Sydney Swans Playing List Evaluation in 2025
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Those blowhards in the AFL media, them overpaid talking heads with exaggerated reputations, will be coming for the Sydney Swans, now that they have plummeted down the ladder. Back to back 10 to 15 goal thrashings will do that. It will be ‘so-called’ incisive judgements about the lack of talent on the Sydney list and how they will have to go into rebuild mode. These ‘geniuses’ all jump on the judgemental ‘must rebuild’ media led bandwagons, which saw clubs like Melbourne and North Melbourne stuck down the bottom of the ladder for decades. Here is a Sydney Swans playing list evaluation in 2025.
Top Tier Sydney Swans Players Currently
The Top Talent On The List: Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, Errol Gulden (out injured in 2025). Tom Papley (injured most of 2025)
Average At Best: Brody Grundy, James Rowbottom, Will Hayward, Lewis Melican, James Jordan, Justin McInerney, Tom McCartin, Callum Mills,
Average With Potential: Matt Roberts, Joel Amartey, Sam Wicks, Braeden Campbell,
Young Potentials: Caiden Cleary, Corey Warner, Tom Hanily, Angus Sheldrick, Caleb Mitchell, Indhi Kirk
Past It: Jake Lloyd, Joel Hamling, Dane Rampe, Taylor Adams
Journeymen: Peter Ladhams, Aaron Francis, Ben Paton
Out Of Form: Oliver Florent, Riley Bice, Hayden McLean,
Injured: Logan McDonald, Harry Cunningham, Robbie Fox
https://www.sydneyswans.com.au/afl
Assessment Of Playing Issues In Season 2025
Brody Grundy is the first serious investment in ruck stocks in decades at the Swans. Yes, he was a bargain basement deal with Collingwood paying a chunk of his salary. Grundy wrestles his way through games of AFL football for whatever that is worth. He leads an appalling lack of aerial marking presence in matches for the Swans. Only Tom McCartin provides a real marking presence during games. Ladhams and McLean are pretty woeful in this regard. Amartey is too busy missing games due to suspension or injury to mark the ball. It is, often, left to Isaac Heeney to take contested marks and teams are clamping down on him. Dean Cox is the tallest head coach in AFL and his team cannot mark the bloody ball. You cannot win matches if you have no aerial presence.
At centre bounces the Swan’s midfield are either on or stone cold. This makes them all duck or no dinner. Opposition teams waltz out the front of the stoppage and score really easily against the Swans under Dean Cox. Lately, they have looked so negative with players in the middle trying to lock down on an opponent that there is no one left to win the ball and take it forward. We all know that a team needs to get the offence and defence balance right to win games. Well, this aint happening with the Swans in season 2025. Yes, the team is sorely missing Errol Gulden. Tag Heeney, Chad and the Lizard and the Swans are dead in the water.
The Swan’s players are lousy at tackling in 2025. I think that their body mass is too light weight with them all looking like distance runners. There is an observable reduction in upper body mass in the 2025 playing group. Yes, tackling is a lot about technique and Sydney could focus on brushing up on their tackling technique. I reckon the physical conditioning maestros have got it wrong. Because the team are getting monstered out of contests by sides like Melbourne and Adelaide. It is not all just a lack of mental application to the job at hand – it is physical mass too. The Swans look lighter and slighter than opposition sides in 2025.
Out Of Form, Suspended & Injured Swans in 2025
Sydney Swans playing list evaluation in 2025. Yes, serious injuries have meant no Errol Gulden in season 2025. No Logan McDonald, and no Robbie Fox or Harry Cunningham. Virtually no Tom Papley or Callum Mills. Suspensions due to poor discipline have cost 12 weeks suspension to Justin McInerney, Joel Amartey, and Lewis Melican.
Out of form players are the bane of coaches and supporters. Oliver Florent was once a stirring line breaker coming off the half back or wing. Now, he cannot win a contest and his ball use has been dire. Will Hayward has played a couple of good games but has been largely underwhelming. The forward line has been missing Papley, McDonald, and Amartey at various times, which means more falls upon Hayward to do. Hayden McLean had a late start to the season and has been woeful. His body mass for a centre half forward is too thin and he gets moved off the ball with ease by opposing players. What is going on with the physical conditioning of McLean? He is not going to move faster by shrinking his size. He is a lumbering type player and requires body mass to be some sort of power forward for the Swans.
