If six months ago you’d asked a cross-section of AFL fans who wears jumper #34 for the Sydney Swans you would have got a lot of blank looks.
It’s just the way it is. All but the ardent club supporter is all over the big names, is aware of the fancied and well-publicised up-and-comers, but generally isn’t too familiar with a seven-game 20-year-old from interstate whose career statistics read 43 possessions and one goal.
But when Matt Roberts wears his #34 onto the SCG for his first AFL final against the GWS Giants on Saturday afternoon they’ll know exactly who he is. Because he’s earned it.
The No.1 citizen of Langhorne Creek, a tiny wine town 55km south of Adelaide, Roberts has been one of the unsung rising stars of the 2024 season, playing 20 games and averaging 18.5 possessions on just 72% game time.
Take out three games where he either started as the sub or was subbed out and played a total of 86 minutes for 15 possessions, and he averaged 21 possessions. Only Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Errol Gulden of his teammates averaged more over the season.
It’s a curious statistic that only 70 of the 659 players who have played in the AFL this year have had multiple 30-possession games. As a team the Swans have only had 12. The All-Australian quartet of Heeney (3), Gulden (2), Warner (2) and Nick Blakey (2) accounting for nine of them. Veteran Jake Lloyd had one and #34 had two – 36 against the Bulldogs in Round 20 and 31 in Round 24 against Adelaide.
If they’d offered bets on that sort of thing pre-season it would have been ‘write your own ticket’.
But internally there was always a belief that the player chosen with pick #34 in the 2001 AFL National Draft from SANFL club South Adelaide was going to make it.
He’d been a South Australian representative at Under-16 level in 2018-19 and Under-18 level in 2020-21, was chosen in the 2021 AFL Academy squad, and had made his SANFL debut in May 2021 with fancied clubmate Jason Horne-Francis.
Having left the family farm, located between Langhorne Creek and nearby Strathalbyn, to finish his schooling as a boarder at Adelaide’s St Peter’s College from Year 10, Roberts had been likened to Western Bulldogs’ 2024 All-Australian captain Marcus Bontempelli.
A pre-draft scouting report noted the similarities between the left-footed pair, describing Roberts as “a consistently prolific ball-winner with clean skills and a high work rate … (with an) ability to hit the scoreboard that has set him apart from those around him in recent years.”
After clubmate Horne-Francis, now at Port Adelaide, was drafted at #1 to North Melbourne Roberts had a bit of a wait on draft night. Sam Darcy went father/son to the Dogs at #2, Finn Callaghan to GWS at #3, Nick Daicos to Collingwood at #4, Mac Andrew to Gold Coast at #5 and Josh Rachelle to Adelaide at #6.
Sydney took Angus Sheldrick from WAFL club Claremont with their first pick at #17 as Roberts’ wait continued. But when it got to pick #34 Swans recruiting boss Kinnear Beatson didn’t hesitate.
“We really liked him. In his draft year he’d been used as a bit of a Mr Fix-It, playing back, wing, forward, which was appealing. And the fact that he was a left-footer and a good kick were the other main attractions. He’s a beauty ... from a really good family … low profile, low maintenance … he just goes about his job.”
Having inherited the #34 jumper from Jordan Dawson, now the Adelaide Crows skipper, Roberts debuted in Round 11, 2022 in Will Hayward’s 100th game, which was against Richmond at SCG. Late goals from Heeney and Sam Wicks got the Swans home by six points after Lance Franklin had kicked five goals for three Brownlow Medal votes.
Roberts played Rounds 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 in 2022, missed 10 weeks with a bad knee, and after another AFL outing in Round 22 he was an emergency for the last two home-and-away games but missed out in the final.
After a big off-season he gave Swans fans a preview of what was to come when he had 19 possessions against Melbourne at the SCG in Opening Round to win the first nomination for the Telstra AFL Rising Star Award.
He was ‘managed’ out of the side in Round 5 and had a fortnight in the VFL in Rounds 15 and 16 but since Round 18 his possession count has read 22, 23, 36, 20, 25, 21 and 31.
And now he’s set for his first final in a Sydney derby.
If he feels the need to chat about what to expect there is no shortage of candidates, with nine teammates on Saturday having done the same thing – Ollie Florent, Gulden, Hayward, Tom McCartin, Justin McInerney, Hayden McLean, Tom Papley, James Rowbottom and Warner.
Also a talented cricketer and golfer, Roberts is just the fourth player from South Adelaide to play for the Swans. He follows Darren Kappler (59 games), Stephen Doyle (47) and Ryan Fitzgerald (10), with rookie Jaiden Magor hoping to become the fifth, and Hayden McLean picked up from South as a pre-season supplemental selection before having a chance to play for the Panthers.
Also on Saturday afternoon, Harry Cunningham will wear his #7 jumper for the 205th time to equal the club record for most games in #7 held by ex-captain Dennis Carroll.
This comes after Lewis Melican, set for his 82nd game in #43 on Saturday, bettered the previous best off 77 by former captain Mark Browning before he switched to #11 in his fifth season in 1979.
Cunningham and Melican have joined Luke Parker (#26) and Jake Lloyd (#44) as current players who are Swans games record-holders in their jumper.
Dane Rampe, having played his first 23 games in 2013 wearing jumper #43 and once in 2017 worn #50, will play his 225th game in #24 on Saturday.
This will see him join ex-Melbourne forward Russell Robertson in 10th spot on the AFL’s all-time games list for that jumper, headed by ex-Footscray and North ruckman Gary Dempsey (329) from the Swans’ Jude Bolton (325).
Rampe wore #50 in Round 10, 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 referendum whereby Indigenous Australians officially became acknowledged as part of the population. Lance Franklin wore #67 in the same game.
