![\"Vince](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789742898_85_4c384ba1d5167f701ee861d4745545e2fa6211b6.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
September 18, 2026 \u2014 8:55pm<\/p>\n
Save<\/p>\n
You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n
Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n The Sydney Swans have put their supporters through a vast range of emotions within the past month. On Friday night, they served up a new one: heartbreak. Classic, traditional sporting trauma.<\/p>\n It turns out you don\u2019t need to be at Optus Stadium to experience Wharfie Time. It doesn\u2019t have to be a Fremantle home game for the purple haze to suddenly descend and dull the senses. It can happen anywhere, to anyone.<\/p>\n Fears that the Swans had \u201cplayed their grand final\u201d a fortnight ago were totally unfounded. From the outset of this classic preliminary final on Friday night, the Swans were rabid, aggressive, relentless, playing like their lives depended on it. Again. If their first effort didn\u2019t stick, there was a second, third, fourth, fifth to follow. They knew where they wanted to go and wanted to get there in a hurry.<\/p>\n Whatever concoction sustained them in that qualifying final against the Brisbane Lions, there was more of it left \u2026 until, at some point in the final quarter, the punch bowl was empty. They were out of juice. The Dockers noticed, and they went to work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looked a little bit like that,\u201d said Swans coach Dean Cox. \u201cThis time of the year, you can\u2019t give a team any momentum, and they took it.\u201d<\/p>\n For three quarters, the Dockers were nowhere near it. Everyone knew they were the better side considering Sydney\u2019s long list of absentees, but the Swans played like the better side, and the scoreboard reflected it. Yet they had left the door ever so slightly ajar for Freo, hitting the post four times and letting a number of other key opportunities slip, particularly in the first quarter.<\/p>\n Hayden Young\u2019s goal for Fremantle on the three-quarter-time siren reduced Sydney\u2019s margin to a manageable 21 points and restored in themselves a modicum of belief.<\/p>\n So who pushed the \u201cWharfie Time\u201d button? You can take your pick, but it may well have been Patrick Voss, aka \u201cthe Prancing Pony\u201d, who had hitherto been playing like a donkey. His only possession for the entire first half was a set shot after the half-time siren which did not even make the distance.<\/p>\n But then he produced a fend to remember; a nuclear don\u2019t argue on Dane Rampe in the pocket in front of the Brewongle Stand at the SCG, before slotting a check-side kick through the big sticks and running away in glorious celebration.<\/p>\n Related Article Maybe the button was on Rampe\u2019s chest. That was goal number three of what proved to be a match-winning, unanswered six-goal burst, reducing the margin to just nine points while also delivering a killer symbolic blow to the Swans, given the victim was Rampe, their inspirational defender and stand-in captain.<\/p>\n If he chooses not to play on in 2027, that could be one of his final acts in a Sydney guernsey \u2013 but as Cox said in his post-match press conference, Rampe, at 36, has earned the right to decide what\u2019s next for him.<\/p>\n The Swans tried to hold on throughout the 10-minute arm wrestle that followed Voss\u2019 goal, but they were cooked, and they knew it. Goals from Shai Bolton, Mason Cox and Isaiah Dudley finished them off, and the pain was etched all over the faces and bodies of Sydney\u2019s players when the final siren eventually sounded and put them all out of their misery.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just extremely proud of everyone uniting, galvanising and coming together to try and get our season to the last game, and we fell short,\u201d Cox said.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say it\u2019s a missed opportunity when you play a really good footy team. Prelims are big games and there\u2019s a lot at stake because there\u2019s a grand final next week. We missed the opportunity to take those moments to put ourselves in a grand final. The older players, they certainly understand that they don\u2019t just come around every year. Some of the young ones, they just [think], \u2018How good is it to be a part of it, and I\u2019m learning everything, and I\u2019ll grow from playing in them,\u2019 but they\u2019re hard to get to.\u201d<\/p>\n So the ride ends here. After a month defined by the scandal at the Pullman Hotel<\/a> and the on- and off-field fallout, the Swans can be immensely proud of the way their remaining players have gallantly defended the club\u2019s colours and culture, as well as disappointed that it couldn\u2019t take them all the way. They will never know how far they could have gone if \u201cthe Pullman Five\u201d had simply behaved themselves that night, and that hurts, too.<\/p>\n What happens next for those players remains to be seen, and in any case will be largely determined by Victoria Police. But during their absence, the Swans found something else: Proof that whatever this club is supposed to stand for is bigger than any individuals, and sturdy enough to survive the damage they caused. Now they can try and build again.<\/p>\n Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Swans](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/de40385635c3cda214ed0f98e4cb2314a55e3eb8.jpeg\")
Swans players Tom Papley, Errol Gulden and James Rowbottom after Friday\u2019s loss to Fremantle.via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Shai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/94706b602d2482c82b38871a88ec42a330fb3df4.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Shai](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/59c9dc1c238dca606478b970f85884887e00e2d5.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n