David Rhys-Jones split his 13-year AFL career between Sydney and Carlton. He defected from the Swans to the Blues at the end of 1984 over a pay dispute, but 39 years on says it could easily have worked out differently.
Speaking ahead of Friday night’s SCG clash between his two clubs, Rhys-Jones said it was never his intention to leave Sydney, but he did so in the wake of massive off-field turmoil.
As the Swans battled financial hardship in their early years in Sydney the AFL took charge, dismissing the entire administration in what was a forerunner to the controversial and short-lived era of private ownership under Dr. Geoffrey Edelstein.
“I was one of the first players to move to Sydney. It was a big, fast-paced environment and I loved it,” Rhys-Jones recounted.
“We were just starting to get a bit of a foothold when key football blokes like Greg Miller and Dean Moore, the backbone of the club, were moved on. The AFL put a freeze on all payments, saying there would be no increases for the following year (1985).
“I was a young bloke, living with my fiancée, and we were just about to put a deposit on a house in Sydney, but I didn’t have any faith in the new people … no real connection. Carlton offered me a deal and I was able to get out of my contract and go home.”
Originally from Oakleigh in Melbourne, the same junior club of Swans all-time favorite Stevie Wright, Rhys-Jones debuted as a 17-year-old. He played two years and 22 games with South Melbourne in 1980-81 and 21 games in 1982, when the players lived and trained in Melbourne and flew to Sydney to play every other week at the SCG.
He played 33 games living in Sydney in 1983-84, and at 22 was a 76-gamer, playing primarily on the wing, who shaped as a long-term key for the relocated club. Until the off-field dramas hit.
Ironically, his last game for the Swans was against Carlton at Princes Park in Round 22.
Rhys-Jones’ first game back at the SCG with the ‘enemy’ was Round 7, 1985, when Stephen Silvagni made his AFL debut and the Blues won by five points.
But the most famous ‘reunion’ came at the SCG in Round 11, 1989, when Rhys-Jones suffered a broken jaw in a first-quarter clash with another member of the Sydney/Carlton shared player group, Greg Williams.
As legend has it, Rhys-Jones, who played out the game before a five-week lay-off, spent much of his time thereafter trying to square-up. He was reported later in the game – one of an AFL record 25 times he was ‘booked’ in his 182-game career, which included 22 games missed through suspension and 17 tribunal appearances as the ‘victim’.
Ironically, the pair became teammates when Williams, now Carlton Director of Football, joined Carlton for Rhys-Jones’ last season in 1992 to put an end to his square-up mission.
Rhys-Jones, best remembered as the Norm Smith Medalist in Carlton’s 1987 grand final win when he played in an unfamiliar role at centre half-back and held Hawthorn’s Dermott Brereton goalless, holds another less-familiar place in football history.
He retired with the AFL record for most games by a player with a hyphenated name, having surpassed the 1932 mark of 146 games of Melbourne’s Ivor Warne-Smith.
But after seeing off a strong challenge from ex-Swan Lewis Roberts-Thomson, who played 179 games, he saw it fall to Collingwood’s Will Hoskin-Elliot in Round 2 this year.
Rhys-Jones was disappointed last year to miss the 40-year reunion of the Swans’ first Sydney side after his invitation went astray, but he’ll be at the SCG on Friday night as a special week in his annual calendar comes to an end.
Set to turn 62 next month, he is an ambassador for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association of Victoria, helping to raise awareness and support for a rare and wide-reaching genetic disorder that effects specifically chromosome 15.
His 16-year-old son Cooper suffers from the condition, which impacts 1500 families in Australia. Among varied symptoms, he requires less than 50% of the normal calorie intake to live and is heavily prone to obesity.
Accordingly, all food in the family home has to be kept under lock-and-key to control his intake.
“It is what it is,” Rhys-Jones says of a condition which has afflicted his ‘best mate’’ virtually from birth. “He gets along OK and we’re just committed to give him the best life we can.”
Each year Rhys-Jones is part of the PWSAV ‘’15 for 15’’ challenge. This week he has been remembering 15 career highlights and providing the back story to each via his Facebook page.
While Rhys-Jones and Williams were two high-profile common players in the 1980s and ‘90s, only seven players have played for the Swans and the Blues this century, and none have been quite so well known. They are Jeremy Laidler and Jason Saddington, who are now coaching at GWS, Andrejs Everitt, Jed Lamb and Ricky Mott, plus current Carlton players George Hewett and Nic Newman.
