Off-season Sydney Swans recruit Sam Gray believes the club’s sweep of lively forwards can cause trouble in season 2020.
When the former Port Adelaide pocket rocket arrived at Sydney via last November’s delisted free-agency period, he joined an attack streaked with Tom Papley, Will Hayward, Ben Ronke and a host of other opportunist forwards.
In his six seasons at the Power, Gray played with a raft of footballers of a similar ilk in names like Robbie Gray, Chad Wingard and Jarman Impey – and he’s excited by what he sees in the Swans’ forward line.
“I think if you look through some of the players down there there’s a lot of speed. And we’ve also got a lot of good talls who can move pretty well, so if they can bring it to ground we can do our work,” Gray told SwansTV.
“I’m playing a pretty similar role to Tom Papley and some of the other boys: small forward, pressure, hopefully get a few goals. Then I’m at a few centre bounces here and there and I run through the midfield a little bit.”
Gray, Lewis Taylor (Brisbane Lions) and Kaiden Brand (Hawthorn) all left other clubs for the Swans during the off-season.
Gray was drafted to Port Adelaide as a rookie ahead of season 2014 and ran out for his AFL debut in Round 4, 2014.
The South Australian played 96 AFL games with the Power for a return of 83 goals.
He was one of few stand-out Swans in Sydney’s 94-point defeat to GWS in the Marsh Community Series last Saturday, moving freely up and down the ground and proving an influential link player.
The 28-year-old says he’s primed for season 2020 and has already set his sights on notching 100 games, a milestone he could reach as early as Round 4 when Sydney meets Carlton at the SCG.
“I’m going into the season well. I probably started off slow coming off shoulder surgery, but after Christmas there haven’t been any dramas, I’ve been in full training and I’m looking forward to playing North Melbourne next week and hitting Round 1,” Gray said.
“Hopefully I can get those four games out of the way pretty quickly, and you never know what can happen after that.
“Maybe I could play 100 games for the Swans,” Gray said with a grin.
