Source : the age
Departing Sydney Swans great Dane Rampe has urged his teammates to continue to confront uncomfortable truths about the club’s culture following the Pullman Hotel scandal, admitting the fallout almost convinced him to extend his AFL career for another season.
Rampe, 36, announced his retirement on Friday after 289 games across 14 seasons, and used his farewell press conference to reflect candidly on the crisis that engulfed the Swans in the final weeks of their campaign.
He said he had privately anticipated that 2026 would be his last year, only to be left questioning whether he could still walk away from the club and end his career on such terms.
Eventually, Rampe said he accepted he could no longer commit himself at the same levels that made him such a unique and tenacious player.
“Selfishly, there was part of me that felt a little bit upset and hurt by what had happened. I was struggling to accept whether that was the way I was going to bow out,” he said.
“Coupled with that was the place in which the club finds itself. It didn’t feel right leaving with where things are at. But I guess what I’ve learned from my football career is that that’s my perception, it’s not necessarily the reality … it doesn’t impact the way I leave this club.
“I’m so comfortable with where the club sits, albeit given some pretty, I guess, extenuating circumstances.”
Rampe served as co-captain of the Swans between 2019 and 2023, but stepped up as stand-in skipper after Callum Mills suffered an ACL injury in Sydney’s qualifying final win over eventual premiers Brisbane – a victory Rampe said was one of the best moments he’d experienced as an AFL player.
“I got to experience, I feel like, a couple of seasons’ worth of chaos, pride, humiliation, excitement, all within a couple of weeks,” he said. “To have that at the end of my career is an absolute luxury. It didn’t go the way that the fairytale would get written about, but it’s a luxury in itself to be able to experience all those emotions.”
Few gave the Swans any chance in the finals, with five key players – including star trio Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Nick Blakey – suspended by the club for breaching internal standards during that infamous post-game party at the Pullman Hotel in Melbourne in late August. A police investigation into an alleged sexual assault on that night is ongoing, though no charges have been laid.
Rampe stressed that while he had no knowledge of what had occurred inside that room, he said every person at the Swans had played some part in the circumstances that led to the club’s current predicament.
“What I’ve learned, and I guess what I’ve helped teach some of the boys, is that our culture’s built on radical transparency with each other, but then radical self-ownership as well,” Rampe said.
“The way the season finished forced us all to hold a mirror up to ourselves. I think it would be ignorant or naive of us to think that we haven’t all played a small part in getting to … where we were.
“Based on my preliminary chats with the boys, it’s obviously been emotional, but now that the dust has settled a little bit, I’m so confident with the group that we’ve got and the leadership we’ve got … I’m completely at peace with where the club sits.
“Does that mean that we’re not going to be having robust conversations? Absolutely not. In fact, I hope to hear that they are having challenging conversations going forward and that the media is reporting difficult conversations.
“That’s a sign of a healthy club, a healthy culture, and I urge and implore the boys and the rest of the club to lean into that, because that’s what’s made us the club that we are, and that’s what’s going to catapult us into the next stage of where we want to get to.”
Rampe will be remembered as a player symbolic of his era at Sydney, a born-and-bred local product who was repeatedly overlooked by recruiters before finally getting an opportunity with the Swans at 22 as a mature-age rookie.
He went on to become one of the AFL’s most consistent and courageous defenders, earning All-Australian honours in 2016 and a club best and fairest award in 2019.
The one achievement which eluded him was a premiership, having played in four losing grand final, in 2014, 2016, 2022 and 2024.
However, Rampe stressed he would not change a single thing about his career, and said he would not trade some of the relationships he has built through the Swans for any premiership.
“Having gone through all these hardships … you realise the beauty that comes on the other side of it,” he said.
Rampe’s exit will leave Sydney further depleted of experience and quality in defence: Blakey has been traded to North Melbourne, Harry Cunningham has joined Adelaide, while Mills is expected to be sidelined for all of the 2027 season.
Rampe suggested that in time, the Pullman scandal may actually bring the Swans closer to the team success they are craving.
“Who’s not to say that what happened has opened Pandora’s box, in terms of what we are capable of, because we got exposed to a new way of thinking and playing and investing in each other, and investing wholeheartedly in a selfless, team-first approach?” he said.
“You wouldn’t have been afforded that luxury without the circumstances … I’m looking forward to seeing what blossoms. What I guess will be the challenge for the boys is, how do we reintegrate these players in a professional sense, but not at the expense of what we’re able to uncover and achieve ourselves?”