Justin McInerney and Braeden Campbell have both been disappointing this season. I thought that they would step up to fill Errol’s shoes. Callum Mills, the Captain has been missing in action for the best part of 2 years – thanks to misadventure and injuries. Not sure if he is still the player he was? Juries out on that. Jake Lloyd has been a wonderful servant of the club over many years. He is a senior player and has value on this basis. However, watching him this year, his ball use going forward is largely ineffective, Lloyd is not a great user of the ball. He has got the best out of his small stature on the AFL arena but he can’t tackle either. The Swans are missing the surgical distribution of the ball by Gulden in 2025. Nick Blakey has been stuck down back defending too often and making far fewer effective runs up field. Dane Rampe is getting pretty long in the tooth. Despite this, he has shown some positive signs of late but it must be his last season, you would think. Matt Roberts continues to be a ball user of prowess beyond his young years. Riley Bice has dropped off alarmingly after an exciting start to his Swans AFL journey this year. Sam Wicks was moved down back and was good in quite a few matches there. Wicks plays with aggression and speed – all good qualities the Swans require.
Sydney Swans playing list evaluation in 2025. The Swans team needs a powerful midfielder, like a Bailey Humphrey type, the side lacks grunt and grit. A player that can break open games via his forceful skills. Losing Luke Parker was not ideal, as can be ascertained via the mess the team is currently in. James Rowbottom is a heart and soul player but the red and white team needs more of them to compete. Heeney and Chad Warner cannot rise above the tags every week, it seems on the evidence. Angus Sheldrick shows real potential but he is just getting started. Something is wrong with the Swans! The team is bleeding and getting thrashed each week.
The Consequences Of Buddy
Are the holes in the playing list becoming gaping wounds, which are the consequence of paying overs for Lance Franklin for a decade? Buddy was a giant but has he left a giant sized hole? Did John Longmire hold this team together via force of coaching personality and nous? Has the perfect storm of injuries, change of coach and time itself exposed serious inadequacies in the list? Is the quality too little and now too late? Did Dean Cox inherit a poisoned chalice? A Russian doll with ever smaller players and talents inside? Watching the Crows brush aside and monster the rabble in red and white was shocking to many longtime supporters.
“Perhaps more of these structural and list deficiencies might have been glaringly apparent last year, and Sydney forced into a far more pro-active off-season on the player management front, had Heeney, Warner and Gulden not been so outstanding.”
Old timers tell us that the Sydney Swans have always had a charismatic power forward to hang their marketability upon in the most competitive city based sporting market in the world. Warwick Capper, Tony Lockett, Big Bad Barry Hall, and Buddy. That is quite a list of AFL superstar forwards. The Swans went after Joe Daniher prior to Brisbane landing him. Who will be next? Will it be a King brother? It would have to be a bonafide star! The fans would be licking their chops. The club needs a forward with real presence.
“They’re going to get Ugle-Hagen for next to nothing, take him away from his bad influences in Melbourne, turn him into the best forward in the competition and make another (losing) grand final, aren’t they? “
Can Cox Coach?
Lengthy apprenticeships don’t guarantee successful stints in the big chair. Dean Cox seems a ripping bloke. However, plenty of nice guys never make the grade. Head coaching in the AFL is no easy task. You have to have the playing group playing for you, first and foremost. On this basis, you must be a devilishly good communicator with your key talent. Your game plan must be solid and easily understood by 23 blokes each week. The Cox caper, on the available evidence after 12 weeks, fails to fulfill these requirements. I have never seen so many easy goals kicked against the Swans. There is a distinct lack of fight by players in the defensive half of the ground. Good teams scrap and fight to prevent each and every score, but not this version of the Swans. It is a tragedy and it’s getting worse each week. It looks like players are thinking about where they should be and what they should be doing instead of playing instinctive football. You cannot compete against the well drilled AFL teams if you are floundering. If the coaches message is not getting across and the results are not coming to fruition, it becomes a vicious circle of failure and defeats.
“Former St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt says the AFL world needs to ‘harden up’ regarding its reaction to Wayne Milera’s Sydney Swans ‘rabble’ comment.
In a refreshing moment of honesty, Adelaide flanker Milera described the Swans as a ‘rabble’ with the Crows kicking 21 goals to five in the SCG demolition.”
“Gerard Healy calls for the tag and it has become a running joke. Tag every player, maybe? Could it be because nobody plays on anyone anymore in AFL? The demand for tagging is really a deeper cry for greater accountability? A bit more mano on mano? Funnily enough, ball use efficiency decreases when the tag is applied. AFL mutterings in the manosphere. No kidding, it’s not rocket science but the coaching stratagems are so far up you know where with zoning pinched from basketball that the penny aint dropped. Footy has become the unaccountable game. When I played the game we all played on someone.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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