If your name is Kennedy, the odds are you’re a Hawthorn man. After all, John Kennedy Sr and John Kennedy Jr played and coached more than 900 games for the club, won seven premierships and are Hawthorn Hall of Famers.
When Josh Kennedy, son of John Jr and grandson of the legendary John Sr, joined the Hawks as a father/son draft selection in 2006, it was a given. He too would wear the brown and gold.
So, when Kennedy, restricted to 13 games in his first three seasons, accepted a trade to Sydney at the end of the 2009 season in search of greater opportunities it was big news. Massive.
Now 270 games into his career in Sydney, Kennedy is one of those footballers who remembers dates and details better than most. And while he could be excused for not remembering every detail of every game, he will certainly remember fondly the Round 5 game of 2012.
It was against Hawthorn in Launceston. Sydney came from 20 points down at halftime to win by 37 points as Kennedy had 27 possessions, kicked a team-high three goals and made 11 tackles for three Brownlow Medal votes.
After Kieren Jack kicked the first goal of the final term, Cyril Rioli and Jordan Lewis answered for the Hawks, who had been scoreless in the third term. Scores were locked at 10.7 (67) apiece before a tall, athletic fella wearing #23 for Hawthorn kicked his third behind to put his side a point up: Lance Franklin.
The Swans kicked the last six goals and piled on 11.6 to 2.3 in the second half to win 16.10 (106) to 10.9 (69). Dan Hannebery (30 possessions) and Adam Goodes (21 possessions, three goals) took the minor votes.
Ten years on it still seems like a line in the sand game for Kennedy.
It wasn’t as if the unassuming but ever-combative champion had never played against Hawthorn. He had done so four times for a 1-3 record, 93 possessions and one goal, including 35 possessions in a semi-final in 2011.
But this was like the moment Kennedy, then 23, shed once and for all the Hawthorn tag. He was still the grandson of the ex-AFL chairman and Hawthorn Hall of Fame Legend who had played 164 games for the Hawks, was a four-time club champion, five-year captain and coached the club 299 times for three premierships. And he was still the son of a 241-game four-time premiership player. But he was a locked-in Swan.
Oddly, now in his 13th season with the Sydney Swans, Kennedy has played against Hawthorn 23 times – more often than any opponent. This includes four finals and the Grand Final in 2012 and 2014.
Kennedy’s breakout game in 2012 is the headline story for the Round 5 edition of the ‘Remember When’ series, which highlights special moments round by round during the club’s 40-year history in Sydney.
In 39 Round 5 games since the Swans' move to Sydney, the club has enjoyed a 16-1-21 record. They’ve gone 10-10 at home and are 6-1-12 in away games.
Kennedy’s 38 possessions against Hawthorn at the SCG in 2014 is the club’s best in Round 5 during this era, while the equivalent goal-kicking mark is Simon Minton-Connell’s nine goals in a loss to Fitzroy at Whitten Oval in 1994.
Other special Round 5 moments include:
1993: A NEW COACH
Round 5, 1993 will not hold any great memories for most Swans players. They were beaten by Fitzroy by 93 points at Princes Park. But one person who will remember it well is Brett Scott.
The former Wagga boy, who played 59 games with the Swans from 1981-89, made an unexpected AFL coaching debut following the sacking of Gary Buckenara.
The club had finished the 1992 season with 15 consecutive losses in its first season under Buckenara, and after a Round 1 bye in 1993, they lost the next three. An 86-point hiding from Essendon at the SCG in Round 4 was the final straw.
At the time Scott was working full-time as a warehouse manager and was a part-time assistant coach with Michael Byrne, who was the reserves coach. And despite his employment situation, Scott was appointed caretaker coach while the club began a search for a permanent replacement that quickly took them to Ron Barassi.
Scott made three changes, including David Strooper, John Hutton and Sanford Wheeler to replace Richard Osborne, Darren Kappler and Darren Holmes, and retained an 18-year-old Greg Stafford for his second game.
