With the arrival of boom recruits Lance Franklin and Kurt Tippett, Ben McGlynn and Gary Rohan’s recoveries from injury, and the additions of newcomers Dane Rampe, Harry Cunningham and Jake Lloyd, there will be seven players from the 2012 premiership team who won’t feature when the Swans meet Hawthorn in this afternoon’s 2014 AFL Grand Final.
Since the 2012 premiership, the Swans have bid farewell to dual premiership player Jude Bolton, who hung up his boots at the end of the 2013 season, fellow two-timers Lewis Roberts-Thomson and Ryan O’Keefe signalled the end of their playing careers this year, and premiership-winning ruckman Shane Mumford moved across town.
Ahead of this year’s Grand Final, sydneyswans.com.au spoke to the three other players who tasted premiership success in 2012 but won’t feature this year, in Marty Mattner, who will experience his first Grand Final as an assistant coach this weekend, Mitch Morton, who will look on from his new life in Perth, and Alex Johnson, still a Swans player who wishes he could be out there.
For Mattner, preparations for this year’s Grand Final tilt are vastly different to what he experienced two years ago.
Working alongside senior coach John Longmire and fellow assistants Henry Playfair, Stuart Dew and John Blakey, Mattner said preparing for a Grand Final was a completely different process from the coaches’ box.
“It is a different feeling,” Mattner told sydneyswans.com.au.
“With coaching, all of our work is done earlier in the week, with a few meetings later in the week, but most of the preparation in terms of looking at Hawthorn and getting all of our stuff ready is done earlier in the week.
“It’s a bit different, because once we got to Melbourne we’ve only got a couple of meetings and then it’s match day, so (as a coach) you don’t have to be physically right for the game, but mentally you have to, so that’s a big change from being a player.”
Mattner, whose desperate tackle on Grant Birchall in the last quarter of the 2012 Grand Final will go down in Swans’ finals folklore, admitted it was sometimes hard to watch on as his former team mates lined up for another decider.
But the 222-gamer said he was grateful for what he achieved and was looking forward to hopefully seeing some other Swans experience premiership success this weekend.
“You do think about missing out on that success as a player, but I don’t really think I’m missing out,” he said.
“But I was talking to someone the other day and was saying that I was pretty lucky to play in one and was happy to win one.
“I think it’s just good for the boys and the club, and in particular Benny McGlynn, and guys like Gary Rohan, and even Harry and Lloydy, and those blokes who missed out or who weren’t at the club.
“You have to retire at some stage and other blokes take your place, which is a good thing.”
Another player who made an important cameo in the Swans’ 2012 premiership victory was Morton, who bobbed up for two important goals in the second quarter of the match.
The 27-year-old, who announced his retirement during the 2013 season, has since returned to his home state of Western Australia, but has been supporting the Swans from afar.
Having played for West Coast and Richmond before experiencing finals football, Morton said he still had to pinch himself when he looked back on what he achieved in the red and white.
“The enormity of it still hits me today,” he said.
“There’s not a function I go to, or a football game I attend, where they don’t introduce me as ‘Mitch Morton, Sydney Swans premiership player’, and that’s one of those things that over time you realise what it means to be part of something like that.”
With a premiership medal and four 2012 finals goals under his belt, Morton said the Swans’ success, and the intensity of finals football, were things he would always remember.
“My memories of playing during the finals were more so just about the intensity of it – every contest, every minute – it was just intense,” he said.
“Big moments stand out; the tough, team orientated moments stand out more than anything, and things like the Dan Hannebery mark in the Grand Final, and LRT’s performance in Adelaide, the tough team moments stick in my mind more than anything else.
“To get the opportunity just to come in and play was just a dream come true and is something I’ll never forget.”
While Morton was lucky enough to reach the pinnacle of his career and move on with satisfaction, young Swan Alex Johnson has been stuck in a holding pattern since he enjoyed premiership glory in 2012.
The 22-year-old, who played a pivotal role in the Swans defensive unit throughout 2012 – and on Grand Final day especially - was stuck down with an anterior cruciate ligament injury in the 2013 pre-season, and has experienced setback after setback since.
The defender, who is getting ready for a fourth knee reconstruction in two years due to infection, said he would give anything to be out there with his team mates today.
“It’s obviously been a bit of a rollercoaster ride over the last 18 months and it’s been shattering,” he said.
“Back at the start of 2013 I learnt that I was going to miss the whole season, so that was hard enough to take at the time, but to have a few setbacks along the way, it’s just been a massive rollercoaster experience.
“Every week you want to be there and you want to run out with the boys and play footy, but at this time of year, in September, it’s challenging to watch I suppose.
“I love seeing the boys go so well, but I would give anything to be out there.”
Even with the horrific setbacks experienced over the last two seasons, Johnson still remains positive about what he was able to achieve in just his 45th AFL game.
The young Swan said Grand Finals should never be taken for granted, and he would always be a proud Sydney Swans premiership player.
“I look back on it now and to think it was just my second year in the AFL was amazing really,” he said.
“I suppose a lot of it is luck really, but we did have a really good team in 2012 and we played a lot of good footy.
“Finals are something you dream of when you’re a kid running around the backyard, but obviously to achieve a premiership win is just amazing.
“It’s every kid’s dream, it’s what every AFL footballer wants to do and not many are lucky enough to do it, and I’m lucky that I have.”
