Scintillating Swans: The Ultimate Season
Round 9 – Pandemonium
Sydney v Essendon – Round 14, 2017

Seventeen seconds.

That’s all that remained in this match when Gary Rohan miraculously marked in front of goals - “MARK, MARK, MARK! ROHAN!”, blared Bruce.

Every footballer dreams of kicking the winning goal after the full-time siren and this was Gary Rohan’s moment – five points down and our Swans searching for the matchwinner. “Before I knew it, the ball was in my arms.” Rohan recalls, “I think you can tell by my reaction that I was a bit like, woah, it stuck! It was one of the best feelings I’ve had, kicking that goal,” he adds.

Earlier that season, the feeling experienced by all at the Swans was in stark contrast. However, this extraordinary win placed our team in the top-eight for the first time that season - It was some achievement, given we opened 2017 with six straight losses. No club had ever rallied from a 0-5 start and reached the finals, let alone 0-6. Until we did.

When asked how the team handled the scrutiny, Rohan cites the lack of expectation as a key contributor to turning things around. “Early on, we were under a fair bit of pressure and then all of a sudden it just lifted. I think people started expecting us to lose, but internally we knew that we still had a chance and the pressure just lifted when we started winning games back-to-back. We were written off, but we knew that we just weren’t performing,” he recollects.

For much of this match our Bloods were in control. The Bombers then embarked on an unlikely run of seven unanswered goals to lead by nineteen points with just four and a half minutes remaining. This was season-on-the-line stuff and any stumble could prove to be terminal in the context of our season.

By this stage of the match, Rohan had been relocated to the attacking end of the ground. “I played in the backline for pretty much the whole game until the last quarter and then I went forward. It was one of those hard games that just went back and forth,” he recalls. It was first-year rookie Ollie Florent who kick started the comeback with a neat soccer kick from the ground, that set the team back on track. The thirty-five thousand in the SCG thundered, but little did we know there was more to come. Much more.

The final two minutes, the climax of this match provided a course of pure commotion. Rohan refers to the club’s never-say-die approach, which dates back to the time long ago of the ‘Blood Stained Angels’. “This is what the Swans are about. We never put up the white flag, we always fight to the death, so in a lot of ways this was a typical Swans game.” He adds, “Being down by twenty with only a couple of minutes to go, it all came down to how much we always believed in ourselves. It’s about never saying never and our type of attitude that always gave us a chance.”

From Florent’s fortuitous goal, Franklin had one controversially disallowed for being touched on the line. Rohan remembers the two critical moments that then created a winning opportunity. “I remember Nic Newman kicking a nice goal and that gave me a feeling of ‘we’re still a chance here’. Then Buddy had that long shot that was a point and I knew as soon as ‘Paps’ smothered that ball, that was our only chance, to score from that stoppage,” he recalls.

Rohan is referring to two individual efforts that typify the Bloods’ ethos. Firstly, with just one minute and nineteen seconds left in the match, Kennedy kicks long for Newman to jump, fumble, re-gather, sidestep and snap truly on his left. Then, with just twenty-five seconds left, after Franklin’s point, Tom Papley chases and smothers Brendon Goddard’s kick in - forward fifty stoppage to come.

This is our trademark. Think Nick Davis 2005 semi-final, Amon Buchanan 2005 Grand Final, Nick Malceski 2012 Grand Final. Now think Gary Rohan 2017. “Everyone really played their role at the stoppage and that gave ‘Ramps’ the opportunity to have a shot. I thought it was going through to start off with, so I started trying to shepherd it over the line.” He continues, “Then I saw it starting to drop short and before I knew, it was in my arms.”

As he lined up for the match-winning moment, Rohan clearly remembers the incredible situation he was in. “I knew there wasn’t much time left and I obviously knew I needed to kick the goal to get us in front. I think it was Kieren Jack telling me to take my thirty seconds because we knew there wasn’t much time left.” He adds, “So, I was just trying to look at the scoreboard, watching the clock run down and I faintly heard the siren go. I was pretty confident I wasn’t going to miss from the goal square, and I kicked it through!”.

The moment is one he will never forget. “It was the best feeling. Not just winning, but just because of how united the boys are at the Swans and how they all got around me that night. We all celebrated a great win.” Rohan recalls.

However, Gary’s guests that night had made the amateur mistake of writing the Bloods off. “I had a heap of mates that came up for the game, but they left early. To this day, they’re still fuming they left!” he jokes. “They left halfway through the last quarter when Essendon started kicking away. I still remind them of that.” Rohan states.

As the goal sailed through, the scenes in the stands could only be described as pandemonium! Swans ambassador and Today Show host, Brooke Boney was among the heaving masses. “I think it was our best win of that year and Rohan kicked the goal after the siren. I was losing the plot and screaming like a maniac and one of the guys I worked with at the time at Triple J was at the game with me and he secretly recorded it. They played it about a thousand times over the next couple of years!” she recalls.

With the winning goal on the board and the true Bloods believers in hysterics, John Longmire sat in disbelief. “I still think of Horse’s reaction, with Johnny Blakey trying to pump him up, and laugh.” Rohan says. “I remember him as we all walked in to the rooms and he just had the biggest smile on his face. He was getting around all of the boys, as he does and he was pretty pumped about it all.”

For Gary Rohan, memories of this match are among the most meaningful of his career. “You could sense the crowd getting behind us with each goal and it was a great experience for us all, especially all of the younger boys coming through, so they know they can win from any position.”

Although playing elsewhere these days, Rohan’s love for the Swans is clear. “I love the club and I always will. They’re a hard, professional team that have respect from everyone.” He adds, “the people that are involved in the club are sensational; they just want the best for all of their players, from development coaches all the way up to the board. It’s just a great club and I’ll always follow them.”

We’re just as grateful for having him.