‘Don’t abandon the club’: Swans fans ready to show support after week of turmoil

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The Giants and the Swans are the fiercest of rivals, but the Western Sydney club messaged their member this week to encourage them to come out and support today’s AFLW game at the SCG.

Billie Eder spoke to a variety of fans ahead of today’s games, including a Giants fan who will be there to support both games and a Swans fan who will leave after the AFLW game.

‘I’m proudly red and white until the day I’m in a box’: Swans fans speak ahead of game

By Clare Sibthorpe

More than an hour before the AFLW’s Sydney Swans are set to take on Essendon, dozens of die-hard fans queued up at the members’ gate.

“Go the Swannies, all of the Swans,” one woman is heard yelling.

Owen Moynahan has been a Swans member for 12 years and has attended most of their games for more than three decades. He said today was “very exciting”.

“It’s not very often we get the ladies here, and so we’ve brought the family out to come and support the women’s team and the men’s team today. It should be a really good day,” he said.

11.46am

Welcome

By Jonathan Drennan

Good afternoon, it’s Jonathan Drennan and I will be bringing you through all of today’s action from the SCG after a tumultuous week for the Sydney Swans football club.

I will be joined by my colleagues Vince Rugari and Clare Sibthorpe who are also at the stadium.

Today was meant to be a day of celebration. It was the first time the club’s AFL and AFLW teams shared a doubleheader at the SCG and just the second time the women’s squad has played at the stadium.

Instead, the Swans had arguably the worst week in their history after five Swans players – Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice – were suspended from play for the rest of this year for their part in the incident that unfolded in a Pullman East Melbourne hotel room in the early hours of last Monday.

There are high hopes that the Swans AFLW team will break their home attendance record of 8264, which was set in their first game at North Sydney Oval in 2022.