Joel Hamling has written his own line in the Swans history books even before the start of the 2024 season, having become the first player to move from Fremantle to Sydney.
While Troy Cook, John Hutton and Scott Watters have played for both clubs, Hamling is the first to trek from west to east for the next chapter of his career.
And he’s done so to arrive in a situation rare to AFL football – he’s a total new boy.
While it is commonplace in the AFL these days for moving players to reunite with ex-teammates, Hamling’s ‘old mates’ list is bare despite having been 12 years and now four clubs in the AFL system.
The nearest thing to a ‘teammate’ in the Swans camp for the 30-year-old defender is Harry Cunningham. And that’s a stretch … to say the least.
On 24 November 2011 Hamling and Cunningham shared a common bond among hundreds of AFL hopefuls focussed intently on the AFL draft, held in Sydney.
But to get to that point they’d come from entirely different starting points, and since then have travelled entirely different paths to find themselves reunited in the Swans locker room at the SCG, with barely 5m between Cunningham’s #7 and Hamling’s #29, worn for the past two years by Angus Sheldrick.
Their shared journey is a wonderful example of the vagaries of the AFL football journey.
They were born in 1993 on opposite sides of the globe – Cunningham in Wagga and Hamling in Denmark, Western Australia.
And while they joined the AFL in the same draft in 2011, they were taken 136 players and 19 days apart. Hamling went from WAFL club Claremont to Geelong via pick #32 in the National Draft on 24 November and Cunningham from Turvey Park in the Riverina to Sydney via pick #93 in the Rookie Draft on 13 December.
Cunningham, now a 185-game veteran, debuted at the first opportunity in Round 1, 2012. It was 24 March – the first game against the GWS Giants at the Olympic Stadium. But Hamling waited. And waited. For 1162 days until 30 May 2015.
It was such a long wait that by that time he debuted Hamling had changed clubs. After three years at the Cats without a chance he joined the Western Bulldogs as a delisted free agent. And after five VFL games he pulled on the #30 Dogs jumper for the first time. He had 16 possessions in a 45-point win.
Hamling enjoyed the best moment of his career in just his 23rd game and his first game against Sydney in the 2016 grand final.
In what turned out to be his last game with the Dogs, Hamling held Lance Franklin to one goal in his side’s 22-point win, completing an outstanding finals series in which he’d also been lauded for his performances on West Coast’s Josh Kennedy and GWS’ Jeremy Cameron.
Cunningham was an emergency in the 2016 grand final, and in 310 weeks of football since the pair were drafted in 2011, they’ve played against each other just twice. It’s 2-0 to Cunningham. In Round 9, 2018 at the SCG the Swans marked the 200th game in red and white for Josh Kennedy and Nick Smith with a 59-point win, and in Round 19 last year at Optus Stadium in Perth, in Lance Franklin’s penultimate game, Sydney won by 29 points.
The statistics show Hamling played only six AFL games in the last three years – four in 2023 in Rounds 18, 19, 20 and 24. Prior to that he’d played 62 of a possible 66 games with Fremantle in 2017-19 after returning home to WA for personal reasons.
Importantly, he got through the back end of the 2023 season without a mishap, and when not playing in the AFL side he played in the WAFL. And played well.
In a recent interview with afl.com.au Hamling explained: "I hadn't missed a lot of footy in my career through injury and then I got a bad ankle injury and missed two-and-a-half, three years. I've never had a soft tissue injury.
“I don't feel 30. I feel like I can run like an 18-year-old still. I'm really enjoying it. If I didn't like it, I would've just retired. I’ve been given one last crack by a team that you could say is in the (premiership) window, and I'm really excited about the prospect."
Hamling’s link to the Swans goes back a long way. “I met Kinnear Beatson (Swans list and recruiting manager) 12 years ago in Perth. Then my manager was at a Sandringham game last season and Kinnear was there and asked what was going on with me. My manager said I might be out of Freo, so it just eventuated like that.
"I really enjoyed my time at Freo, they're a good club. But I don't think they thought anyone else would take me," he said. "I sort of had enough in the end and it was time to get out of there. So yeah, I packed up and took off to my fourth club."
Hamling is 164 days older than fellow newcomer Taylor Adams, and, like Adams, could join a small group of players to debut for the Swans beyond the age of 30.
He looms as a possible replacement for the retired Paddy McCartin in the Swans’ tall defensive group, but said he has no big expectations. "I'm really enjoying just coming in and filling a role. If I'm playing third tall or I'm playing on a small, or I'm playing lock down, I'm just happy to play anywhere, really."
