Following the confirmations of Brodie Grundy and Taylor Adams joining the Swans from 2024, Sydney Swans Executive GM – Football Charlie Gardiner spoke on Continental AFL Trade Radio (Thursday, October 12) with the latest. 

See the quotes below.

Q: A big day yesterday with deals struck for Brodie Grundy and Taylor Adams. The Adams deal didn’t eventuate till late. What level of surprise did the Club have when the Adams camp reached out.?

First and foremost, we are really pleased to bring in a couple of experienced players into our squad. I have been on the record, and John has as well, just in relation to where our group is at and the need to add experience and strong leaders to assist Callum, Dane and Luke, so we are really pleased with that.

In terms of specifics of how these deals play out, they tend to evolve. When you have an opportunity to bring in two really high calibre players, you have to look at it, pursue it and we did that.

Credit to Kinnear and his team for being able to identify some targets to address key needs that we think we have in the list management space.

Q: I want to ask about your list this year. You were fairly quiet last off-season that must be said, but at what point during the year did you think you had to get aggressive at the trade table?

You need to play what is in front of you a little bit. We have, for various reasons, we have gone to the draft over the last 5-6 years and brought in some really good talent. We have been able to retain a lot of that talent which has been our focus, but this year we had the opportunity to be more active.

That comes with the departure of a fair bit of experience over the last two years. We would have lost Franklin, Hickey, Kennedy last year, so over a thousand games of experience.

As I have said before, we are about competing each and every year and doing whatever you can do to that in the list management sense.

When you have opportunities to make changes to your list that you think are going to make you better, you do that. Whether that is by draft, trade or free-agency, you have to play what is front of you a little bit and that is what we have done.

Q: You give pick 46 and a future second round for Brody Grundy. His situation was probably so heavily publicised, is it something you drive in a proactive sense to reach out? Or did it come the other way?

It is never one way or the other. I think, and I have said this before, these things evolve. Kinnear and our recruiting team are constantly having conversations with managers across the course of the year, the season and are keeping track of players and checking in.

It is never black or white, one way or the other. These things evolve, but what I will say is we are always trying to get better and you have to keep an eye on how you can do that. If you think you can add players that fill or address a need in your list, you have to look at it.

Q: James Jordon comes as a free agent. What need does he fill in your best 23?

We were really keen to bring James in and Kinnear rated him really highly as a junior.

He is a player we think can add to our midfield and can play a variety of roles. We think he can play inside and outside, wing, and even half forward and coming up around the ball.

Nowadays, I think we are seeing teams (or a bit of a trend) have a lot of options that can go through the midfield. I don’t think there is any such a thing as pure midfielders these days.

 Flexibility is really important to teams and having lots of numbers, so we think James will add to us in that space.

Q: Do you think it will be a quick bounce going forward and with these players you have brought in, the natural uptick of your younger players, you are ready for a quick bounce next year?

We played finals this year and felt we were really competitive for much of the season. We had some real challenges with player availability through the first half of the season which I think impacted us significantly, especially in key position areas.

I don’t think bounce is the right way to describe it. It is probably how we can continue to get better and we are confident what we have done the last few days improves our list overall, addresses key needs that we had in terms of the ruck space with Tom Hickey departure, adding midfield depth and experience to our young squad.

Also, Joel Hamling’s addition in defence, with Paddy McCartin leaving us, that we needed some support there as well. 

We think we get better so hopefully that is reflected in results next year. A lot has to go right these days. The competition is so even as we know, games are so tight, player availability is becoming more and more important that a squad that has experience and depth to be able to cover injuries throughout the year.

Q: How important for you, is it to keep money in the salary cap so that this time next year, you can potentially have a crack at a big name key forward or another key player to strengthen you for 2025, and ahead.

Salary cap management is a big part of list management, as importantly is retaining our talent.

We have what we think is a core group of really good young players that we want to see in the red and white for a number of years to come. That will be the priority for us moving forward.

We have Joel Amartey, Logan McDonald and Hayden McLean, three in our key positions up forward, as well as a young developing forward in Jack Buller from WA who we think has some real potential.

We will work with them, but I think retaining the core group we got, and if we can add to them and help support them to give the squad the best crack of it, we will do that.

Q: When will you look to start, or have you already started around a long-term extension for someone like Logan?

I won’t comment specifically on contract discussions, but he is contracted for next year. We see Logan as a really big part of our long term plans and he has taken some great strides already in his time with us.

We can all see him developing in front of our eyes and we are hoping that can continue.

But we also don’t want to put too much pressure on him. We know young key forwards take a bit of time and we are really confident he is going to be a really good player and that he will be a part of our future.

He is very close with a number of young players here, we have a few West Australians at the club, and they are all very close and really enjoying playing with each other and hopefully playing together for many years to come.

Q: How is Callum Mills’ rehab going?

Callum is going well. It has been talked about a lot, the disappointment and just how disappointed he is to have had the injury.

He is an absolute professional, as we all know, and nobody will work harder to get back. We are really confident he will make a full recovery and will be doing everything he can to get back as quickly as possible.

We still don’t know what the timeline is, and that will evolve over the summer, but early indications are everything is on track.