Tom Papley has played himself into the Swans record books, kicking a club record six goals at Adelaide Oval in the magnificent win over Richmond on Friday night.
Papley’s career-best haul – all in the second half – smashed the previous Adelaide Oval best of four, kicked by Isaac Heeney (three times), Lance Franklin (twice) and Luke Parker.
It’s only a small sample – 11 games since the famous cricket ground in the heart of Adelaide turned to the AFL in 2014 – but that doesn’t detract from the quality of his performance.
According to Champion Data, Papley’s 25 possessions, five clearances, two goal assists and 13 score involvements made his 146th game the highest rated game in the competition this season.
Under a system where a rating of 17-20 is considered excellent Papley scored 30.6. Max Gawn (28.9), Jeremy Cameron (28.1 and 26.6) and Sydney’s Errol Gulden (24.6) complete the top five.
Papley’s 25 possessions was only two short of a career-best, while his 13 score involvements was five better than anyone else in the game. And his six goals bettered his five against West Coast at the SCG in 2019.
Papley also equalled the club best in South Australia – six by Tony Lockett against Adelaide at the old Football Park in 1995 and Barry Hall against Port Adelaide at Football Park in 2003.
That’s a much bigger sample – it adds 29 games played at the game’s previous SA headquarters from 1991 to 2013.
Papley drew plenty of laughs with a post-game interview on Channel Seven when he told how he would celebrate his ‘Gather Round’ performance – he was going on a winery tour and playing golf.
More seriously, talking of the Swans’ disrupted preparation and the heavy absentee list, he said: “We changed the team around, Millsy (Callum Mills) went back and everyone just played their role.
“That’s what we do. When our backs are to the wall everyone plays their role and we get it done. They keep writing us off and we keep fronting up.”
Papley was the 75th of 1444 Swans players all-time to kick six or more goals in a game, and the 28th of the Sydney era. The 28 Sydney era players, with their total number of six-plus games is:
19 – Tony Lockett
14 – Lance Franklin
11 – Warwick Capper
10 – Barry Hall
5 – Tony Morwood
3 – Michael O’Loughlin
3 – Sam Reid
2 – Craig Braddy
2 – Daniel Bradshaw
2 – Barry Mitchell
2 – Craig O’Brien
2 – David Rhys-Jones
2 - Kurt Tippett
1 – Mark Bayes
1 – Vin Catoggio
1 – Bernie Evans
1 - Shane Fell
1 - Troy Luff
1 - Jarrad McVeigh
1 - Simon Minton-Connell
1 – Richard Osborne
1 - Tom Papley
1 - David Rhys-Jones
1 - Ben Ronke
1 - Bernard Toohey
1 – Michael Werner
1 - Greg Williams
1 - Stevie Wright
