As many as 10 Swans players are set to make their finals debut in Launceston on Saturday afternoon. Too many? Not at all if a remarkable precedent of 25 years ago is any sort of guide.
In 1996, in one of the club’s great finals moments, no less than 15 players had their first take of finals football together in the qualifying final against Hawthorn at the SCG.
The Swans were much younger and less experienced than the Hawks, but it didn’t matter. Not even the last-minute withdrawal of goal-kicking superstar Tony Lockett could deter the young Swans, who in their first season under coach Rodney Eade had jumped from 12th on the ladder in 1995 to not only return to the finals for the first time in nine years but claim the minor premiership for the first time since 1945.
Eade, in his first year at the helm, fielded a side with an average of 24-plus which included just five players with finals experience. And only one who had played a final for the Swans.
Mark Bayes, in his 219th game, was the sole survivor from the 1986-87 finals campaigns. He had played four finals – all losses.
Bringing a combined experience of 22 finals and nine finals wins from other clubs were Paul Roos, Derek Kickett, Craig O’Brien, Stuart Maxfield and Kevin Dyson.
Roos, set to play his 312th game, had played six finals for two finals wins at Fitzroy in 1983-84-86, while 150th-gamer Derek Kickett had three wins in seven finals for Essendon in 1990-91-93.
The other three, new to the Swans in 1996, had a combined finals record of 4-5. O’Brien had played one losing final at Essendon in 1991, Maxfield went 0-2 in the 1995 finals at Richmond, and Dyson had played finals in 1991 and 1994 at Melbourne for a 3-2 split.
So in a side which boasted a total AFL experience of 1807 games only 26 were finals. And only nine of them were finals wins.
The 15 Swans set for their first taste of what any AFL player will tell you is a step up from home-and-away football in 1996 were 19-year-olds Michael O’Loughlin, Shannon Grant and Justin Crawford plus Brad Seymour (20), Adam Heuskes (20), Simon Arnott (20), Daniel McPherson, Simon Garlick (21), Greg Stafford (22), Jason Mooney (23), Daryn Cresswell (25), Troy Luff (26), Dale Lewis (27), Paul Kelly (27) and Andrew Dunkley (28).
The home side would have been raging favourites but for the loss of Lockett, who in his second season in Sydney had kicked 114 goals in 20 home-and-away matches to win the Coleman Medal.
After all, it was 1 v 8 on the home-and-away ladder. Hawthorn, almost two years older per player under first-year coach Ken Judge, had snuck into eighth spot with 11 wins and a draw after a one-point win over lowly Melbourne in Round 22.
The Hawks fielded 10 finals debutants, including ex-Swans Darren Kappler and Simon Minton-Connell, but had a total AFL experience of 2357 games, including 108 finals, 65 finals wins, 21 premierships and 12 premiership players.
Still, the Swans led by seven points at quarter-time after the Hawks kicked the opening goal, and although out-played through the middle stages the home side turned a nine-point halftime deficit into a six-point win.
Hawthorn suffered a major blow in the third quarter when Jason Dunstall, runner-up to Lockett in the Coleman Medal, was stretchered off with a bad knee.
It was like this squared the ledger, with Lockett missing from the Swans side, and Mooney kicked two late goals in the third term to cut the deficit from 15 points to three points.
Mooney’s third goal early in the final term put Sydney in front before Tony Wood answered for Hawthorn.
With the game in the balance Maxfield, playing on the wing, gathered on the boundary line in the pocket and had a ping from an extremely tight angle. Full points. Scores were level.
The Hawks went forward from the centre bounce only to be thwarted yet again by an ultra-tight Swan defence, and on the rebound they found Roos 65m from goal. He centred it to a huge pack in the goalsquare.
Hawthorn’s Nick Holland seemed to be in the perfect position but, as the ball neared his hands, the much smaller Cresswell flew to pluck it out of the air. He converted from point blank range inside the last minute and the job was done.
O’Brien (5 goals) and Mooney (3 goals) had done the damage up forward and Lewis and Maxfield had with 21 possessions each to head an astonishingly low team possession count of 260.
The young Swans went on to beat Essendon by a point in the preliminary final via a long Lockett behind after the siren but fell by 43 points to North Melbourne in the grand final.
Still, it was undeniable proof that it is performance not experience that matters most.
This will be a key message this week for would-be Swans finals debutants Jordan Dawson, Justin McInerney, Errol Gulden, James Rowbottom, Sam Wicks, Braeden Campbell, Hayden McLean, Robbie Fox, Lewis Melican and Colin O’Riordan, who all played in the Round 23 win over Gold Coast.
Ollie Florent, Tom McCartin and Will Hayward will go into Saturday’s elimination final against GWS looking for their first finals win, having lost to GWS in their only finals appearance in 2018.
Tom Hickey will play his third final, having played two finals for West Coast in 2019, while Callum Mills, who failed to finish Saturday’s game against Gold Coast due to injury, is hoping to play his fifth final.
At the other end of the finals experience scale, Lance Franklin has played 24 finals and Josh Kennedy, sidelined last week with a hamstring, has played 22. Luke Parker (18), Dane Rampe (15), Jake Lloyd (12), Harry Cunningham (10), Isaac Heeney (9), Tom Papley (7) and George Hewett (7) have had their share of finals appearance with Sam Reid, a veteran of 11 finals but overlooked last week.
Among the Round 23 emergencies, Callum Sinclair has played six finals but Ryan Clarke and Chad Warner would join the large group of finals debutants if included at selection.
