No O'Keefe gives Swans the edge

Well argued and well said, Maggie. But, despite your excellent efforts, I’ve come to the conclusion from reading Swan/COLA comments on the Victorian mainstream media online pages that reasoning on this subject is not the focus of many anti-Swans comments. The approving reaction to Eddie Maguire’s glib “Q: what will be the winning margin in the GF? Eddie: about $2million” reveals a lot about a distasteful undercurrent to the conversation: supporters who would rather attack their opponents than focus on how their club can get better at their game. The not so subtle criticism that the Swans success was achieved by cheating the system pulls a very strong cord in Australians – our sense of fairplay. There’s a nasty side to our sport-loving culture that won’t be appeased by reason, that turns a blind eye to the other 20 players in the squad and mocks the hard work to reach a GF. Michael Voss’recent article that 5 year contracts are the new 3, and reference to Alastair Lynch’s 10 year contract with the Lions are worth noting. But I suspect a cynical football fan is like a jilted lover: forever blaming the other side for the losing outcome.

I'm really sorry Spruce Moose, we can keep our thing going......except I think I have a crush on Maggie

It is very disappointing that this comment piece has been largely sidetracked into another COLA debate, with many misleading and inaccurate statements, when all AFL lovers should just be looking forward to a grand final involving the two best teams, both of which have earned their right to be there. In particular it is frustrating that yet again some are saying that Sydney has an extra 10% in their salary cap and that this money allowed them to recruit Buddy Franklin. This is simply wrong. Sydney has exactly the same salary cap and exactly the same access to Additional Service Agreements (ASAs) as every other club (except GWS and the Gold Coast which have larger caps during their developmental stages). Sydney is also subject to exactly the same rule in the use of these two capped amounts – that they must pay a minimum of 95% and a maximum of 100% of these combined amounts to their list of players. Sydney's COLA is a separate amount of money funded by the AFL and distributed through a standard clause (written by an AFL lawyer) in every player's contract. It is simply not possible to take the COLA fund and give it to one player as salary. Some commentators here are arguing that the Swans have effectively cut the salary component in most contracts and used COLA to provide players with a total payment equal to the full amount they would have received without COLA, thereby 'saving' salary to pay Tippett and Franklin. Firstly it is not possible to do this for draftees and rookies as their minimum salaries are set by law through the collective agreement with the AFL players association. Secondly it seems most unlikely that every player would accede to such an arrangement, particularly as they use agents to negotiate their contracts. And finally many contracts were already in place before Tippett and then Franklin were recruited and had been drawn up in the context of the requirement that the club pay out a set minimum of the total of salary cap and the ASA cap. The salary cap rose from $8.787m in 2012 to $9.139m in 2013 to $9.632m in 2014, and the total ASA amount rose from $613,000 in 2012 to $852,000 in 2013 to $963,000 in 2014 (see p.62 http://www.aflplayers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CBA-2012-2016-FINAL.pdf). These increases in themselves provided the Swans (and every other club) with a total additional amount of $591,000 which could be paid to players in 2013 (when Tippett was recruited) and a further total amount of $604,000 in 2014 (when Franklin was recruited). As well the Swans cleared salary cap space by reducing their senior list to 38 players and for 2013 letting go six players (Seaby, Spangher, Dennis-Lane, Moore, Meredith, Gordon) while apart from Tippett, recruiting four lower paid draftees (the highest at pick 22) and upgrading a rookie. For 2014 they had two big retirements (Bolton and Mattner) and let go five other players (Mumford, White, Everitt, Armstrong, Lamb). Their ‘ins’ this year as well as Franklin were four draftees (the highest at pick 15) and two de-listed free agents, none of whom would be highly paid. The Swans' list management has also included tactical use of timing and length of contracts, additional service agreements and veteran listings. It is legitimate to debate whether Sydney or any other club should have access to a COLA (although this debate is now largely redundant as the AFL has already said it is phasing it out over the next three years). It is not legitimate to say that Sydney has used COLA to recruit one or two super stars and thereby has an unfair advantage in Saturday's grand final.

Well I got the teams right so now we'll go with swans by 5-6 goals.

Sadly NYH there were plenty of kids around. Of course it was only a minority, but it wasn't only me that had similar run ins that night - it really wasn't much fun, as we were naturally pretty disappointed at the result and just wanted to get out of the ground quickly. Obviously a minority have anger that they think it is ok to take it out on other fans - it was certainly the worst I've heard at AFL games (and I've seen soem shockers from many clubs). As I've said elsewhere, I hope win lose or draw that the fans can stand up, congratulate the winners and say better luck next time to the losers and actually be cordial about it. In the end, we are just supporters too, even though we folllow a different team and hope for a different result.

A decent part of the Swans fan group did not think that he would ruin the culture. A vocal part of the support group had that thought, but a hell of a lot of that was media driven frenzy as well. I for one never had that thought for a moment - I wondered how he might fit in at the swans, and how he would fit into the team structures, but I never thought for once that he would ruin the culture the club has. We've had plenty of so called 'bad boys' etc come in and fit in just fine. You are making a vast extrapolation of what you read and saw in the media on that point.

