Peter Blucher looks at the career of Sydney Swans Premiership Player Marty Mattner

Swans premiership player Marty Mattner has enjoyed a 2025 season beyond belief as coach of SANFL club Sturt, with an unexpected final round ‘downer’ that nobody saw coming.

Sturt had gone through the home-and-away campaign unbeaten until Saturday’s final game, when they surrendered a 16-point lead at three-quarter time to lost to Adelaide by two points.

Still, they finished minor premiers with a 17-1 record, two games clear of defending premiers Glenelg and three clear of Adelaide, and will have a bye in the first week of the finals.

Saturday’s loss ended a home-and-away winning streak of 30 games, which smashed the SANFL record held for 110 years by the 1913-15 Port Adelaide ‘Invincibles’ that won 24 in a row.

But the job is just beginning for Mattner, who is in the fifth year of his second  stint coaching the ‘Double Blues’ and his eighth year overall. Because the painful memories of last year’s straight-sets finals exit still linger.

Having finished second on the 2024 home-and-away ladder, equal with minor premiers Norwood with a 15-3 record and a mere 1.2% behind them, they fell to third-placed Central Districts by 11 points in the qualifying final and fourth-placed Glenelg by 31 points in the semi-finals before watching Glenelg beat Centrals by 38 points in the grand final.

This year they welcomed the inclusion of ex-Sturt players Mitch Crowden, Martin Frederick and Tom Emmett from the AFL, although Crowden suffered a season-ending ACL injury in May.

But the improvement right across the board has far exceeded the improvement in personnel.

“We changed the mindset of the playing group and adopted a more offensive attitude,” said Mattner, labelled a ‘master coach’ by Adelaide Advertiser journalist Andrew Capel.

“It’s a very driven group. Our focus all season has been on the process and trying to improve each week … and as we’ve said all season, there’s a bigger picture at stake in terms of winning finals.’’

Sturt fell one win short of what Capel suggested would have been “the greatest home-and-away season in SANFL history”.

They were looking to match the unbeaten season of Port Adelaide in 1914, when the competition was made up of only seven teams and 12 home-and-away games. Port beat North Adelaide by 79 points in the grand final before beating VFL premiers Carlton at Adelaide Oval for the ‘Championship of Australia’.

Glenelg, SANFL premiers in 2023-24, went 17-0 in 2021 before losing Round 18 to Port Adelaide and later copping a hiding from Woodville-West Torrens in the grand final.

Sturt, who had Alex Dodson (St Kilda) and Jacob Mollier (Geelong) drafted last year, did it for most of the year without captain and SANFL powerhouse James Battersby, who missed from Round 3-16 through injury.

Mattner, 43, a premiership player at Sturt in 2002, played 98 AFL games with the Crows from 2002-07 before joining  the Swans, where he added 124 games from 2008-13, including the 2012 premiership.

Forced into retirement due to injury in mid-2013, he was a development coach with the Swans in 2014 and an assistant coach in 2015 before taking charge at Sturt, his original SANFL club, in 2016.

He took the club to flags in 2016-17 and was on the Crows coaching panel under Don Pyke in 2019 and 175-game Swan Matthew Nicks in 2020 before becoming a victim of the Covid cutbacks. He has been back at Sturt since 2021.

Husband to Chelsea and father to sons Jimmy and Oscar, and enjoying his full-time role at Unley Oval, Mattner has been often linked with a return to AFL ranks this year. But while he says “you never say never” it’s a definite ‘not now’.

“It’s family-first at the moment, and I enjoy the flexibility that the Sturt job offers. The boys are nine and 13 and are busy with school and their own footy, and it’s nice to have been able to be involved in all that and see nearly every game they’ve played.”