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Full Noise by SN
The enormous Swans boots Curnow has to fill
Brendan Rhodes • March 6th, 2026 5:30 pm
Charlie Curnow has massive boots to fill, following a pantheon of greats who have graced a VFL/AFL goalsquare in a red and white guernsey for more than a century.
South Melbourne produced several full-forwards who ranked among the elite of their eras.
Len Mortimer, recruited from Williamstown in 1905 as the VFA’s leading goalkicker, won the Bloods’ goalkicking seven years in a row – including in the historic 1909 premiership – on his way to what was then a huge tally of 289 majors in 153 matches.
Ted Johnson topped South’s table for six straight years from 1923–1928, kicking more than 50 goals every year but one to finish with 385 from 136 outings.
Dual world champion sprinter Austin Robertson took over in 1929, winning three goalkicking titles and finishing with an accurate 250 goals in 154 matches.
The main reason he didn’t win more was the arrival of probably the second-greatest full-forward before John Coleman – Bob Pratt – an inaugural Legend of the Australian Football Hall of Fame and the first name many think of from the early South Melbourne years.
The high flying, prolific Pratt was an original bums on seats attraction, winning five consecutive club awards from 1932–36 and becoming the first Swan to boot 100 goals in a season. He did it three years in a row, including a record 150 in 1934, which would have been more had he not been hit by a brick truck before the Grand Final.
He kicked 10 or more goals eight times, with a best of 15, and South Melbourne’s home attendance surged from an average of 13,431 to 23,666 while he was strutting his stuff at the Lake Oval. As well as being an Australian Football Legend, he is a Swans Legend, the Team of the Century full-forward and a member of the Sport Australia Hall of Fame.
But the supply of star full-forwards dried up after Pratt, with the exception of John Sudholz, who won four awards from 1967–70 as the club endured the League’s longest premiership drought and failed to make the finals for 25 years.
Then came the move to the glitz and glamour of Sydney, which demanded glitz and glamour at full-forward.
Enter perhaps the glitziest (is that a word?) and most glamorous full-forward in the game’s history.
Warwick Capper burst onto the scene in 1984 with long-flowing blond hair, extremely tight shorts, white or pink boots and the flamboyance to match as he regularly sat on the heads of defenders bold enough to stand in front of him.
He kicked 92 goals in 1986 and 103 in 1987 – the club’s first century since Pratt – on his way to 279 goals in 77 matches. The Swans surged into premiership contention, only to lose four consecutive finals.
Capper was the name on everyone’s lips. Average SCG crowds rose from 12,015 in 1983 to 25,847 in 1986 but dipped again to 12,323 in 1988 when Capper was sold to the Brisbane Bears — a move that was plain wrong by any assessment.
As a youngster choosing who to support, ‘The Wiz’ clinched it for this scribe, and receiving a Swans guernsey with No. 39 on the back remains one of my happiest early memories. Indeed, that 39 remains the only number I have ever worn as a 40 year Swans member.
Capper started Sydney’s love affair with marquee goalkickers, and after Simon Minton-Connell performed admirably to help keep the club alive in the early 1990s, the Swans lured the saviours – Ron Barassi, Paul Roos and the greatest full-forward in history, the incomparable Tony Lockett – to the SCG.
As the song goes, “There’s only one Tony Lockett.” Plugger dragged the Swans back to relevancy, booting three centuries and winning two Coleman Medals while piling on 462 goals in just 98 matches.
Some of Sydney’s most iconic moments belong to Lockett:– His 16.0 against Fitzroy at Whitten Oval in 1995 as the sparse crowd followed him from end to end;– The second-most famous behind in football history to win the 1996 preliminary final;– Six goals in the Grand Final despite a torn groin;– And, of course, the iconic 1300th goal against Collingwood in 1999, sparking one of the biggest ground invasions ever seen.
Crowds soared from 9814 in 1994 to 35,818 in 1997; membership from 3327 to 22,109.
Sydney now understood the value of a big name in the goal square. And while Barry Hall’s 2002 arrival from St Kilda was probably the lowest-profile of them, it was the most successful. As co-captain, he helped break the 72 year premiership drought in 2005, won six straight goalkicking awards and slammed on 467 goals in 162 games. Crowds climbed from 26,614 to 35,632 and membership from 27,755 to 30,382.
Those numbers dipped again after Hall’s departure, and the Swans could scarcely believe their luck when Hawthorn superstar Lance Franklin asked to head north.
His 2014 arrival, on what was then the biggest contract in AFL history, is still debated, but those who look beyond the on field results (which were remarkable anyway) know Buddy paid for himself before even pulling on a boot.
Merchandise boomed, crowds rose from 28,297 to 33,959 and membership exploded from 36,358 to 61,912 by 2019 (and has continued rising). On the field? A Coleman in 2014, another in 2017, three Grand Finals (in two of which he was clearly among Sydney’s best), four All-Australian blazers – one as captain – seven leading goalkicker awards and 486 goals in 172 matches. He not only fulfilled his nine-year deal but played a 10th season in 2023.
And then, in 2022, came the scenes to rival Plugger’s moment 23 years earlier as Buddy kicked his 1000th goal against Geelong, the SCG becoming a heaving sea of humanity as Chad Warner and Ollie Florent had to escape the ground and walk up Driver Avenue to get back to the rooms.
Despite making another Grand Final after his retirement in 2024, something has been missing at the SCG for the past two years — and that’s where dual Carlton Coleman medallist Curnow comes in.
Still just 29, he brings 313 goals in 149 games (before his Swans debut) and the big-name aura Swans fans crave. Yes, he has the biggest shoes to fill in football (and the biggest trade price, costing the Swans effectively two beloved players and three first-round picks), but he has the presence to make a real fist of it.
We await the Curnow era with enthusiastic anticipation.