At the end of the day, Buddy was coming to Sydney, COLA or not. He approached us right after the 2012 grand final. What were Sydney supposed to do when the best player in the competition came to them and wanted to wear the red and white? Were we supposed to say 'God forbid! We don't want to upset Hawthorn!'? Of course not. We took a financial risk to secure Buddy, and it had to do with marketing reasons, not just on field success. We've seen how many players had to be off-loaded to accommodate Tippett and Franklin, and the squeeze will still be felt for a few years more. But it's our problem. Sydney, and Sydney alone, will have to deal with whatever consequences come from this deal with Franklin, so everybody sounds so petty and ridiculous complaining about it when it's got little to do with them. We won a flag without a major star at all. Sorry, there was one star, and he was hobbling around on a bung knee and still had an impact on the game. It was a flag of tough, old-fashioned heroics that deserves more respect than we've gotten. Just because we've evolved since then into a more star-studded team, doesn't make us any less valid. To even mention COLA in our success is to completely ignore the outstanding job the coaching staff has done to develop our numerous rookies and low draft picks into genuine A-grade talents. The fact is, Sydney's youngsters and lesser known players are better than those on the list at lower clubs, and that is how we have maintained our success. If ASADA finds out we've been injecting our players with performance-enhancing drugs, I will accept that as the cause of our brilliant squad. But unless that happens, continue to drown in your sorrows about how poorly managed and poorly coached some of the clubs in the competition are. I usually stay clear of topics like this, but it's just so frustrating to see a team so relentlessly attacked because of two players - one who wanted to come to Sydney in the first place! I feel great anger when I see the hard work and extraordinary talents of our list - from Heath Grundy whose improved out of sight to Luke Parker, whose gone from sub vest to Norm Smith contender - overshadowed by nay-sayers who believe the recruitment of two players has gotten us this far. And talk that a flag would come with an asterix is a complete insult to the Swans team who have worked hard and given their all to be there. Oh, and if the AFL really loved Sydney, why would the CEO publicly say we're the ugly ducklings of the competition who have no chance of winning a flag? Does that sound like bias or unfair endorsement to you?

If you call $850,000 for a two bed dump cheap... Then yeah the streets in the block are cheap.

I didn't. Maybe I was one of few. More people from what I read were worried about the deal itself. Again, a non-issue given history of said deals.

NY Hawk - all inner city areas are expensive - especially most of Redfern, which has branched off into suburbs like Moore Park east etc - the only part of Redfern that would be cheap is the block (not the inane tv show) but that's going soon as well.

Mcmanpp I guess we have to agree to disagree then. I see your point about these non-monetary factors being important. But when you then pay 2 guys waaaaaaayy more than everyone else, it sends a very different message to the other players. And I believe, and I may be cynical on this, that more than a few will start asking or money $$$ and hold them to ransom. Mike Pyke obviously didn't, but I believe he would be in the minority. Maybe Malceski will stay because Swans were loyal to him during his knee reconstructions, who knows. But why should Hannebery, Kennedy, Jetta stay put next time contract negotiations come around when they were originally from interstate anyway and age-wise they will be right in the prime of their careers? Especially if they already each have 2 premiership medallions around their necks (I had to slip this one in!!).

Yep, 4 wins from the last 5 times we played each other sure looks like you've got us Nat. What will we do? You definitely have us in defense, but to suggest you are a better attacking team than us is truly laughable.

Yep we didn't beat you when it counted last time. Still not sure what happened from the beginning of Q2 to halfway through Q3. But anyway, that is in the past and Saturday is the future. Although I did think we played better footy in 2012 than we did this year. The second half of our season was unbelievable from an stacking footy perspective. What was also unbelievable was that we lost the GF that year.... :-P

My thoughts are that for players above the average AFL wage, say $300k, it is easy for the Swans to say, "you won't get more money elsewhere ad if you stay here we will be perpetual contenders." Additionally,if you are on more than $300k, your cost of living does not increase by $30k a year and the players know this. On another note, I guess I am not entirely surprised to see Redfern at $1m average house price but a) someone on $300k can easily afford that and b) maybe the Sydney market is just really overvalued and is headed for some kind of correction per many international economists' predictions. Or Redfern really has gentrified in recent times.

Is that a statement or a question? I'm confused.

I understand the word lovey, that is why I used it back to you. Here is something for you to take away......you couldn't beat us when it counted. The flag is all that really matters ;-) You obviously didn't see Plugger put his elbow through Peter Cavens head the season before he arrived in Sydney. There is one reason why we didn't want him. I never said we didn't enjoy his time thereafter. You are nitpicking with the wrong blonde.

interestingly enough, that impressive forward line you speak of down at Hawthorn kicked 6.1 in the first game against my Swannies and that was only Roughhead and Bruest as Gunston didn't contribute. Tippett and Buddy kicked 6.7. In the other game, your trio kicked 8.7 to our trio of Buddy, Tippett and Goodes who kicked 9.7. Well done to your forwards for having such a great scoring ability against other clubs but if you look at the ledger a little more closely, our trio has you on scoring shots 29 to 22. You might think it is going to come down to the midfiled but it is going to come down to the one thing Sydney prides itself on....defense. We've got you in offense. We've got you in defense. Looks like we've got you.

Response to Natalie, as there is no place to respond to her comment: do you know the meaning of the word "arguably"? Here is an argument for you: we have beaten you 4 out of 5 times over the last two years. And the one time we lost to you was without Hodge and Mitchell - the only time since 2002 neither of them were on the field for us. Te next time we played you we beat you. If you were skeptical about Plugger coming to the Swans in 1995 when you needed all the help you could get, then no wonder your club languished for 70 years.

Good luck to your team too, it is going to be the greatest grand final ever!!

I thought Perth was ridiculously expensive in 2010 when I was stung 40 bucks for an average main course at a cheesy Italian restaurant in Northbridge. When I saw the menu prices I thought, wow, this place is high end. Got the food and thought otherwise. Went to other places and they were similarly priced. Unbelievable. I lived in Potts Point and Darling Point for 10 years and while my data points and from a while ago and not that many in number, the impression I got every time I went to Perth (say 10 times) was that it was more expensive than Sydney. And not Parramatta-Sydney, but Paddington/Bondi Sydney.