Marty Mattner produced another consistent season in 2012, playing 24 games and acting as a key player in the Swans defensive set up.

In addition to becoming a premiership player this season, Mattner also reached his 200th AFL game milestone against St Kilda in round 9 after notching up 102 games for Sydney and 98 games for the Adelaide Crows.

Following the conclusion of the 2012 season, sydneyswans.com.au spoke to Marty about his fifth season at the Sydney Swans.

How do you sum up your season in 2012?

I think I had a pretty good season and was pretty consistent and I just enjoyed it, and then it was topped off with a premiership at the end of the year.

You’re one of the club’s more senior players; did you see yourself improve this season?

You have to improve every year. There are some things in pre-season that you try and work on and you come back from the off-season with ideas of what you want to get better at. To keep your spot in the team you do have to get a lot better every year.

What did you make of the performance of the Swans’ defensive unit?

I think we had a fair bit of improvement, and we also had some competition from new guys who had come into the team like Tony Armstrong, who is one who played really well throughout the year but was just unlucky to not play in the Grand Final. We had a little bit of improvement from Alex Johnson as well, and I think it’s the young guys who are the ones where the most improvement comes from and if we can get the most improvement from those guys then it pushes everyone else.

I think being able to have a full pre-season with the back six, and even throw Nick Malceski in there as a seventh, was great and just the experience we got from playing with each other throughout the year was valuable in the end.

What young and up-and-coming players impressed you this year?

I think Lewis Jetta is one that has impressed, and I know he has been here a few years, but just his ability, even though he is getting tagged in some games, to still play his role and kick one or two goals every game has really impressed me. He set up his year in the pre-season where he worked really hard.

There are also guys like Luke Parker and Alex Johnson, and their improvement over the year has been great and it was just good for them to play in the Grand Final after playing a lot in the last two years.

What are your plans for the off-season?

In the off-season, I’ll be going up to Hamilton Island for Tadhg Kennelly’s wedding in about a week’s time.

After that, back to Sydney to just relax and I’m hoping to do a few renovations on our house in Maroubra and also we’ve got a baby due in December, so a busy couple of months leading up.

Tell us about that chase on the wing in the dying minutes of the Grand Final?

I just remember the ball going into the forward line and Pebs (Ryan O’Keefe) probably should have kicked it to me, but I just remember that (the Hawks) took the mark and then I just remember a Hawthorn playing out on my left at the back and I just thought if I could get to him we might be able to slow up the ball and keep it in our forward line.

When the ball went out there, I just sort of got to the player and tried to get the ball out of bounds because I knew if we could get the ball out of bounds it was a good thing for us and we could create a stoppage and try to run the clock down.

Did you know the importance of that moment at the time?

The quarter was so long that I sort of forgot how late or what time of the game it was. At the time I didn’t really know and the quarter went for so long and you just didn’t realise how long there was to go as well.

What was your most memorable Grand Final moment?

I reckon Nick Malceski’s goal and that next 30 seconds and just knowing that if we did the next 20 seconds right, the last ten seconds we could enjoy. Then just the moment the siren sounded was just one of the best feelings ever.