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News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
‘Embarrassing': Rival player labels Swans ‘a rabble' after SCG horror show
The Sydney Swans are bracing for the fallout of a humiliating 90-point loss to Adelaide on Saturday night as a Crows player labelled them 'a rabble'. Adelaide demolished the Swans to claim a 21.5 (131) to 5.11 (41) victory at the SCG, cementing their position in the top four as they push for a first finals berth since 2017. FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every match of every round in the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership Season LIVE in 4K, with no ad-breaks during play. New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer. The Swans were celebrating the 20-year anniversary of their droughtbreaking 2005 premiership, with Adam Goodes, Barry Hall and Leo Barry among the former players who did a lap of honour with ex-coach Paul Roos. But what was supposed to be a landmark night for the club turned into a football massacre and a black eye for the club. The 90-point defeat was Sydney's heaviest loss at the SCG since 2000. Haydn McLean kicked the first goal of the game, before Adelaide kicked five goals to one in the first quarter. The Crows piled on seven unanswered goals in the second term as the Swans completely fell apart. The SCG crowd gave Bronx cheers when the Swans kicked two behinds just before halftime, such was Sydney's difficulty in hitting the scoreboard. Apart from a 10-minute period to start the third quarter, Sydney continued to get hammered in the second half and in a humiliating sign, thousands of Swans flans left the SCG at three-quarter time. It meant the SCG seats were empty mostly by the time the final siren sounded as Swans supporters couldn't bare to watch. Fox Footy commentator Anthony Hudson described the result as a 'humiliation' for the Swans. Speaking post-game Crows defender Wayne Milera described the Swans as a 'rabble', adding he was pleased with his side's contested ball work and even contribution across the ground. 'You could sort of feel it as a group … they were sort of a bit of a rabble, just hearing them on the ground,' Milera told ABC Sport radio. That remark pricked the ears of Fox Footy's Super Saturday panel, who debated whether it went too far or was simply a fair description of a hapless Swans outfit. 'It's going to reverberate through two footy clubs, too, I think,' Fox Footy reporter Jay Clark said. 'It's the most damning post-match assessment of the season, and it's come from Adelaide's Wayne Milera ... That is a damning assessment from an opposition player — 'they were a rabble'. 'This is one of the proudest clubs in the competition. We know the history of the Sydney Football Club over the past two decades, and the champions that have played. They've been so consistent, and they've just been branded 'a rabble' by an opposition player from what he could hear them talk about on the field. 'Now, that is a big question mark. I think that'll send shockwaves through the Swans, and I'd be interested — how do the Adelaide Crows handle a comment from (one of their players). Is it disrespectful? Is it just honest?' 'One hundred per cent that's disrespectful (from Milera). Yeah, calling an opposition team 'a bit of a rabble' in a media sense,' Riewoldt stated. 'We've just come off the conversation with Matthew Nicks about they dropped Josh Rachele (last year) for 'values'. I'd love to know where a comment like that sits in the values of the Adelaide Football Club. 'So, there's clearly some big questions on that going forward, too.' Premiership Kangaroo David King questioned whether Milera meant his comment to sound as damning as it came across. 'He's a guy that doesn't have a history in this space. I can't remember hearing him speak. I can't remember hearing an interview from Wayne,' King said. 'I'd love to know what he was trying to say, whether he got his words wrong … I think it's something you can fix with a phone call. I'd be surprised if Matty Nicks didn't get on the phone and say 'look, we were out of line here, we made a mistake, can we step through this and move on?' 'It's just a simple error. I think he's got his words wrong, and I hope this doesn't become the story that maybe you think it will.' The result leaves Sydney languishing at 14th on the ladder with no hope of making finals, based on their current form. 'It was unacceptable and embarrassing,' Swans coach Dean Cox said of the result. 'Massive night for the footy club when you have a 20-year reunion. 'For a team that played desperate, uncompromising, ruthless football, and that (Saturday's performance) was far from it, so we need to strip it back and get to work real quick. 'We are going to fight our way through this, everyone that's involved at the footy club, and there's going to be no easy way through it. 'I said to them 'expect some tough sessions'. That'll happen.' 'I've got huge confidence in this playing group, but we need to make sure we spend time where we need to and to turn it around as quickly as possible.' The Swans take on Richmond next week before their mid-season bye.
News.com.au
2 hours ago
- News.com.au
Crows solidify top 4 with Swans smashing
AFL: A celebration of the Sydney Swans 2005 premiership turned into a nightmare as the Crows secured a huge win at the SCG.
