EXCITING Sydney trio James Rowbottom, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey have all re-committed to the club.
Rowbottom and Blakey have signed on until the end of 2024 and Warner the end of 2023.
Blakey, 21, is a Sydney Academy product and pick No.10 in the 2018 NAB AFL Draft. The son of North Melbourne great, John, he has played 40 games in the red and white, kicking 28 goals.
Warner, from Western Australia, is the Swans latest NAB AFL Rising Star nominee and was pick 39 in the 2019 NAB AFL Draft.
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"The future is really exciting with all the young boys. We are still learning and we are all like sponges, absorbing all the knowledge from people like Joey (Josh Kennedy) and Parks (Luke Parker)," Warner said.
Another young Swan making his mark in 2021 is 21yo Sam Wicks.
Wicks had a breakout performance against Richmond in round three and ended the day with 21 touches and three goals to earn a perfect 10 in the coaches' votes.
Wicks is also a product of the Swans Academy but compared to top-10 draftees Callum Mills, Blakey and Braeden Campbell, he had to follow a less direct path from the Academy to the senior side.
He had impressed in the Academy Series in his under-18 year, but wasn't selected to play for the Allies in the AFL Under-18 Championships and later missed out on being drafted.
Wicks stayed with the Academy as an under-19 player and played in the NEAFL, showing Sydney recruiters enough to take him as a Category B selection in the 2018 Rookie Draft.
"Watching Sam play so well against Richmond was one of the proudest moments that I've had in more than 10 years with the Academy," Chris Smith, head of the Swans Academy, told AFL.com.au.
"He was quite small going through the talent programs. But he always had really good attributes – he could run, he was always very clean and he was highly competitive. He had a really strong desire to make it."
Wicks's debut last year was mostly remarkable for a freak incident where the plastic and aluminium stops on his boots led to a severe gash on Magpie Isaac Quaynor's right leg.
"It was a bit weird at the time but it blew over pretty quickly," he recalled.
He ended up playing seven games for the season, with a focus on forward pressure having him average more than four tackles a game.
