It’s been easier to get King Charles III on the blower this week than Venues NSW media manager Phillip Heads, whose phone rings thrice before being directed to his voicemail, which he has changed.
“This is Phillip Heads from Venues NSW. Please leave a message and I’ll return your call … And if you’re asking for tickets to the Swans preliminary final, that is a miracle that will not happen.”
In an ever-changing Sydney sporting landscape, in which football clubs scrap for hearts and minds and stadium upgrades, the Swans are the weighted comfort blanket you can always rely on.
When they’re down, they’re not down for too long. When they’re up, they’re pushing for premierships.
Tickets for Saturday afternoon’s preliminary final between the Swans and Collingwood at the SCG went on sale on Monday — and sold out in 30 minutes. Single seats went for as much as $550 a ticket. Only seats with restricted views remain, but they’re expected to be snapped up as soon as they become available.
No wonder poor old Headsy is too afraid to answer his phone as everyone from the big end of town (MPs, chief execs) down to the very bottom end of town (journalists) scrambles for a start at the grand final qualifier.
Tony Lockett kicking his 1300th goal.Credit:Steve Christo
It’s difficult to imagine a time when the Swans weren’t popular, fighting for relevancy and survival, but in the early 1990s that was certainly the case.
It all changed on this corresponding weekend in 1996 when an injured Tony Lockett kicked the behind better known as “Plugger’s Point” — the last time the Swans played a preliminary final at the SCG, their spiritual home.
That was the miracle that did happen.
In the early 1990s, the Swans absolutely stunk, claiming three consecutive wooden spoons. Between the 1992 and 1993 seasons, they went on a 26-match losing streak that saw three coaches sacked and the SCG grandstands become wastelands as fans deserted them.
Then owner Mike Willesee offered to sell the club to its members, to which the members replied, “Ha! No thanks. All yours.”
Change came in the form of legendary coach Ron Barassi, shrewd chairman Richard Colless and, finally, a robust and rambunctious full forward called Tony Lockett.
The Swans faithful loathed Plugger, mostly because of what he did while playing for St Kilda to Peter Caven’s face.
Fans responded by releasing a piglet onto the SCG with “Plugger” painted on its belly. Plugger responded by lining up lippy fans while kicking for goal, launching kicks directly at their heads.
Sport is truly magical when played in this spirit.
Sydney loves a winner, though, especially one whose rough around the edges and can pull off a mullet, and when Lockett arrived in 1995 he was instantly embraced.
Even with Lockett, the Swans looked like anything but grand finalists at the start of 1996 under new coach Rodney Eade. They lost their first two matches by large margins but the tide eventually turned and Sydney won 13 of their last 16 regular season matches.
And so it was that the city came to love the Swans. Sure enough, the stands filled and the SCG became “The Fortress” because it was near impossible for visiting teams to win there.
They had tough players in Paul Kelly, Paul Roos and Daryn Cresswell, but the North Star was Lockett, anchored in the opposition goal square and swatting away defenders at will.
Tony Lockett and the Swans after the 1996 grand final.Credit:Fairfax
Come the preliminary final against Kevin Sheedy’s Essendon, the big fella had a big problem — a dodgy groin — but he took the field anyway.
The prelim was a cracker. Bombers sharpshooter Matthew Lloyd suffered broken ribs early and was rushed to hospital, yet his side led by as many as four goals at one point, then two goals with just four minutes remaining.
All looked lost — but Sydney refused to yield. First, Dale Lewis landed a goal. Then Creswell kicked another to level the scores with a minute remaining.
With 21 seconds to go, the ball found Wade Chapman, who marked, turned and kicked towards the top of the 50-metre arc.
“Look out!” Seven’s Gerard Healy warned in commentary.
Lockett gobbled the ball into his big tummy. There were 12 seconds left on the clock.
Now, in normal circumstances, Lockett would have kicked the Sherrin into Botany Bay. But, with a bad groin, it wasn’t a given.
Standing downfield, Roos was deeply concerned.
“Normally, this would be like shelling peas for Plugger,” Roos has told me. “He’d kick this over the fence. But that groin was the issue.”
