‘Are you better off without these players?’ Legend’s question of besieged Swans after season ends in heartbreak

Football legend Leigh Matthews doubts Sydney will face a list upheaval following the Pullman hotel saga, declaring the time that has elapsed since the events of last month “will make the initial anguish fade”.

The undermanned Swans’ season ended in heartbreak on Friday night after they coughed up a 28-point lead to lose their preliminary final by 12 points to the Dockers at the SCG.

Star trio Isaac Heeney, Nick Blakey and Chad Warner, along with James Jordon and Riley Bice, were handed season-ending suspensions by the Swans for failing to meet the club’s standards by drinking, partying late and bringing exotic dancers back to the Pullman in East Melbourne after their round 23 win over Essendon.

Attention has turned to the playing futures of that quintet ahead of next month’s AFL player exchange period. This masthead reported earlier this month that Blakey had indicated to associates he wanted to be traded following a deterioration in his relationship with the club.

The now 26-year-old explored a move to Gold Coast last year but chose to remain with the Swans and still has five years left on his contract, worth more than $1 million a year.

Heeney is considered one of the players in the running for a top-three finish in Monday night’s Brownlow count, for which Nick Daicos is the hottest of favourites. Heeney won’t be attending the function in Melbourne, yet remains eligible to win the award. All five players involved in the Pullman scandal were declared ineligible for All-Australian selection.

In a discussion about which of the five will continue with the Swans in 2027 and beyond, Matthews, a four-time premiership coach and considered by many to be the greatest player of all-time, was doubtful that they’d definitely find new clubs.

“The bottom line [is], are you better off without these players next year?” Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend Matthews posed on 3AW.

“You can not like your teammates, [or] like your teammates – it doesn’t matter. As long as you think they can help us win games of footy, that’s what we’re together for.

“I think the time will make the initial anguish fade, and I think eventually [the thinking becomes], ‘If we can maintain [retain] the playing talents of these players, then let’s do it’. And I’m thinking [that’s] what an individual player might think.

“That’s the way I look at it.”

Four Swans – Heeney, Warner, Blakey and Jordon – are persons of interest in a police investigation stemming from the night. Three women have alleged they were sexually assaulted and touched inappropriately without consent. The players have all denied criminal wrongdoing.

Three other men – Bice, retired former teammate Taylor Adams and a mystery man – are now being treated by police as witnesses to the pre-dawn events.

The five players’ suspension for the rest of the season by the Swans was separate from the police investigation and did not relate to the women’s allegations.

This masthead has revealed that the suspended Sydney players will have to foot their own substantial legal fees for their roles in the Pullman hotel episode.

The Swans are yet to make a call on whether the suspended five will remain eligible for the club’s best-and-fairest award, which will be presented at a function in Sydney on October 1.

Matthews indicated that time could heal any festering wounds between the players at the Harbour City club.

“Right now, if nothing further happens … I do think whatever angst the players have got about their teammates who were unavailable this finals campaign, who messed up when they shouldn’t have been messing up … I still think [as a teammate] you’d be saying, ‘Why would other teams want to recruit these blokes?’

“That’s the point – because they’re good footballers. Then [the attitude to them could become], ‘Why would the Swans want to lose them? They’re good footballers’.”

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