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Drooping Swans face the pain of rebuilding
By Jake Niall
April 24 2003
Sydney's Swans are now, in the AFL's words, one of the nation's most popular sporting "brands". They have an 80,000 capacity stadium on the edge of an untapped suburban frontier and, with a few wins, can still fill the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Swans, even while dropping a million dollars last year, generated more than $10 million in corporate dollars in a tough market.
The problem is the team. The Swans have one of the weakest playing lists in the competition. The club, once prone to misguided optimism about its chances, has quickly developed a keen sense of realism. Coach Paul Roos, ever an astute reader of the play, has been quick to adopt the "rebuilding" rhetoric and downplay expectations - a spin repeated on Saturday night when the team fell to the hitherto horrible Hawks.
Sydney football director Andrew Ireland, the former Brisbane boss, has been frank in explaining that the Swans are "in transition", as the impact of retirements (Tony Lockett, Paul Kelly, Andrew Dunkley, Wayne Schwass) hits harder than Plugger on the lead.
More worrisome, the bottoming-out process - in terms of the list - might not be complete. Skipper Stuart Maxfield and dual best and fairest Paul Williams are both beyond 30, as are Daryn Cresswell and Jason Ball. The demographics of the list suggest that there will be more acute pain before the draft begins to work.
In the meantime, the AFL and the Swans are bracing for an assault on their sponsorship/marketing revenue from the rugby World Cup and a recovering NRL. The team's descent could scarcely have arrived at a less opportune moment.
Yet, the club, mindful that its difficulties are the result of self-inflicted recruiting wounds and short-term decisions, will not waver from its belief that it must take a long-term plan and attempt to get the best young talent available.
"What I do know is that there are no short-term fixes in footy," said Ireland, hired last year with a mandate to fix the ageing list. "They just don't fix footy clubs."
Ireland acknowledges, in a roundabout way, that the club's recent penchant for trading draft picks for seasoned players is partly responsible for its situation. "We probably made some decisions along the way that were probably not in the club's best interests in terms of list management," he said.
So, the Polyfilla recruiting policy - get Schwass, Williams, Ball and keep the team thereabouts - is dead. Henceforth, the Swans will be the department of youth.
"If you're seriously talking about getting a team together that actually can win a premiership, the only way you can do it is by developing and cultivating youth," said Ireland. "There is no other way to do it."
And, as the AFL makes clear, there are no freebie draft concessions on that horizon to expedite the reconstruction of Sydney's list.
AFL football operations manager Andrew Demetriou says Sydney's major challenge is to build a strong team. In spite of the club's significance to the national competition, Demetriou virtually ruled out the Swans receiving a leg-up in recruiting.
"The industry has accepted that draft concessions are gone. Sydney Swans, like every other team in the competition, will have to recruit well, will have to rebuild their football team.
"It will probably take them longer than some other clubs. They will obviously have to be clever in their trading, clever in their recruiting, while also being mindful of making sure that they continue to generate substantial revenues that are required to be an important component of the AFL competition."
For the Swans, keeping the dollars coming while enduring the pain of rebuilding will be a test. As Demetriou observed: "Sydney is a tough market because it wants winners and it wants success."
How can it win enough games to keep the code competitive, without compromising the long-range objectives? Ireland says the club must "hold its nerve." Sometimes, he noted, as Collingwood showed, the youth track can deliver ahead of schedule.
By Jake Niall
April 24 2003
Sydney's Swans are now, in the AFL's words, one of the nation's most popular sporting "brands". They have an 80,000 capacity stadium on the edge of an untapped suburban frontier and, with a few wins, can still fill the Sydney Cricket Ground.
The Swans, even while dropping a million dollars last year, generated more than $10 million in corporate dollars in a tough market.
The problem is the team. The Swans have one of the weakest playing lists in the competition. The club, once prone to misguided optimism about its chances, has quickly developed a keen sense of realism. Coach Paul Roos, ever an astute reader of the play, has been quick to adopt the "rebuilding" rhetoric and downplay expectations - a spin repeated on Saturday night when the team fell to the hitherto horrible Hawks.
Sydney football director Andrew Ireland, the former Brisbane boss, has been frank in explaining that the Swans are "in transition", as the impact of retirements (Tony Lockett, Paul Kelly, Andrew Dunkley, Wayne Schwass) hits harder than Plugger on the lead.
More worrisome, the bottoming-out process - in terms of the list - might not be complete. Skipper Stuart Maxfield and dual best and fairest Paul Williams are both beyond 30, as are Daryn Cresswell and Jason Ball. The demographics of the list suggest that there will be more acute pain before the draft begins to work.
In the meantime, the AFL and the Swans are bracing for an assault on their sponsorship/marketing revenue from the rugby World Cup and a recovering NRL. The team's descent could scarcely have arrived at a less opportune moment.
Yet, the club, mindful that its difficulties are the result of self-inflicted recruiting wounds and short-term decisions, will not waver from its belief that it must take a long-term plan and attempt to get the best young talent available.
"What I do know is that there are no short-term fixes in footy," said Ireland, hired last year with a mandate to fix the ageing list. "They just don't fix footy clubs."
Ireland acknowledges, in a roundabout way, that the club's recent penchant for trading draft picks for seasoned players is partly responsible for its situation. "We probably made some decisions along the way that were probably not in the club's best interests in terms of list management," he said.
So, the Polyfilla recruiting policy - get Schwass, Williams, Ball and keep the team thereabouts - is dead. Henceforth, the Swans will be the department of youth.
"If you're seriously talking about getting a team together that actually can win a premiership, the only way you can do it is by developing and cultivating youth," said Ireland. "There is no other way to do it."
And, as the AFL makes clear, there are no freebie draft concessions on that horizon to expedite the reconstruction of Sydney's list.
AFL football operations manager Andrew Demetriou says Sydney's major challenge is to build a strong team. In spite of the club's significance to the national competition, Demetriou virtually ruled out the Swans receiving a leg-up in recruiting.
"The industry has accepted that draft concessions are gone. Sydney Swans, like every other team in the competition, will have to recruit well, will have to rebuild their football team.
"It will probably take them longer than some other clubs. They will obviously have to be clever in their trading, clever in their recruiting, while also being mindful of making sure that they continue to generate substantial revenues that are required to be an important component of the AFL competition."
For the Swans, keeping the dollars coming while enduring the pain of rebuilding will be a test. As Demetriou observed: "Sydney is a tough market because it wants winners and it wants success."
How can it win enough games to keep the code competitive, without compromising the long-range objectives? Ireland says the club must "hold its nerve." Sometimes, he noted, as Collingwood showed, the youth track can deliver ahead of schedule.
