"What Sydney couldn't recoup in terms of talent in the absence of Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey — arguably three of its top six players by any metric — it made up for with sheer, unadulterated hard work against Brisbane.
That is not to say the Swans are a team bereft of star power in the absence of the suspended five.
In Charlie Curnow, Sydney still has the AFL's most terrifying key forward, in the metronomic Brodie Grundy, it still has arguably the best big man on his day in the non-Max Gawn division, in Errol Gulden, it has a Rolls-Royce of a midfielder capable of being the lead actor in any team's engine room, and in the incandescent Tom Papley, it has a small forward that can bend the energy of a match like no other."
Framing: assertive ·
First seen: 2026-09-07 ·
Last seen: 2026-09-07 ·
Spread: 1 articles