Don't miss any of the news involving the Swans as we bring you everything from the newspapers around the country on Friday 21st August, 2015.

Proud Shaw salutes the club that gave him seven-year lease on footballing life

RHYCE Shaw has credited the Swans for turning his life around after admitting he would have ended up as a brickies labourer rather than an AFL premiership player had he not moved from Collingwood to Sydney.

From the moment Shaw pulled on the red and white the dashing halfback found levels of commitment even he didn’t realise he had.

But now his body is telling him it’s time to hang up the boots at the end of the season, having already played 232 games since 2000 - 94 with Collingwood and 138 with the Swans.

“Coming up here (to Sydney) was probably the best move I’ve made on and off the field,” Shaw said. “It’s changed my life, this footy club, and I’m very thankful for that.

ALI v Frazier, Yankees v Red Sox, Barcelona v Real Madrid, Celtics v Lakers, India v Pakistan ... Sydney Swans v Greater Western Sydney Giants?

No, there is not yet a place for the somewhat elusively titled “Battle of the Bridge” on the list of great sporting rivalries. Indeed there is still some confusion about whether we are talking the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Anzac Bridge or some unnamed footbridge at ANZ Stadium.

But if the Swans-Giants “rivalry’’ seemed at first contrived, the ingredients are being added to give the AFL’s intra-city clash at least a hint of the spice that enlivens the genuinely heated Perth Derby and Adelaide Showdown.

The most essential element of any rivalry is, of course, a genuine contest. Not the inevitably soulless massacres that took place when the embryonic Giants were torn apart by the seasoned Swans in the first four games.

The Swans’ winning margins in those games, starting in 2012 — 60, 94, 30, 129 — sound more the scores of a batsman on a good run of form than results of a fearsome rivalry. After all, history shows when real rivals meet passion can be as potent as form, making upsets more likely.

SATURDAY’S Sydney Derby is set to be the biggest ever, with the stakes higher than they’ve ever been for the Swans and the Giants.

The fallout for both teams is big. We’re striving for that top four spot and they can’t lose if they want to make the finals. There’s a lot on the line and we’re excited to get among it again. We took a step in the right direction with a gutsy win over Collingwood and we’ve put things in place after a month of inconsistent footy. Hopefully that’s behind us and we can really set ourselves up. We really have to get going now.

There’s only three games left before the finals but that’s plenty of time to find form — footy can change in one week. Just because you’re in bad form one week doesn’t mean you can’t change it the next week. There’s plenty of time footy wise.

SYDNEY have been hit with a double blow in their last training session before their derby against GWS, losing gun midfielder Tom Mitchell to a poke in the eye and livewire forward Gary Rohan to a knee injury.

Lance Franklin had already failed to prove his fitness for tomorrow’s vital match, while young champ Luke Parker is out with a broken ankle.

Mitchell will be badly missed. He was expected to replace Parker as a contested ball winner.

“Tommy got a poke in the eye in a tackling drill,” Swans coach John Longmire said.

“He’s got some bleeding behind the eye, so we have to be careful with that sort of injury. At this stage it’s definitely one week but could be two weeks. We’ll have to wait and see.”

WHEN the South Melbourne Swans became the Sydney Swans back in 1982 fullback Rod Carter famously said: “We were given the Yellow Pages and left to fend for ourselves.”

The GWS Giants’ entry into the AFL has been much smoother with much better infrastructure, planning and investment but a comparison between the fourth-year Giants and the fourth-year Swans (1986) finds plenty of similarities and the odd difference.

The contrast starts with the full forwards of the respective teams. The Swans had Warwick Capper and the currentday Giants have gun full forward Jeremy Cameron. They both know how to kick goals but the two personalities couldn’t be more different.

Capper was the pin-up boy for the Edelstein Swans and loved the media attention that came with it. Cameron is a country boy from Dartmoor in Victoria who is as modest as they come.

