Another pre-season is here, hence another opportunity to brush off the cobwebs in anticipation for the upcoming home and away season.
From what we saw last weekend and what we'll continue to see over the next fortnight, clubs will take this opportunity to put their summer plans into action, throw their young’uns into the fold and unleash (or nurse) their stars in readiness for Round 1.
For the Sydney Swans, it all starts this Saturday afternoon against Brisbane in Moreton Bay.
Ahead of the twilight clash from Moreton Bay Central Sports Complex, we take a look at the numbers behind how the Sydney Swans have fared in pre-seasons gone by.
An overview of the pre-season/night series
The pre-season competition, as we’ve come to know it today, didn’t exist. In fact, the pre-season competition wasn’t a pre-season competition at all before 1988. At one stage, from its 1956 introduction to 1977 (save for a six-year hiatus), it was a post-season night series fixture and comprised of teams who finished outside of finals.
For more than a decade, between 1977 to 1988, the format was a knock-out series played from March to July featuring all VFL teams, plus sides from the Western Australian Football League (WAFL), South Australian National Football League (SANFL), NSW, ACT, QLD and Tasmania.
Player schedules were packed. With the night series played midweek, mostly on a Tuesday, there was a short turnaround before teams had to recover and back up for the regular season games the following weekends.
The jumper worn by the Sydney Swans in the 1997/98 pre-season competition. Image: footyjumpers.com.au
Since then the competition has been altered and changed many times over – from a simple knock-out tournament (1988-99), to a round-robin format of four teams in different pools (2000-03), back to knock-out (2003-10), then to 40-minute lightning games in which six pools of three teams played each other on the same day or night.
In 2014, the competition element was abandoned all together in favour of three simple practice matches with no ranking system or no overall winner awarded. Today, we know it as the recently rebranded JLT Community Series.
This year's version will play out as a three-week competition of which clubs will play two scheduled fixtures.
Over the years, the competition’s sponsor has changed multiple times: Golden Fleece (1965-1969), Radiant (1970), Heinz (1971), Amco/Herald (1977-1978), Escort (1979-1982), Sterling (1983-1984), CUB (1985-1986), National Panasonic (1987-1989), Foster’s (1990-1994), Ansett Australia (1995-2001), Wizard Home Loans (2002-2005), NAB (2006-2016), JLT (2017-2018).
The Sydney Swans’ pre-season/night series history
South Melbourne enjoyed considerable success in the night series’ infancy, winning three of the first five premierships (1956-57 and 1960) against Carlton, Geelong and Hawthorn respectively.
They’d go on to reach three more grand finals (1967, 1982 and 1984), for one premiership (‘82) when Rick Quade’s Swans defeated North Melbourne by 32 points in front of 20,000 people at VFL Park.
Sydney, however, had been starved of success since the competition was moved to the pre-season timeslot, progressing past the first round only nine times during the 26-year period before the competition eradicated.
Semi-finals in 1995 and 2002 remain the Club’s best result in the post-1988 era.
Champion goal-kicker Tony Lockett made a return to footy in the 2002 Wizard Cup. He's pictured here in a contest with Port Adelaide's Matthew Primus in the semi-final.
In 1998, Sydney helped take the AFL global by playing its opening round match against Melbourne in Wellington, New Zealand. The Swans were defeated by 12 points.
In 2011, Sydney and GWS’ rivalry ignited when the neighbours went head-to-head in a three-strong pool with Gold Coast. The original occupants of the Harbour City won the first ever battle – 0.13.5 (88) to 0.0.4 (4) – at Blacktown International Sportspark.
For the record
Overall
Games played: 113
Wins: 55
Losses: 58
Grand Final appearances: 6 (1956, 1957, 1960, 1967, 1982, 1984)
Premierships: 4 (1956, 1957, 1960, 1982)
Most games:
27 - Adam Goodes
26 - Heath Grundy
25 - Jude Bolton
22 - Kieren Jack
21 - Stephen Wright
Most goals:
34 - Tony Morwood
33 - Tony Lockett
29 - Fred Goldsmith
29 - Bob Skilton
27 - Bob McGowan
Lewis Jetta has kicked the most supergoals (3)
Last year’s results
Week 1
North Melbourne 0.9.11 (65) d Sydney 0.8.15 (63)
Supergoals: Nil
Goals: Florent 2, Cameron, Kennedy, Robinson, Hannebery, Fox, Foote
Best: Mills, Heeney, Jones, Hannebery, Hewett
Crowd: 3,040 at Coffs Harbour International Sports Stadium
Week 3
Sydney 0.8.6 (60) d GWS 1.4.9 (42)
Supergoals: Nil
Goals: Franklin 2, Towers 2, Robinson, Tippett, D.Cameron, J.Kennedy
Best: Kennedy, Mills, Lloyd, Parker, Rampe, Hannebery
Crowd: 2,695 at Blacktown International Sportspark
Week 4
Sydney Swans 0.11.11 (77) d St Kilda 0.10.14 (74)
Supergoals: Nil
Goals: Franklin 2, Towers, Tippett, Parker, Cunningham, Hayward, Reid, Robinson, Cameron, Hewett
Best: Kennedy, Jones, Robinson, Parker, Franklin, Tippett
Crowd: 6,893 at Lavington Sports Ground (Albury)
