Credit to the guys, they took it on board and made it work, and it worked. But for people that aren’t involved in it, they have to realise how hard it actually is, because it’s a full time proposition. It’s outside of footy, it’s while you’re at the Club, it’s your whole lifestyle rather than just sort of going I’ll do that while I’m at the Club but when I’m at home I’ll go and drink or eat shitty food or not do my recovery because it’s full time, so it can be very taxing.
It is a very team orientated, 'sacrifice for your mates' sort of culture based around honesty and effort, that you’ve got to have honesty in your efforts whether it be at training, in the game or stuff that people aren’t going to see – your recovery, your rehab – as long as you’re being honest with your effort and giving 100 per cent and not taking any shortcuts. The other side is sacrificing for your teammates. No matter what your role is in the team, it is an important role and you have to carry out that role because every role is important to the success of the team as a whole.
The thing with a culture like that was it kind of feels good but you are under constant personal review. So it is a pretty mentally taxing way of going about footy, only because you are constantly reviewing if you’re doing everything 100 per cent or if you are taking any shortcuts. If people aren’t watching you, you don’t really care because I suppose you could take a few shortcuts here and there but really you’ve got to be honest with yourself 100 per cent of the time and if you actually really take it on board and try and do it, it is actually pretty hard, it is not something that’s easy.
It’s in human nature to take shortcuts and make things easier for yourself. Especially in game reviews it can be quite confronting when people make mistakes and you’ve got your teammates pulling you up on it, you can’t really hide. In saying that, it definitely brings you closer together, you gain more respect for your teammates because they’re more honest with you and you’re more honest with them and in the end you get to know them better as a person and it no doubt brings the team closer together.
It is tough but there’s no doubt that it’s successful when it is implemented and used correctly. One moment that captures the strength of the Swans culture is the 2005 premiership. West Coast had more talent than us in the midfield. They had the best midfield going around in the competition. Basically for us to be competitive with those guys in the midfield, which we always were, we had to play super team orientated, sacrificed footy – so every single person had to know what they were doing 100 percent of the time, all the time. Every time we played against West Coast we did that, and that was how we were able to beat them in 2005. I think for us to be so competitive with a midfield like that which was so talented just shows how much work we actually did put in off the field with our planning, with our structures and how hard we actually worked to be competitive with a team like that.
In the end when we won the grand final you look back and realise all the extra meetings, all the extra things we did as a team they helped us win. Because if we didn’t do that we wouldn’t have won and we only won by four points so it shows you how hard we had to work just to win by a few points. If a couple of players hadn’t done what they were supposed to do, it would have been the difference between winning and losing.
There’s no doubt that it’s a great feeling to be a part of a winning culture and a premiership. At the time, you still focus on the next year and thinking we want to win another one. Definitely now it is just such a relief to know that you played at the Club in that time to see the transformation and also to be able to say that you worked with those guys and you achieved what you achieved because you never know when you are going to win a premiership again. So you’re just really grateful that you were at the Club in that point in time and to be a part of it because to experience that with those guys and the team culture is pretty unique, and realistically pretty rare.
