The Magpies won’t be quite good enough to seal a finals berth in 2015 but the career best form of Dane Swan is an undoubted silver lining.
After an injury-affected 2014 many thought the 2011 Brownlow medalist was as good as done. With three games left in his 13th season at the top level Swan is starting to fall victim to his own standards.
Recruited to Collingwood via pick 58 in the 2001 draft, the son of VFA champion Billy Swan wasn’t always destined for great things. Making his debut in 2003, Swan was considered to be little more than just a battler. His laid back approach to the game and indeed life in general almost cost him his career and the football public the opportunity to marvel at this modern great.
2006 was the year ‘Swanny’ finally cemented his position in the Magpies 22, he averaged 23 disposals a game, finished sixth in the club’s best and fairest and managed to poll 11 votes on Brownlow medal night. The next two seasons would see a meteoric rise in Swan’s stocks. Consistently finding the football and hitting the scoreboard, he would become a proven favourite of the AFL umpires.
It is Swan’s uncanny ability to gather mountains of possessions that has endeared him to many football people. 108 times in 255 games Swan has gathered 30-plus disposals, Robert Harvey heads that list with 118 but with 130 more games to his name. Swan sits eighth on the list for number of games played at the Collingwood Football Club, his longevity also a key playmaker in his success.
Remarkably, Swan has recorded three of the highest disposal counts in a season. In 2010 Swan eclipsed his own mark of 769 to gather a staggering 820 disposals for the season before backing that up with another 760 in 2011. Only Terry Wallace’s 765 for Hawthorn in 1983 sits alongside the heroics of Swan.
From 2010-13 Swan averaged more than one Brownlow vote for every game he played and his tally of 34 votes in 2011 to take home ‘Charlie’ remains a record.
As it currently stands (as of Round 20 in 2015) Swan’s career average for disposals sits at 27, which is number one in the AFL since stats were recorded.
Three Collingwood best and fairests, five All Australians, a Brownlow and a premiership later, you would think that after more than 250 games at AFL level the portly #36 would be happy to wind down a career that has reached the lofty heights of very few others.
Wrong.
Swan’s 2015 has been remarkable. He has played all 19 games for the struggling Magpies, amassing 30 or more disposals on 10 occasions with a best performance of 41 touches and three goals against the Blues in Round 18. His 567 disposals sit second on the list for touches this season, surpassed only by Daniel Hannebery of the Sydney Swans who is on 572.
Swan’s 92 inside 50s puts him fifth on the list and his 18 goals and 16 goal assists put his 2015 numbers in the elite category.
At 31 years of age, the boy from Westmeadows has recaptured the form that undoubtedly made him one of the game’s very best. With phantom All-Australian sides and player of the year awards starting to wind up, why is that Dane Swan has not rated a mention?
On Channel Nine’s The Sunday Footy Show former Essendon spearhead Matthew Lloyd has delighted viewers with his rolling All-Australian team. After 19 rounds this team features names like Scott Pendlebury, Andrew Gaff, David Mundy, Luke Hodge and even livewire Cyril Rioli.
Take Hodge for example, the Hawthorn skipper has had an undoubtedly good 2015 and is on the bench in Lloyd’s side. If you crunch the numbers Swan averages more in disposals, goals, clearances and contested possessions.
Mundy is also on the bench, but over the course of 2015 he has acquired less possessions, kicked less goals and sent the ball inside 50 less times than Swan. Despite being a taller, big-bodied midfielder he has even taken less contested marks than the Collingwood superstar.
Swan’s teammate and captain Pendlebury has been a permanent fixture in Lloyd’s team on the wing for the majority, if not all of 2015. But even his numbers look poor next to the bloke who almost singlehandedly put sleeve tattoos on the map.
Most people who watch Collingwood closely would have no problem in saying that Swan would be favourite ahead of Pendlebury to be the first of the pair to win their fourth Copeland trophy.
The excitement revolving around players having career best seasons, players like Luke Shuey, Gaff, Josh P. Kennedy and even Liam Picken, has all been warranted. But one can’t help to think if they were putting up the same numbers that Swan has in season 2015, well, there’s just no telling what accolades and superlatives would be coming their way.
Stats don’t always tell the story in footy, in fact they can often be quite misleading, but one thing is for certain – Swan’s career has been elite.
He has broken records and set them at impossible heights. He has won almost every award there is to win both individually and with his teammates. He has also been able to come back from the brink and find his best footy after it seemed lost forever.
To put it simply, if the number 36 from Collingwood is not honoured with All-Australian selection in 2015 he will undoubtedly have been a victim of his own rather large standards.
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