IT’S taken four years to do it but the Sydney AFL derby has come of age and the eighth version will be a match with real consequence to the competition.

Both teams must win the match, the Swans to keep their hopes of a top-four finish alive and the Giants to have any chance of a maiden finals appearance.

Both teams will bring patchy form into the match, the Swans won last week against Collingwood but were far from convincing and the Giants lost to Port Adelaide when they were run over in the last quarter.

HOT prospect Josh Dunkley is yet to decide if he’ll chance the draft or play the father-son card with the Sydney Swans, but he’s ready to go — wherever that may be.

The 18-year-old has been at Richmond since late May, training with the VFL side and playing six games while learning from the Tigers’ best. He spent a week training with Sydney this month and could seek to join the Swans under the father-son rule (Andrew played 217 games for the Swans).

The 189cm midfielder has been playing forward in the VFL and he hopes the experience he’s gained will make him an attractive option to recruiters.

“I’m trying to show to clubs that I’ll be ready to step into the system straight away,” Dunkley said. “The first (VFL) game I played, I played on Leigh Adams (and) Luke McDonald from North. When you’re out there next to them you’re like, ‘Well, they’re not that scary’, you just go out there and play footy.

The story of Rhyce Shaw's renaissance at Sydney is the perfect example why the Swans are fighting so hard to overturn the AFL's trade restrictions.

As hard as it may be now to remember after the signings of Kurt Tippett then Lance Franklin, there is much more to the Swans' recruiting than a chequebook.

Void of high-end draft choices due to their on-field success, the Swans have sifted through the trash of other clubs and turned their finds into red and white treasure.

Of the 22 named to take the field this weekend, only Jarrad McVeigh is a top 10 draft pick – the rest are a mix of later picks, elevated rookies and astute trading.

Lance Franklin is out but that's only the start of the woes for Sydney, who have been hit hard by injuries on the eve of their stoush with cross-town rivals Greater Western Sydney.

The Swans simply cannot take a trick. Already without club champion Luke Parker, they decided to err on the side of caution with Franklin and nor were they able to call upon their best forward from last week, Gary Rohan, and the man widely judged best afield, Tom Mitchell, who was injured in a training accident.

The pressure is now well and truly on the Swans' senior midfield core of Josh Kennedy, Jarrad McVeigh, Dan Hannebery and Kieren Jack, who all lifted with 30-plus possession games last week.

Franklin was restricted to running and light skill work on Thursday but it was not enough to warrant a recall against the Giants though he is in the frame to return next week against St Kilda.

The AFL Players Association has joined the Sydney fight to lift the trade restrictions placed upon the club with players' union boss Paul Marsh holding talks with AFL chiefs in the coming days.

The Swans will submit their challenge to the AFL Commission next Wednesday. The club has not ruled out taking legal action against the league as the 2015 trade period approaches and the reality of its situation sinks in.

Marsh spoke with Swans CEO Andrew Ireland during the AFL's parliamentary function in Canberra on Wednesday night. He told Fairfax Media the AFLPA regarded the original trade ban and subsequent restrictions as unfair on the club and its players.

Marsh added his union also remained concerned that the restrictive nature of Sydney's bid to trade at the end of this season would impact upon players from other clubs. "I'll be taking the issue to the AFL shortly," said Marsh who did not rule out continuing to fight the league's decision.

Rivalry, what rivalry?

Swans defender Rhyce Shaw has added spice to tomorrow’s eighth Battle of the Bridge by insisting the rising Giants have a long way to go to make the Sydney derby a genuine rivalry.

Statistically, Shaw is spot on as so far it’s been very much a case of big brother beating up on his younger sibling. The Swans have won six of the seven encounters, only losing the match in round one of the 2014 season.

That game was the first and so far only match between the clubs at Spotless Stadium, where the 10th-placed Giants have won five of six matches this season and where they meet fifth-placed Sydney tomorrow.