Sydney Morning Herald
6 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Origin of the AFL's great challenge: What AFLW can learn from the NRL
Those numbers are impressive – not quite Married at First Sight level, but large enough that if a single AFLW game came within cooee, the AFL would be doing cartwheels (as distinct from customary backflips) and telling us all about it. So, herein lies the nub of one of the AFL's greatest challenges/problems, which will prove more important to the code's future prosperity than the tribunal's travails, Tom de Koning's call or whatever Smith posted on Instagram. The AFLW's lack of marquee events. The AFL is more successful than the NRL on most fronts – crowds, sponsors, participation and relative spread of tentacles. The AFL has clubs that make the NRL look like minnows, on the measures of bums on seats and intensity of followings. But the broadcast ratings is one facet that is heavily contested, in which the omnipresent Peter V'landys can spruik that 'rugba league' has the edge. Whatever one makes of the competing claims regarding TV audiences, it is clear that State of Origin represents the NRL's greatest advantage – and point of product differentiation. This has become even greater due to the rise of women's State of Origin. Further, the ratings for each code's 2024 W grand finals show that the AFL is some goals behind and kicking into the wind. The AFL just released a meat-and-three-vegetables fixture for the AFLW last week. Highlights? A reprise of Carlton v Collingwood as the season opener, some double-headers, and little else that garnered media attention. If the AFLW fixture was an election campaign by a political party, it would be labelled a small target strategy. To avoid continued stagnation in the growth of the women's league (as distinct from growth in grassroots women's footy, which has boomed), the AFL has a desperate need for events that would be a rejoinder to rugby league's Origin franchise. So, what are the options – bearing in mind that the AFL needs at least two major event games for women? TELEVISION AUDIENCES FOR AFLW AND NRLW AFLW grand final, 2024 Total national reach (peak): 1.048 million National average: 379,000 BVOD (Broadcast Video on Demand): 17,000 NRLW grand final 2024 Total national reach (peak): 1.473m National average: 697,000 BVOD: 102,000 *The NRLW grand final was a curtain-raiser before the men's grand final at night. NRLW State of Origin 1 Total national reach (peak): 1.897m National average: 992,000 BVOD: 189,000 NRLW State of Origin 2 Total national reach (peak): 2.079m National average: 1.088m BVOD: 203,000 1. A grand final curtain-raiser Some months ago, Essendon president and television executive David Barham proposed to the AFL that they consider playing the AFLW grand final as a curtain-raiser to the men's grand final (as the NRL/W does). This would ensure the season climax an automatic peak or even average audience of more than two million viewers, and build the occasion; naturally, it would also mean pushing the opening of the W season earlier, to around the bye period of rounds 12 to 14. Both Seven and Fox Footy stand to gain from two or three marquee 'W' event games. 2. Grand final during the bye before men's grand final If that curtain raiser concept faces opposition from those who contend that the AFLW cannot be subsumed by the men, and that their grand final must stand alone, an alternative that this column has proposed is to play the AFLW grand final in the middle of a bye weekend between the (men's) preliminary finals and grand final. This would mean scrapping the pre-finals bye and replacing it with a fortnight's break before the grand final, which would also reduce the risks of gun players missing the grand final via concussion protocols. 3. All-star representative games State of Origin originated with the native game, but the NRL stole the franchise (from the then VFL) and produced an improved and superior product. Apple didn't invent the smartphone, but look where they've taken it. NSW v Queensland, of course, works in a way that the more geographically diverse AFL cannot emulate. South Australia and Western Australia aren't anywhere near Victoria's football size or depth, and, as Queensland's grassroots grows, a reprise of State of Origin is difficult. Too many players are excluded from a state v state, mate v mate Origin framework in the modern AFL. But the AFL can still trial an All-Star game, pitting two teams of elite players against each other. It might be Daisy Pearce's team versus Erin Phillips'. Or East versus West. Seven could televise the selection of the teams, as if this was a reality TV show. Such a game would allow the elite players to show their skills, raising the standard of footy and the horizons of the entire competition that expanded too rapidly; for those knockers of the AFLW and fans who don't follow their own club closely, this would be a glimpse of the future. 4. International rules: Australia versus Ireland This has been mooted as a potential event for the AFLW, and it would be easier than the men's version because there are so many Irish players scattered among the AFLW cohort (33 at last count); you wouldn't need many to travel out from Ireland. It's conceivable that they could compete in a game that is entirely Australian rules – which would be groundbreaking, and more so if the Irish managed to beat the Aussies at our own game. Whichever option is most feasible, the goal must be to maximise the audience and to grow interest in the women's game. Women's tennis reached parity with the men and became the most commercially successful women's individual sport globally by dint of historical quirks, and pioneers such as Billie Jean King.
