Sydney Swans fans wondering what they can expect from Charlie Curnow should turn the clock back to Round 10, 2022.
It was Friday night, May 20, as fourth-placed Carlton hosted fifth-placed Sydney at Marvel Stadium in Dane Rampe’s 200th game as a 25-year-old Curnow played his 72nd game.
The Swans led by a point at quarter-time but quickly found themselves 31 points down 12 minutes into the second term after the home side banged on five goals in 11 minutes. It was 8.5 to 4.0 and Curnow, with 4-1, had outscored the Swans himself.
He had five by halftime, when Carlton led by 38 points, and finished with 6.1 and three Brownlow Medal votes despite Sydney cutting the final deficit to 15 points.
It was a personal best for Curnow in 10 games against Sydney, which have delivered 20 goals and an aggregate 3.7 net result for his former club against his new club.
Curiously, Curnow has an 0.6 mark at the SCG, with an average losing margin of 35 points.
His relationship with the Swans has been something of a stop-start ‘affair’ after he debuted against the red and white in Round 2, 2016 in what was the second game for the Swans’ Callum Mills, Tom Papley and George Hewett. He had 11 possessions and a goal in a 10-goal Swans win.
He played five of his first 36 games in 2016-18 against Sydney, but, restricted to 15 games through injury from 2019-21, he didn’t play against the Swans again until his six-goal blitz in 2022.
He kicked two goals in a 52-point Carlton loss to Sydney at the SCG in Round 10 last year, and three goals in a 16-point Carlton loss in Round 10 this year.
Curnow, at 28 a veteran of 149 AFL games and 313 AFL goals, will bring a glittering CV to Sydney highlighted by the Coleman Medal and All-Australian selection in 2022 and 2023.
The powerhouse and athletic key forward was a five-time leading goal-kicker at Carlton, is 13th on the club’s all-time goal-kicking list, and five times finished top 10 in the club best and fairest.
He also holds the Carlton record for most consecutive games on the goal-sheet at 66 from 2022-24.
A product of the football factory that is the Geelong Falcons, Curnow was originally drafted by Carlton at pick #12 in a 2016 National Draft in which Jacob Weitering went to Carlton at #1, Brisbane took Josh Schache at #2, Callum Mills joined Sydney at #3, Clayton Oliver went to Melbourne at #4, recently-delisted Swan Aaron Francis was pick #6 to Essendon before Carlton took Harry McKay at #10. And Sydney struck gold with Tom Papley at rookie #14.
Curnow played 58 games in his first four years. But in the last four years he’s played 22, 26, 21 and 18 for 87 games and 234 goals, despite the Blues’ 46-1-40 win/loss record (52.8%).
This included a career-high 10 goals against West Coast at Marvel in 2023 which was the first double-figure haul by a Carlton player since Stephen Kernahan in 1995.
In the same four-year period only Geelong’s Jeremy Cameron has been more prolific. He’s kicked 270 goals in 94 games in a side that has gone 64-30 (71.1%).
The top 10 goal-kickers in the AFL from 2022-25 are:
270 – Jeremy Cameron (Geel) – 94 games – 2.87gpg
234 – Charlie Curnow (Carl) – 87 games – 2.69gpg
207 – Jesse Hogan (GWS) – 82 games – 2.52gpg
196 – Nick Larkey (NM) – 83 games – 2.36gpg
191 – Taylor Walker (Adel) – 81 games – 2.36gpg
190 – Aaron Naughton (WB) – 88 games – 2.16gpg
189 – Charlie Cameron (Bris) – 103 games – 1.83gpg
170 – Bayley Fritsch (Melb) – 86 games – 1.98gpg
166 – Ben King (GC) – 67 games – 2.48gpg
160 – Tyson Stengle (Geel) – 93 games – 1.72gpg
Sydney’s leading goal-kicker in this period has been part-time forward Isaac Heeney with 150 goals in 95 games at 1.58 goals per game.
Curnow’s move to Sydney reverses a trend which in recent years has seen Andrejs Everitt (2013), Nic Newman (2019) and George Hewett (2022) switch from Sydney to Carlton.
He is the Swans’ first big signing from Carlton since full forward Simon Minton-Connell, a 19-game Carlton player from 1989-91, who played 46 games and kicked 169 goals in red and white from 1992-94.
Curnow joins Tom McCartin, Lewis Melican and Taylor Adams as Geelong Falcons products on the 2026 Sydney playing list.
