Do the Sydney Swans deserve to be nominated for The Frownlow Medal?
Does the club as a whole deserve to be the next professional football club in Australia to be nominated for the most prestigious prize in Aussie sport?
The Frownlow Medal is awarded to the player whose off-field demeanour epitomises the values of the modern-day footballer and draws attention to the status of footballers as role models to young Australians. It covers Australia’s four major football codes: the men’s and women’s National Rugby League (NRL), Australian Football League (AFL), the A-League (Football) and Rugby Union’s Super Rugby competition. NRL player Shaun Kenny-Dowall won the inaugural medal in 2015, while AFL player Noah Balta is the most recent recipient.
The Swans essentially destroyed any chances of winning the 2026 AFL premiership after standing down five of their players for the remainder of the season. The Swans still sit second on the ladder and were tipped to mount a very strong challenge for the title, but experts now agree that they cannot win without the ‘Pullman Five’
Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, Riley Bice and James Jordon were stood down after bringing the game and the club into disrepute for partying in Melbourne’s Pullman Hotel to celebrate a victory. The players are accused of consuming drugs and alcohol with female strippers and there is a separate police investigation into accusations that one or more of the strippers were sexually assaulted in the same hotel room.
The five players have been nominated for The Frownlow Medal, but should the club also be nominated? Can the club culture, treatment and management of players, and its rules around off-field celebrations be blamed, or are the five grown adults responsible for their own behaviour?
If the Swans were nominated, they would join the following clubs who have been nominated for Frownlow honours.
2017- West Coast Eagles AFL, Wests Tigers NRL
2019 – Cronulla Sharks NRL
2020 – South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL
2021 – Collingwood Magpies AFL, Penrith Panthers NRL, Canterbury Bulldogs NRL, Adelaide Crows AFL
2022 – Brisbane Broncos NRL, Hawthorn Hawks AFL
Image: Emily Sevenoaks
The Frownlow Medal 