David Swallow is a Perth boy. He had just turned 17 when Gold Coast called his number. Of the players taken after him in the 2010 draft, there would be 27 premiership medallions, several of them around the necks of his former Suns teammates.
Swallow played in some unspeakably awful teams. He was captain of a club with no pulse, no purpose, few fans and, for a long time, substandard facilities. The former No 1 pick, like his club, didn’t play in a final for a decade and a half. He played just seven home and away games this year, four of them as the sub. Then, in the dying moments of an intense game against Fremantle, it looked as though he’d cost his team its first finals win. His dinky little kick ricocheted straight up the other end for a Dockers goal.
But a few minutes later, he was held a fraction too long in a tackle and was handed an opportunity to win the game. Earlier, Fremantle had earned two after the siren kicks, both of which were too far out to respond with anything other than a futile torpedo. But this was within Swallow’s capabilities. The shot at goal was on target but belatedly deemed touched, which actually played in his team’s favour. If he’d fluffed it, it would have been the last kick of his career. Instead, it dragged the Suns to a one-point elimination final win.
So many of the teams Swallow played in over the years have turned up their toes when things got hard. But this side was undaunted by the occasion, the opponent or the odds. There was a lightness to them in the warm-up, in the anthem, and at pivotal moments throughout the game. It was a lightness that coach Damien Hardwick cultivated at Richmond. It was a lightness that contrasted with the tight and tentative Adelaide two nights earlier.
But there was nothing tight or light about the Suns whenever the ball was bobbling. The ferocity – if that term in any way does him justice – was personified by Matt Rowell, who in one passage of play thrashed his way through four separate tacklers.
One can wax too long abut loyalty in modern football. It’s a competition, after all, where fringe players are shopped around like a pair of old sneakers. Conversely, it’s a competition where talented and highly paid players in struggling teams are like rats up a drainpipe at this time of year. But Swallow and Nat Fyfe will always be remembered as one-club players. They were teammates in the WA under-18 state team. Both were playing their 248th AFL game on Saturday night.
To even get to the line in the latter stages of this year, Fyfe would embark on what appeared to be an eight-hour warm-up consisting of plyometrics, calisthenics, pulley tugs – everything but a reformer Pilates class. With the game in the balance, the crowd febrile and his soft tissues begging for closure, he parked himself under a dump kick and won the most contested of marks.
His team was storming home, his captain was marking everything, and his storied career looked to have another week to run. Half an hour later, more relieved than anything, he was in a press conference. “The game’s been generous to me”, Fyfe said. “But as you saw tonight, it’s a game that doesn’t give up its rewards easily.”
Fyfe’s team learnt that the hard way. It was a “nearly” night for the Dockers. It was one of those games where they needed to stick their marks a millisecond longer, where their forwards were outpointed, where their pockets were picked on transition, and where they looked vulnerable every time the ball was on the deck.
It felt like they’d been playing elimination finals for two months. It was a highwire act all year. It was their second quarter against Western Bulldogs that secured them a final spot, and it was their second quarter against Gold Coast that sent them packing.
It was a classic final, the equal of what had taken place in Sydney a few hours earlier. As Jack Ginnivan boomeranged a goal and did his Sergeant Schultz celebration, about a dozen GWS Giants heads dropped in unison. When he slotted another about 30 seconds later, thousands of Hawthorn fans booked flights for Adelaide with more than a quarter still to play.
But Josh Kelly was moving like a Rolls Royce, playing one of the great individual quarters of 2025. The Hawks were suddenly in disarray. They’d now be defending against a strong wind. And they had a wretched record at the Giants’ home ground. Their VFL affiliate had rattled home with nine last-quarter goals to nut the Brisbane Lions on the bell. Now the senior side looked poised to be on the wrong end of one of the biggest comebacks in finals history.
But the Hawks were magnificent in the final term. It takes excellent coaching and a resolute playing group to halt that kind of momentum. It’s rare to see an eighth-placed team as competent, as flexible and as even as this Hawthorn side. They demolished Collingwood and ran Adelaide and Brisbane close to qualify for the finals. Now they return to the scene of their semi-final heartbreak last year at Adelaide Oval, and Ginnivan can renew acquaintances with the local airport stalkers.
We always get seduced by the elimination final winners. But both Hawthorn and Gold Coast have the firepower, the defensive stability and the coaching nous to make a deep September run.
