Sydney - and Franklin - need premierships

You're the one who brought it up and yet it's irrelevant? Maybe just a little consistency would be good.

And we nail them more often than and probably more than any other club.

"They have to win because I say so"

You could say that of every NSW/ACT team, though.

Momentbymoment... Brilliant comment.

Whoa, please holster your sidearm. QuickDraw. I'm unarmed. Lying is a pretty heavily loaded word - one could even say too black-and-white a word for a Swans discussion. And who approached whom still isn't relevant. He came, the Swans salary cap profile changed, and it'll be several more years before anyone can honestly say it was the right decision.

Not sure what point your trying to make about rookies etc. Jim. Both the moneyball and big$$$ approaches require this. In fact it is even more essential for the big$$$ approach because there is so little budget left for medium price recruits - one has to do ones best from the bargain bin/rookie draft.

It's not 'unknowable' - it's known. Unless you think those involved (including Franklin's then manager ) are lying?

Leaving aside the unknowable who approached whom, its not really relevant to the argument. Nor am I convinced that the change in recruitment strategy was deliberate. From an outsiders point of view it looks more opportunistic - as you say how could they turn Buddy away? But change it has, and has implications going forward, regardless of whether they win the two flags to justify the change.

I don't agree the Swans deliberately changed their recruitment focus. The recruitment of Tippett filled an obvious key forward gap in the Swans' line-up - a gap that had been there ever since Bradshaw broke down. Key forwards cost big $s (Tom Boyd ring a bell?). The furore over Tippett's recruitment has always been ridiculous. Then Franklin approached the Swans. I suspect that had the order of availability been reversed, Franklin but not Tippett would be playing for the Swans (and so still would be Mumford). However given the way it happened no one could sensibly suggest the Swans should have turned Franklin away.

Franklin wasn't "lured" to do anything. Franklin wanted to move to Sydney the city to live and play football. As a restricted free agent he had the right to try to do that. He had two options - Sydney Swans or GWS and HE chose the Swans. He approached them not the other way round. This has been well known and well reported for a long time.

Misquote of what Buddy said. Look it up and correct yourself.

Michael, has no one told you that our Swannies will only be playing tomorrow with 4 players on the field - Heeney, Mills, Tippett and Buddy. The rest aren't needed so have gone off on Mad Monday celebrations instead :) Obviously some forget that that star studded line up includes 9 players that came in from the 4th rd of the draft or lower, or for most cases, off the rookie list.....

I like it. Maybe the Victorians could have another Grand Final 2-3 weeks after the real Grand Final. Have the two highest finishing Victorian teams play off for the Victorian cup. Host it at the MCG every year. Everyone happy. We could even include Sydney and Brisbane and rename them South Melbourne and Fitzroy for the day! What a joke it would have been this week if Sydney and GWS were the playing the biggest AFL match in the history of NSW in....Victoria. What a missed opportunity it would have been for the AFL to grow the game nationally.

Please look at the Swans of 2015 to the Swans of this year. It's a seriously different looking team, both in terms of personnel, game plan and playing style. Generous AFL help? Didn't the Bulldogs play seven straight games under the cosy roof of Etihad to start their season? Every club has their own advantages, some are better than others at making them work. Finally, as another commenter said, we do not need flags - we already have them. Buddy does not need flags - he already has them. In such a difficult and competitive field, winning a premiership is bloody difficult. It's ridiculously arrogant to go into a season - six months before a grand final - thinking a flag has to come. It's entitled BS that makes it seem like Sydney deserve and need a flag every few years to remain successful, which is not the case at all.

This sounds like a mild form of Stockholm Syndrome. You can still see a Grand Final at the MCG. When a Victorian team EARNS the right to host the Grand Final, you can spend thousands to make the long trek to watch a game of footy.

Of course the interstate teams know it. They simply don't have the cojones to stand up to the tyrannical VFL/AFL and demand equality and fairness. Who cares about capacity. Only 30k members are allocated tickets any way. The only people who will miss out are corporates and cricket club members. I don't care about them. 100k people will be there on Saturday but the atmosphere will be that of a 50k crowd.

It could be played at ANZ Stadium or the SCG. I think the AFL would have to put in a stipulation where the stadium needs at least a capacity of 50k. The SCG would need an upgrade to host it. It's not a completely fair solution, but it's better than what we have now -- which is completely unfair to half the teams in the competition. I don't understand this fascination with the MCG and specifically having the Grand Final only at the MCG. It's just another ground. It's not like the SCG with the Members Stand and Ladies pavilions. The MCG is a great venue for a big game, but so is Etihad, so is the Adelaide Oval, so will be the new Perth Stadium.

Sydney had far superior percentage to Hawthorn. That's all we need to know. Also, Hawthorn won 6/6 close games. They could have just as easily been a 12 or 13 win team (which is what they played like in finals).

Its a folly to suggest that the Swans have abandoned Moneyball tactics. Yes they've spent up big on two players, but then look through the rest of the list, in particular some of the younger players. Indeed, 9 players of the 22 tomorrow came from fourth rd or below picks, most indeed from the rookie list.