{"id":353108,"date":"2025-12-17T04:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353108\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T04:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:00:09","slug":"new-sydney-aflw-coach-colin-oriordan-named-first-ever-irish-coach-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/353108\/","title":{"rendered":"New Sydney AFLW coach, Colin O\u2019Riordan named first ever Irish coach, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ex-Swan Colin O\u2019Riordan will lead Sydney\u2019s women\u2019s program as the first Irish senior coach in AFL\/AFLW history.<\/p>\n

The Swans on Wednesday confirmed O\u2019Riordan as their new AFLW coach for 2026 in a historic appointment.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Riordan, 30, played 34 AFL games for the club between 2016 and 2022 before retiring due to chronic hip injuries.<\/p>\n

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Ex-Swan Colin O\u2019Riordan will lead Sydney\u2019s women\u2019s program as the first Irish senior coach in AFLW\/AFLW history. (Photo by Quinn Rooney\/Getty Images)Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n

He\u2019s remained at the Swans in a variety of coaching roles and now gets an opportunity in the AFLW program\u2019s top job.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I arrived at the Sydney Swans as a player I fell in love with the place, so to be trusted with the role as AFLW senior coach is a huge honour,\u201d O\u2019Riordan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of faith in the current playing list and I think we have the foundations of a successful team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m extremely grateful that the club has given me the chance to take on a more senior coaching role and I can\u2019t wait to get started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pies set to contend in 26 | 00:57<\/p>\n

He replaces long-time coach Scott Gowans, who was sacked in November despite being contracted until 2027, following the club\u2019s late-season fade-out that saw it tumble out of the top eight.<\/p>\n

Originally from Tipperary, O\u2019Riordan worked as a line coach in Gowans\u2019 team and spent the last couple of years as the men\u2019s Academy head coach. <\/p>\n

In his former role, O\u2019Riordan worked closely with several of Sydney\u2019s young Academy players drafted last month including Harry Kyle, Max King and Lachie Carmichael.<\/p>\n

No. 49 pick King recently endorsed O\u2019Riordan for having a key influence on his footy journey.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s probably the reason I\u2019m here today. He\u2019s been awesome for me, really helped develop me as a player,\u201d King told foxfooty.com.au\u2019s Dylan Bolch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been drafted and played AFL football, he knows the highs and lows of footy. It\u2019s good to have someone I can trust and understand. He\u2019s not so much a coach but just a mate towards me now, he\u2019s been really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

It leaves just Melbourne and Richmond as the two remaining AFLW teams still needing to fill senior coaching vacancies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-Swan Colin O\u2019Riordan will lead Sydney\u2019s women\u2019s program as the first Irish senior coach in AFL\/AFLW history. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[193845,64,63,689,684,111702,193843,27713,2105,12141,64093,3502,647,7204,677,193841,28008,664,22401,48868,182033,193844,85,7200,660,193842],"class_list":["post-353108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-academy-head","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-ben-cotton","tag-coaching-roles","tag-colin-oriordan","tag-dane-rampe","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-jeremy-cameron","tag-line-coach","tag-max-king","tag-melbourne","tag-north-melbourne-kangaroos","tag-oceania","tag-pies-set","tag-quinn-rooney","tag-scott-gowans","tag-senior-coach","tag-senior-coaching","tag-senior-coaching-role","tag-senior-coaching-vacancies","tag-sports","tag-sydney-swans","tag-victoria","tag-young-academy-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}