Plugger moved in. Torp? No, drop punt. The ball went high, wobbled through the air … passed through the sticks.
The roar of the crowd was so loud that Roos, Eade and others thought he’d kicked the goal and they didn’t learn until well after full-time that he had not.
Didn’t matter: the Swans had reached their first grand final in 51 years. Sheedy still says it’s his worst moment in footy.
The Swans lost the grand final a week later, but it was the start of the love affair between a city and its AFL team, which eventually won premierships in 2005 and 2012.
The story of “Plugger’s Point” is one of the moments I wrote about in the book If These Walls Could Talk: A Celebration of the Sydney Cricket Ground. Please support battling authors and buy a dozen copies.
“Two years before that, we’d been bottom for the third year in a row,” Colless said in the book. “We were an object of ridicule. People in Melbourne said it wouldn’t work. People in Sydney were asking, ‘What are you doing here?’ You didn’t feel threatened, but nobody took you seriously, nobody respected you.”
Eade put it this way: “It was the point when the Swans were accepted in the city. That was the tipping point. Sydney, from that point, thought, ‘The Swans are ours’.”
And they were. They are. Our weighted comfort blanket.
End to Warner’s ban in sight
The campaign to have David Warner’s lifetime captaincy ban in Australian cricket lifted was started in January when Australia Cricketers Association boss Todd Greenberg wrote to the Cricket Australia board.
In that time, there’s been plenty of discussion and positioning behind the scenes and, more recently, very publicly with teammates — including captain Pat Cummins — supporting Warner taking over from Aaron Finch as Australia’s ODI skipper.
The big question is whether it will happen and the smart money is on the ban, slapped on Warner in the wake of the Sandpapergate scandal, being lifted.
The CA board that banned Warner has changed dramatically since that decision. Chairman David Peever and chief executive James Sutherland have moved on.
Warner is no fool and used a Kayo summer of cricket launch this week to further his case, making the extraordinary claim that the messy pay dispute four years ago was really behind the harsh ban.
“Unfortunately, a lot of the events before 2018 were with the board,” Warner said. “The MOU stuff and all that. There was a lot of stuff that was … things got over and above in terms of more than the Cape Town stuff. There was more to it. I think that’s where my decision, the penalty that was handed down was more of stuff that was happening before that.”
Either way, the day is looming when CA will need to make a call.
THE QUOTE
”Look, it was super strong — straight gin, dash of vermouth — and I just went, ‘I can’t be the only one who gets caught drinking the Queen’s drink. So ‘Gits, you have a sip’.” — Former Wallaby Drew Mitchell explains how he and Matt Giteau stole Queen Elizabeth II’s drink during a Wallabies’ visit to Windsor Castle.
THUMBS UP
The Maitland Pickers won their first Newcastle Rugby League grand final since 2011 with a resounding 40-4 win over Macquarie Scorpions on Sunday. The man of the match was prop Jayden Butterfield, who late the night before had become a father for the first time. “It’s been a big day,” he told The Newcastle Herald. Great stuff.
THUMBS DOWN
So said Paul Gallen to Justin Hodges in the lead-up to their fight on Thursday: “Make sure you kiss your kids goodnight before you go to the boxing — hopefully, you wake up.” I know it’s boxing. I know it’s two retired footballers sledging each other to sell pay-for-view subscriptions. But this was very poor from Gal. I’m sure he regrets it.
It’s a big weekend for … Parramatta halfback Mitchell Moses, who is expected to play the semi-final against Canberra at CommBank Stadium on Friday night despite suffering concussion against Penrith. If the Eels don’t get past the plucky Raiders, you know where the finger of blame will be pointed — the playmaker who has won two from nine finals matches.
It’s an even bigger weekend for … Sydney’s light rail, which was sold to the good people of NSW as the solution to eye-popping traffic problems around big sporting events at Royal Randwick and Moore Park. On Saturday, there’s a massive 10-race program at Randwick, followed by Swans-Pies at the SCG then Sharks-Souths at Allianz Stadium. Your time to shine, Light Rail! Your time to shine.
Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
