Tom test for Swans
YOU will not find anybody at Sydney willing to offer an inflammatory barb about former teammate Tom Mitchell.
Mitchell returns to the SCG on Saturday as a short-priced Brownlow Medal favourite and Hawthorn’s most influential player.
The gun midfielder left the Swans after the 2016 Grand Final, a product of the salary cap squeeze created by Lance Franklin’s arrival.
Hawks president Jeff Kennett declared on Wednesday that Franklin had never played well against his former side.
Such niggle is not the Swans’ style, particularly when given many of their players remain friends with Mitchell.
“Tom was obviously a much-loved member of our playing group, obviously good mates with the guy,” Swans ruckman Callum Sinclair said.
Mitchell was highly regarded by Swans coach John Longmire in his five seasons at the club. Nothing has changed.
Longmire suggested last year the former Swan was the league’s best at winning contested ball, joking if “there was one football left in the world and you employed Tom Mitchell to go and find it, he’d find it”.
George Hewett tagged Mitchell in Round 8 at the MCG, restricting him to 20 possessions while the Swans won a thriller without Franklin thanks to Ben Ronke’s seven-goal haul.
Hewett is expected to be given the same tough job in this weekend’s playoff for a top-four spot in the finals.
“We’ll have to wait and see what the coaches are thinking, but Tom has expected a fair bit of attention over his whole footy career,” Sinclair said.
Sinclair would not bite back in response to Kennett, but noted Franklin’s “record speaks for itself”.
“He’s been a pretty consistent performer over many years. I don’t think he’ll be taking too much notice of it,” he said.
“If the playing group’s focus goes down that path of the theatre of footy then our mind’s not really on the job.”
Sinclair has enjoyed a career-best season and shouldered a big workload.
The 28-year-old is confident he will keep running out games well as the Swans seek to progress deep into September.