{"id":865581,"date":"2026-08-23T14:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/865581\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T14:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T14:02:12","slug":"afl-news-2026-sydney-swans-vs-north-melbourne-full-time-reaction-dean-cox-press-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/865581\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL news 2026: Sydney Swans vs North Melbourne full-time reaction; Dean Cox press conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney Swans<\/a> coach Dean Cox has vowed the club will do everything possible to get the trust back of its fans after a minor walk-out occurred before the men\u2019s sides clash with North Melbourne. <\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s match came a week after an alleged Melbourne hotel incident that is being investigated by police<\/a> and led to five Swans players – Isaac Heeney, Nick Blakey, James Jordon, Chad Warner and Riley Bice – being stood down for the rest of the season. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Callum Mills of the Swans embraces Swans head coach Dean Cox\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

The SCG hosted a double-header<\/a> with Sydney\u2019s AFLW team playing Essendon in the first match. While it wasn\u2019t a mass exit, a group of fans did walk out after the women\u2019s teams win, in protest of the crisis the club has found itself in.<\/p>\n

Cox said he understood why those supporters took that action. <\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s emotions are different and the way they want to support and show up and we understood that,\u201d he said in his press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor mine, I said yesterday, I\u2019m sorry for putting everyone through this, and we\u2019ll do everything we can to get their trust back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Swans won their clash with North Melbourne 17.21 (123) – 10.10 (70)<\/a>, with emotion flowing in the aftermath. <\/p>\n

Captain Callum Mills and star midfielder Errol Gulden were in tears at full-time, in front of those who remained of the 30,058-strong crowd at the SCG. <\/p>\n

The scenes in the coaches\u2019 box were also emotional at full-time, with head coach Cox seen walking around giving out hugs.<\/p>\n

Chants of\u00a0Syyyyyd-neyyyyy\u00a0rung out, and there was clapping and cheering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so grateful for our fans for sticking with us,\u201d Mills told Fox Footy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how we stayed so united as a club this week, I\u2019m really proud of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox admitted he was \u201creally nervous\u201d about how his side would perform on Sunday. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we wanted to do was show up as well as we possibly could for our football club, and we\u2019ll continue to do that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think from our VFL to yesterday, to our AFLW program, to our men\u2019s program, the week we\u2019ve endured at the start of the week, to rally and stand together was the most pleasing thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney Swans coach Dean Cox has vowed the club will do everything possible to get the trust back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-865581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865581","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=865581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}