Head-to-Head
Sydney enjoys a 25-8 win/loss record against Carlton since the turn of the century, but it’s gone 4-4 since 2017. The Swans won 12 in a row from 2001-09 and seven in a row from 2012-16. It’s 11-2 to the Swans at the SCG during this time and 4-0 at Stadium Australia. They are also up 7-3 at Marvel Stadium and 3-1 at the old Princes Park ground since 2000, but Carlton won their only meeting at the MCG in 2017, and a neutral clash at Carrara in 2020.
The Big Memory
Results aside, think Sydney v Carlton in the last 22 years and you automatically go to one day. It was Round 23, 2017 at the SCG, when the Swans won by 81 points and Lance Franklin kicked 10 goals, becoming just the seventh Swans player in history and the only player this century to top double-figures.
With the home side playing for the double-chance against a Blues side out of finals contention, Franklin kicked 10-2 from 25 possessions for three Brownlow Medal votes. He kicked one goal in the first quarter, two in the second, three in the third and four in the last.
Franklin also kicked seven against Carlton at the SCG in 2015 to replicate Barry Hall’s seven at Princes Park in 2002, while the same pair also had games of six goals against the Blues. Carlton’s best in the same period is six goals to the credit of Brendan Fevola at Princes Park in 2003 and Charlie Curnow at Docklands last year. The Blues’ best at the SCG this century is Eddie Betts’ four in 2011.
Brownlow Votes
The Swans lead the Brownlow votes in games between the clubs in this period 132-54, polling 66 times to the Blues’ 27, and 22-9 in three-vote ratings. Adam Goodes heads the individual vote, polling seven times for 14 votes, while Josh Kennedy and Lance Franklin have each polled five times for 10 votes. Jude Bolton has been best afield three times for nine votes, while Brett Kirk, Isaac Heeney and Ryan O’Keefe had polled eight votes against Carlton. Patrick Cripps, with four two-vote games in 2016 and 2019, ’20 and ‘21, leads the Blues’ vote from Matthew Kreuzer and Kade Simpson (6).
Nic Newman polled three votes in his first game for Carlton against Sydney at the SCG in 2019, when he had 32 possessions in a seven-point win for the visitors, while George Hewett polled one vote in his first game against the Swans last year after picking up 32 possessions in a 15-point Carlton win at Marvel Stadium.
Possession Records
Jarrad McVeigh holds the record for most possessions in a Sydney v Carlton game this century, having had 42 in a 24-point Swans win in a 2013 semi-final at Stadium Australia. This came a year after Josh Kennedy had 41 at the SCG in a 71-point home-and-away win in 2012.
Carlton’s best against Sydney in the same era has been Anthony Koutoufides’ 39 at Princes Park in 2000, and Sam Docherty’s 39 at the MCG in 2017. Their best at the SCG is ex-captain Kade Simpson’s 34 possessions in 2016.
Biggest Wins & Losses, Highest & Lowest Scores
The Swans have out-scored the Blues 13-6 in 100-point scores, and 8-1 in wins by 50 points or more this century. Their biggest win was by 92 points at the SCG in 2006, when Adam Goodes was best afield with 26 possessions and four goals. Carlton’s biggest win was by 61 points at Marvel Stadium in Dan Hannebery’s debut in 2009. Their highest score was 25.12 (162) at the SCG in 2007, and the lowest was 8.4 (52) at Carrara in the shortened games of 2020.
Carlton Form Guide
The Blues started the 2023 season with a draw against Richmond and three wins over Geelong (8pts), GWS (10pts) and North (23pts) and beat an understrength West Coast by 108 points in Perth in Round 7. They’ve lost to Adelaide (56pts), St Kilda (22pts), Brisbane (26pts), Western Bulldogs (20pts) and Collingwood in front of 80,354 at the MCG last Saturday.
Sam Walsh, who missed the first four games of the season following off-season back surgery, has averaged 29.8 possessions a game since his return to be the Blues’ No.1 ball-winner ahead of Patrick Cripps (27.9), Sam Docherty (27.3), Adam Cerra (27.0) and Blake Acres (25.22). Charlie Curnow, the reigning Coleman Medalist, has again been the competition’s leading goal-kicker this season with 36 goals in 10 games. Harry McKay, the 2021 Coleman Medalist, has kicked 14 goals, while Matt Owies has 11 in five games, and Corey Durdin 10 in nine games.
Curnow (28 votes), Cripps (22) and Nic Newman (15) have been Carlton’s leading vote-getters in the AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year Award.
