Dane Swan doesn’t hesitate to pinpoint the fork in the road that set on him on the path to a glittering AFL career, and eventually induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
“When I got arrested,” the Collingwood cult hero said at Tuesday night’s induction ceremony.
“That was fun.”
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A self-confessed “s***head” during his junior days, who railed against authority, Swan initially believed football was all about fun and games off the field when he first arrived at the biggest club in the land.
“I thought playing AFL was all about getting drink cards on a Saturday night,” he said.
“I’d give a lot of effort; it was all on a Saturday night.
“There was no effort during the day and I didn’t deserve to be on an AFL list.
“I got in that blue and got in trouble and thought I was going to be sacked.
“You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. It’s very cliche, but it rang true with me.”
Swan was arrested for getting into a fight with bouncers at the end of 2003, his second year at Collingwood.
His father Bill Swan, a Victorian Football Association great, told the young player to walk away if he wasn’t interested in an AFL career.
Club leaders, including legendary coach Mick Malthouse, sat Swan down and told him some brutal home truths while urging him to repay their faith.
He turned it around and went on and to become a Magpies great, starring in the famous 2010 premiership and winning the Brownlow Medal a year later.
Swan was an All-Australian for five consecutive seasons (2009-2013) and won Collingwood’s best-and-fairest award three times (2008-2010).
“I was just very, very lucky,” he said.
“There were so many players that came in that were better, harder workers, faster, fitter, stronger and all those kinds of things.
“I’ve just got no idea why they kept me; I was like a cockroach, they just couldn’t kill me.
“Mick (Malthouse) obviously saw something in me.”
Swan credits former teammates Chris Tarrant and Ben Johnson, among others, for setting him straight — or at least straighter.
The pair were part of a 35-strong entourage at Tuesday’s induction ceremony, along with fellow Collingwood “rat pack” members Heath Shaw and Alan Didak.
“Those three or four years when you’re with your best mates, like the ‘rat pack’, who are here today, it felt like it went for six months,” Swan said.
“You play at the biggest club in the country, you have one of the bigger profiles, I was going ok, we played hard, we partied hard and we just had a great time.
“We barely lost and those are the moments you wish you could have back.”
Malthouse saluted Swan as one of the best big-game players of his generation.
“His performances in finals and Anzac Day are quite remarkable because of the game, the big stage,” the 2010 premiership coach said.
Ever the pot-stirrer, Swan pointed out during his acceptance speech that he’s still not a member of Collingwood’s Hall of Fame.
“Obviously you don’t rate me as highly as the AFL (does),” he said.
“But they know I can be bribed and bought pretty easily and they bought a table for my mates tonight, so we’re square.”