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Full Noise by SN
The damning numbers behind Curnow's slow start to Swans tenure
Jaiden Sciberras • May 19th, 2026 4:33 pm
Tim Watson and Garry Lyon delved deep into the numbers behind Charlie Curnow’s start to life at Sydney, weighing up whether the acquisition has been a success.
Recruiting Curnow and a handful of late draft picks from Carlton in exchange for Will Hayward and three first rounders, the two-time Coleman Medallist hasn’t quite dominated in the manner that the club would have hoped.
However, given the Swans sit atop the AFL ladder through 10 weeks, the club may be entirely satisfied with the return on investment.
The SEN Breakfast co-hosts discussed his influence at length.
“Everybody watched him at the weekend (against Collingwood),” Tim Watson told SEN Breakfast.
“I thought at times he was totally disengaged from the game in as much as what he needed to do when the ball was in his vicinity and the movement that he needed to make.
“This is about coaching. This is about what we see and what we think that he can do better than what he is currently not doing out there on the football field.
“I watched him last night, as you did, about what he wasn’t doing, about how he wasn’t presenting, how he didn’t really – at critical stages of the game - you’re trying to find where he was on the screen.
“You think ‘he’s the bloke, he’s the key forward at the front half there. Where is he? Why isn’t he in the picture? Why isn’t he presenting? Why doesn’t he look like he wants to compete for the ball? It’s a critical stage of the game’.
“I said to you, can you go and have a look at some statistical data around him – are we seeing things that aren’t necessarily real when you actually crunch the data?
“The numbers that you’ve come up with are extraordinary.”
Lyon added: “First of all, let’s deal with what our eye tells us.”
“I have long been of the opinion that he never struck me as the man that wants to be the key. He is a half-forward flanker who is getting centre half-forward and full-forward money and acclaim.
“He goes up there to be the man, and I’m talking about the weekend, no other game. On the weekend, he just didn’t want to go to where you expect your key players to go to.
“I know he and Joel Amartey are working together, but there’s a ground ball to be got and he’s not wanting to put his body (on the line).
“I don’t know if he’s carrying a few injuries, but his last two games… against Melbourne three weeks ago he was the 46th rated player on the ground. 46th. Against Collingwood he was 39th, only seven players below him.
“Five times this year he has been rated in the bottom 10 players (on the ground).”
Watson: “Let’s put that to one side. How often has he been targeted as a forward?”
Lyon: “Only 11 per cent. That’s 46th in the competition. You’ve gone to get this fella – maybe they look upon him differently to what you and I look at him like.”
Watson: “I don’t think they’re playing him as a decoy.”
Lyon: “Maybe they acknowledge the fact that he’s not the go-to man and he’s not the man who is going to draw the footy, and that he is more half-forward flank than centre half-forward.
“Because Amartey benefits enormously when Charlie’s there, and Charlie might want to take his man away from the area that Amartey leads into.
“Maybe that’s the play. But just on the weekend especially. You know what it looked like? It looked like he was really sore.
“If he’s not really sore, that’s an indictment on the way he played on the weekend.”
Watson: “He ran off the line of the ball a number of times, and he is better than that.
“I’ll give him this though, they are playing a very, very different brand of football than what he has been used to at Carlton.
“The fact that they run so hard down your throat with the ball, it means that as a forward, you are required to actually move away from that space so that they can carry the ball through the middle of the ground and overlap the handball like they’re doing.
“That reduces his chances.”
Lyon: “Your favourite saying in footy is when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
“For two or three years I have been saying that he is a half-forward, who is being paid key position money and to influence in a key position manner.
“I know he has had some big games against poor teams and that can fatten your numbers.”
Watson: “Is he delivering on what the Sydney Swans thought they were going to get?”
Lyon: “The short answer to this is yes, and that might sound contradictory, but they are on top of the ladder.
“They’ve lost one game. This is about team, and they recruited him to make the team better. He’s playing in a team that sits on top of the ladder; therefore, it works.
“When you want to strip it right back – Joel Amartey is apparently copping offers for over $1 million. But, if he goes, then we’ll see whether they sit on top of the ladder with Charlie being the main man, which I don’t think he is cut out for.
“In terms of everything else, Swans fans are going, ‘we got Charlie to make us better, and we’re sitting on top of the ladder and have only dropped one game’.”
Listen to the full discussion below:
