Marty Mattner split his 222-game AFL game career between the Adelaide Crows (98 games) and the Sydney Swans (124 games) yet ask him where his post-career loyalty lies and he doesn’t hesitate: “That’s an easy one – I’m a Swans man,” he says, despite the fact he lives in Adelaide.
It’s all part of the life-time bond that comes with playing in a premiership, as Mattner did with the Swans in 2012.
“There’s a WhatsApp group with the players from that year and we’re in regular contact,” said the now 40-year-old, who was in Sydney last year for the 10-year reunion of the 2012 flag. “We catch up whenever we can, and if ever I’m in Sydney or those guys are in Adelaide we try to get together.”
Mattner, now coaching SANFL club Sturt, is in the record books as the No.1 product of the tiny SA farming country town of Ki Ki (pronounced key key), 150km south-east of Adelaide.
He’s also a SA football rarity, having played in the 2002 Sturt premiership side and coached the 2016-17 Sturt premiership sides.
But nothing will top the sweet memories of the 2012 AFL Grand Final, when the Swans came from 19 points down at quarter-time to beat Hawthorn by 14 points in front of an MCG crowd of 99,683.
“I remember going out onto the ground early before the first warm-up and being blown away. I spent three minutes just looking around. It was still 40 minutes or whatever from the start, but even then, the crowd was bigger than anything I’d played in front of before.
“I was in awe of the whole occasion until somebody reminded us that we were there to play footy. That got things back on track. I don’t remember a lot of the game itself. I know we started badly (down 19 points at quarter time) but it was pretty even at three-quarter time (up by a point). We got in front late and kicked the last couple of goals to win.”
Indeed they did, but it was a roller-coaster. Trailing 1.4 (10) to 4.5 (29) at the first break, Sydney kicked the next eight goals to lead by 27 points before Hawthorn kicked the next five. Only a Jarrad McVeigh major just before three-quarter time gave Sydney a lead.
The Hawks kicked the first two goals of the final term, but the Swans finished with goals to Dan Hannebery, Kieren Jack, Adam Goodes and finally Nick Malceski to seal a 14.7 (91) to 11.15 (81) win.
Mattner failed to mention a brilliant and critical run-down tackle of Hawthorn’s Grant Birchall in the closing minutes, and by saying nothing he said it all … he was a wonderful team player content to play his role week after week.
Having turned 30 on 6 August 2012, Mattner played his 215th game in the grand final. It was his 117th game for the Swans and his eighth-last game. By Round 7 the following year a chronic hip injury had forced an early retirement.
Mattner is forever grateful to the sliding doors moment that sent him from Adelaide, where he’d started as a rookie in 2002, to Sydney at end of 2007.
“I had one year left on my contract at Adelaide when my manager (ex-Essendon player Ricky Olarenshaw) told me the Swans were interested. Initially I wasn’t too keen, but Rick thought I should at least go and have a chat.
“I got on the plane thinking ‘I’m not going to Sydney’ but Roosy (Swans coach Paul Roos) was very good explaining his plans and how it was all about individual roles, and when I got on the plane to go home I was thinking ‘I’m going to Sydney’. After that everything just fell into place.
“It’s a great football club, with the people and the culture, and it’s no accident they’ve been very successful over a long period of time.”
Mattner shared a place in Sydney briefly with new draftees Jared Moore and Daniel O’Keeffe before his then girlfriend, now wife, Chelsea, followed him north. They bought a house at Maroubra and had ‘the best time of my career’.
Third in the Bob Skilton Medal in 2008 and eighth in 2009, the no-fuss left-footer was a fixture in the defensive group and played 124 of a possible 126 games in the #29 Swans jumper until his retirement.
“I knew I was done but I was content. I got to see out the season coaching some of the kids and travelling to Canberra with the Reserves side,” he said.
Having quickly taken to coaching, he was a Swans development coach in 2014 and an assistant-coach in 2015, working closely with a group that included a young Jake Lloyd and Dane Rampe.
Itching to get back into the AFL system after back-to-back flags with Sturt, he joined the Crows coaching staff in 2018 but when Covid hit early in 2020 he was a victim of the savage cutbacks.
For nine months he worked for as a builder’s labourer before returning in 2021 to Sturt, where he’s helped Collingwood’s Ash Johnson, Adelaide’s Shane McAdam, Port’s Jed McEntee and Fremantle’s Tom Emmett win a chance in the AFL.
Mattner’s plane ride to Sydney late in 2007 was a second sliding doors moment of life-changing proportions.
Five years earlier, after Sturt’s 2002 SANFL flag, he was set to go Bali on the club’s end-of-season trip. He travelled first to Cairns with the Crows players on their trip, and only when he learned that to get to get from Cairns to Bali would require a full day stopover in Darwin or Brisbane did he abort.
So, fortuitously, he was back in Adelaide when the Bali Bombing of 12 October 2002 killed 88 Australians, including Sturt player Josh Deegan and long-time club official Bob Marshall.
Now almost 10 years into retirement, Mattner is a proud father “and full-time Uber driver” to two young Swans members who are devoted fans and potential father/son recruits after an albeit disappointing trip to the grand final last year.
Six-year-old Jimmy Mattner is a big Isaac Heeney man, and 10-year-old Oscar is split between Errol Gulden and Chad Warner. They play at local club Henley, the one-time home of Fremantle champion Matthew Pavlich, Port Adelaide’s Warren Tredrea and current Crows star Brodie Smith.
