{"id":74290,"date":"2026-08-18T01:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T01:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/74290\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T01:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T01:39:12","slug":"sydney-sabotage-sexual-assault-investigation-compromises-another-afl-premiership-tilt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/74290\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney sabotage: Sexual assault investigation compromises another AFL premiership tilt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sydney sabotage: Sexual assault investigation compromises another AFL premiership tilt<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If there was one team who knows how hard it is to win a premiership, it’s Sydney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Swans have two flags since 2000 but also five grand final defeats in that time.<\/p>\n

While Dean Cox’s Sydney weren’t quite favourites to win the 2026 AFL premiership at the end of Round 23 – only Fremantle were ahead of them in the odds.<\/p>\n

With huge pressure to come on the finals-inexperienced Dockers, the Swans looked set to be a real chance of glory in September.<\/p>\n

MORE:Sydney Swans alleged sexual assault: Will players miss out on AFL finals?<\/a><\/p>\n

Now – after a sexual assault investigation involving several of their players – Chad Warner, Isaac Heeney, James Jordon and Riley Bice – Sydney are considering standing down players on the eve of the AFL 2026 finals series.<\/p>\n

Regardless of any findings in the investigation, it’s understood the Swans players involved are unlikely to play the final regular season game this week and could even miss the club’s qualifying final as discipline for late-night drinking at the team hotel.<\/p>\n

Could Sydney’s 2026 AFL season be derailed by investigation?<\/p>\n

MORE:Sydney Swans alleged sexual assault: Which players are involved?<\/a><\/p>\n

If the Swans are missing any of the four players named from AFL finals, it’s going to harm their chances of winning matches.<\/p>\n

Heeney and Warner are arguably part of Sydney’s best trio of players – along with Errol Gulden – and were all-but locks to be All Australian prior to Sunday night.<\/p>\n

Not only are Heeney and Warner two of the best midfielders in the AFL, they are also deadly in front of goal – with Warner kicking 34 goals and Heeney 32.<\/p>\n

Jordon is the team’s best tagger – charged with shutting down the opposition’s best midfielder – and is an important defensive midfielder, especially with James Rowbottom currently being injured with a broken hand.<\/p>\n

Bice – a mature age recruit in 2024 – has played 20 games in 2026 as a rebound defender, averaging 20 disposals and is ranked ninth for total bounces in the AFL.<\/p>\n

No matter what the outcome of the investigations, there will be severe scrutiny on the club, players and officials for the rest of the season.<\/p>\n

This can also have a significant effect on the collective output of a team.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s recent AFL finals failures<\/p>\n

Since 2001, Sydney have played finals in four of the five seasons, with a sixth finals series to come in 2026.<\/p>\n

In 2022 and 2024, the Swans finished in the top four, clinching the minor premiership in the most recent of those campaigns.<\/p>\n

They reached the Grand Final in both of those seasons, losing to Geelong<\/a> by 81 points in 2022 and Brisbane by 10 goals in 2024.<\/p>\n

Sydney’s struggles in finals series date back since their last premiership in 2012, with the club also losing two Grand Finals to Hawthorn<\/a> (2014) and Western Bulldogs<\/a> (2016).<\/p>\n

Since 2013, the Swans have qualified for 10 finals series, have three minor premierships and four grand finals – but no premierships to show for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sydney sabotage: Sexual assault investigation compromises another AFL premiership tilt originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[99799,107631,107252,28257,12318,107632,3935,1712,247,28256],"class_list":["post-74290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sydney","tag-afl-finals","tag-afl-premiership","tag-chad-warner","tag-isaac-heeney","tag-james-jordon","tag-james-rowbottom","tag-premiership","tag-sexual-assault","tag-sydney","tag-the-swans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}