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Tadhg Kennelly and Brett Kirk of Sydney celebrate their win in the AFL NAB Cup Round 01 match between the Sydney Swans and the Carlton Blues at Blacktown Olympic Park.
Greater Western Sydney coach Kevin Sheedy expects tension to be evident between his new AFL club and the established Swans as the football battle ground heats up in NSW.
It took many years to build, but Sydney now have a solid fan base and have enjoyed being the only AFL act in Australia’s most heavily populated city.
But the arrival of Team GWS has thrown an interesting element into the mix and the new franchise made a terrific move to recruit Sheedy into the fold.
There was an intriguing development in Blacktown on Saturday night, when the Swans played the first proper game at Blacktown Olympic Park in their NAB Cup match against Carlton – the new club’s home base.
The match was sold out, with 9,732 people packing into the ground, which has a capacity of 10,000.
It was a pro-Swans crowd, but there was also plenty of signage around asking fans of western Sydney to get behind their own team by buying memberships and helping to come up with the team’s moniker.
The game’s best spruiker, Sheedy has been charged with building the team and have it ready for its 2012 AFL debut.
And he has suggested there will be little co-operation with the Swans.
“I don’t think we should be dancing with each other, we’re here to try and get Western Sydney up,” Sheedy told Network Ten at halftime of the Swans match.
“In the end I think we’re there to challenge and make sure we get the best players for our club.”
Just as with the new Gold Coast team, which will join the competition in 2011, GWS will get an enormous amount of help in the draft before they play their first game.
GWS have also been given a wide zone across Sydney and Canberra, plus concessions for the rich talents found in the Northern Territory, from which to recruit players so they can become competitive quickly.
“What’s really come up is something football people don’t realise – they’ve given us about five million people for us to contact about AFL football in the zone of greater western Sydney,” Sheedy said.
“And they’ve given us three years of opportunity for recruitment out of the Northern Territory.
“I don’t think anyone’s had that opportunity.”
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