Scott told later how, when he found himself in the Princes Park coaches box against Fitzroy, he had only club secretary Kevin Egan for company. What a contrast from the overcrowded boxes of today.
Scott Watters (22), Paul Kelly (21) and Mark Bayes (21) topped Sydney’s possession count in Scott’s 11.8 (74) to 24.23 (167) debut loss, while Daryn Cresswell and Michael Werner kicked three goals. Paul Roos, playing his 235th game for Fitzroy, had 27 possessions and earned two Brownlow Medal votes.
By the time Scott coached his second game the following week against North Melbourne back at Princes Park he knew Barassi would take the reins in Round 7. The legendary Carlton and North premiership coach was in the stands taking notes as the Swans lost by 124 points.
Scott, who had coached local club Sydney University in 1990, stayed on for a couple of months as assistant-coach to Barassi before accepting that football and full-time work didn’t mix.
2002: AN AMAZING FINISH
Daniel Wulf played 30 games for St Kilda from 2001-03. Remember him? Perhaps not because he only played once against Sydney. But if you’d seen it, you’d remember it vividly.
It was Round 5, 2002 at what is now Marvel Stadium. The Swans were rated near-certainties pre-game, with the Saints coming off back-to-back losses by a combined 205 points, but at three-quarter time they had kicked just two goals. It was 2.6 (18) to 5.5 (35).
They went goal for goal with the Saints through the final term, but when Stephen Milne took three bounces running inside 50, fell over and got up to snap truly 25 minutes in, they were still 17 points down.
Down but not out. Not quite. Barry Hall won a one-on-one marking contest and goaled from 20m before Jude Bolton marked on his chest and converted from 15m. It was back to five points.
The next centre bounce was one of the more bizarre scenes in football. “St Kilda has every player behind the ball,” noted a disbelieving Robert Walls in the commentary. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
But even a full-team defensive press wasn’t enough. Gerrard Bennett won a hot ball at centre half forward – his first possession of the game – and gave it off to a running Daryn Cresswell.
Seven days earlier Cresswell had kicked an after-the-siren winner against North Melbourne at the SCG from a free kick. Two weeks in a row? Surely not.
But with Hall doing some excellent shepherding in the square Cresswell’s kick landed one metre over the line and bounced back into play. No worries. It was Sydney by a point. “Unbelievable,” said Walls.
The Swans evened up the numbers at the next bounce and went forward via Brett Kirk, but a 19-year-old Nick Riewoldt in his 11th game took a towering mark over Hall.
He went wide to James Begley but when Begley went back through the middle to Caydn Beetham the Saints were on. Beetham kicked long to centre half-forward but found an unlikely roadblock in Bennett, who took his only mark of the game. With his only kick, Bennett went later to Ben Mathews on the boundary line. Thirty-two minutes played. Surely the Swans were safe.
Mathews went backwards to Brad Seymour, but the umpire ruled his kick had not travelled the required 15m. Seymour, suddenly under pressure, kicked across goals looking to pin-point Jared Crouch.
Enter Wulf, who was playing the ninth game of his career and his first of 2003. He knocked the floating ball to the ground in the pocket, gathered and ran to within three metres of the right goal post. On a 45-degree angle, he crashed his kick into the post. Scores were level.
Only seconds left. After getting on the end of Stuart Maxfield’s kick-in Brett Kirk went long. No mark. The ball spilled to the ground and Steven Lawrence turned defence into attack for the Saints. Running through the middle he, too, went long. Again, the ball hit the deck and Sydney forced a stoppage.
Five seconds left. One ball-up led to another but a split second before the final siren a free kick was paid to an 18-year-old St Kilda second gamer: Nick Dal Santo. He had to go the barrel. It looked good in flight but landed in the goal square. It was a draw – 8.8 (56) apiece.
Paul Kelly (28 possessions), Paul Williams (20 possessions, two goals) and Daryn Cresswell (22 possessions, one goal) were the stars for Sydney, while the Brownlow votes went to Saints Milne, Andrew Thompson and Riewoldt.
