo Barry and Brett Kirk into the elite class is the reason Sydney finished fourth and made it to the preliminary final.
"But I still think we are a couple of superstars short," Roos said.
"The difficulty is, where are you going to get them from?
"But at least we have bought ourselves a bit more time after the success of this season.
"There's not as much panic to make some silly decisions going into next year.
"Worst case scenario if we went in with a young team again and we had just an average year, at least we have bought ourselves another 12 months to unearth some more talent."
Roos and the football committee will sit down during the next few days to start planning for next season.
Next on the agenda will be to gauge the level and depth of talent at the 2003 national AFL draft camp at the AIS in Canberra from October 1-3.
The Swans, who have the 15th pick overall in the draft, will then decide what changes they will want to make to their list before the AFL's trading period from November 13 to 17.
"We're pretty young but obviously with Cressa [Daryn Cresswell] retiring we need to sit down and have a look at the list," Roos said.
"We certainly won't be trading for any middle of the range type players.
"If we are going to do any sort of trades it will be for an early draft pick or a really good player.
"We don't need to be topping up our list with guys who are just good players; we need really good elite players."
The Swans have already started negotiations with key players such as Kirk, who established himself as the best tagger in the competition this season.
Sydney have already approached veteran ruckman Jason Ball, who injured his shoulder against Fremantle in round 17 and missed the rest of the season.
Roos also assured that veterans Paul Williams and Stuart Maxfield would be back next season, while the club has already locked in Jason Saddington, Michael O'Loughlin and Goodes to new multi-year deals.
Sydney have also re-signed three of their most promising rookies - Schneider, Roberts-Thomson and Mark Powell - in the past month to new two-year deals.
The Swans list is clearly taking shape for next season with the club being pro-active in locking up the players they want.
What remains is to be seem is who they will be prepared to trade.
There is speculation that utility Daniel McPherson, who played just three senior games in 2003, and Rowan Warfe, with 13, are trade material.
Veteran forward Matthew Nicks, who is believed to have a year to go on his contract but has struggled to produce in Roos' system, will be on the trading block.
The Daily Telegraph
*******
Meltdown wasn't picked up by coach
By Tim Morrissey
September 22, 2003
SWANS coach Paul Roos never saw Saturday night's season-ending fourth-quarter meltdown coming.
After watching his team kick the last four goals of the third term to get within four points of Brisbane, igniting the 71,019 crowd at Telstra Stadium, Roos' gut feeling was: "We could win this."
In the last break Roos told the team on the ground that Daryn Cresswell would not be playing on next season so win the game and get the Swans' veteran star into the grand final.
However, in the first four minutes of the final quarter the Sydney Swans' season ended.
Two quick goals to Brisbane's Jonathon Brown and Martin Pike crushed the Swans sparking a 6.6 to 0.1 stunning fourth-quarter performance handing the Lions a 100-56 victory and a chance to win a third consecutive premiership.
"Emotionally and physically the guys ran out of steam in that last quarter," said Roos.
"It was always a possibility but we didn't see it coming.
"It was a long year for the younger guys and we were coming off a big game against Port Adelaide and we seemed to come to a standstill in the last quarter."
Swans midfielder Jude Bolton described feeling empty and shocked from the double blow of losing the game and finding out Cresswell was definitely playing his last season.
"That was a bit of a shock because I thought Cressa was going to play on after the way he played this year," said Bolton.
"It was certainly a shock to me ... our last quarter was pretty bloody ordinary, it was a very disappointing way to end, it left a very empty feeling."
After a stellar season Cresswell had been having second thoughts of retiring, however, with injury finally taking its toll Cresswell went to Roos before the game to discuss whether he should tell the players of his intentions.
Roos told him: "If I need to I'll just tell them during the game.
"It wasn't really much of a tactic more just out of courtesy to Cressa to say look this could be his last game if we lose so let's try and win it for him. But I did say look this is not the only reason we want to win."
The Daily Telegraph
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