2013: A RARE DESTINATION
In 126 years and 2496 games of VFL/AFL football, the Swans have played at 36 different grounds. But only once has it been necessary for the players to pack a passport.
It was the Round 5, 2013 when they headed across the Tasman to celebrate Anzac Day against St Kilda in Wellington. The first AFL game for premiership points offshore, and part of a deal under which St Kilda would play home games in New Zealand from 2013-15.
Coming off a Round 4 loss to Geelong after a 3-0 start, the Swans had lost Lewis Roberts-Thomson to a season-ending knee injury, dropped Mitch Morton and recalled Craig Bird and Andrejs Everitt. Dane Rampe, who debuted in Round 1 before being left out in Rounds 2-3, was retained for his third game in the historic offshore trip.
It was the fifth-placed Swans against the 10th-placed Saints on a perfect Thursday night at what NZ fans call ‘The Cake Tin’ as rival skippers Jarrad McVeigh and Nick Riewoldt tossed the coin in front of a bumper crowd of 22,546.
After Saints forward Justin Koschitzke kicked the first overseas AFL goal, Josh Kennedy kicked Sydney’s first. The Swans led by two points at quarter-time, 10 points at halftime and 25 points at the final change, but they couldn’t shake the ‘home’ team. Up 29 points early in the final stanza, it took a late goal from Shane Mumford to lock away the 11.13 (79) to 9.9 (63) win.
Swans midfielder Dan Hannebery, now playing for the Saints, had 30 possessions and received the best afield medal for the player who best exemplified the Anzac Day spirit. He also earned two Brownlow Medal votes after Ted Richards took three votes and Jack one vote. Kennedy, McVeigh and Parker were also prominent.
The match left Ted Richards holding a unique record, sitting equal second in the AFL record books for international Brownlow votes all-time. He is level with St Kilda’s Leigh Montagna, Carlton’s Marc Murphy and Port’s Sam Powell-Pepper behind Port’s Travis Boak, who polled eight votes in the Power’s three games in Shanghai.
Ex-Swans defender Nick Smith later told how there was an overwhelming feeling of excitement knowing the club would be taking the game offshore. “A lot of the guys had never been to New Zealand, and I was in that boat. It was something new and it was something exciting,” he told aflplayers.com.au.
Not only did the players need to go through international customs but there was a full check of all football boots to ensure the players weren’t carrying foreign soil into New Zealand. It was a busy week for the club’s boot studders, Smith said.
Smith described as ‘surreal’ the Anzac Day ceremony pre-game. “When they sing the Australian and New Zealand national anthem and perform the Last Post, it’s a really good time to reflect on how lucky we are,” he said. “I’ll always remember the experience of playing on Anzac Day and the significance of that more than the actual idea of playing in a game overseas.”
2020: A MILESTONE WITH AN ASTERISK
Luke Parker, now 15th on Sydney’s all-time games list, became the club’s 33rd 200-gamer in Round 5, 2020. It was business as usual for the relentless midfielder, but in years to come it was a milestone that will always carry an asterisk.
Why? Because it was Sydney against West Coast in front of a paltry crowd of 2238 at Metricon Stadium on the Gold Coast on 4 July – normally about the weekend of Round 16.
The asterisk will explain that the game was played at a neutral venue under strict restrictions during the original COVID-19 outbreak. The competition, which began on 19 March, was suspended four days later and did not resume until 11 June.
West Coast had not handled the shutdown well, having lost badly to Gold Coast, Brisbane and Port Adelaide in Rounds 2-3-4 after being forced to move the entire football operation to Queensland. They’d taken a hammering in the media, and, sadly for one of the Swans’ favourite sons, responded in his 200th game.
After the Swans kicked the first two goals the Eagles kicked 11 of the next 14 and won by 34 points. Parker had to be content with 19 possessions and a game-high six tackles, but at least could bank a good story for the old sportsmen’s nights that might come in life after football.
