Last year’s grand finalists need to act ‘pretty quickly’ as their season spirals out of control.
Channel 7 AFL commentator Kane Cornes has called on Sydney to change captains amid a leadership crisis at the club.
The Swans slumped to their fifth loss of the season on Sunday, conceding 12 straight goals in the disappointing 38-point defeat to Gold Coast.
Sydney actually lead the match by five goals during the second term before the Suns’ incredible blitz that saw the Swans go nearly two full quarters without a goal.
It leaves last year’s grand finalists languishing in 14th place on the ladder in Dean Cox’s first year as coach.
Callum Mills has been Sydney’s sole captain since the start of the 2024 season, but has managed just seven games in that time.
He missed the first half of last season after suffering a shoulder injury during a Mad Monday mishap before his comeback was stalled by calf injuries.
He returned to play seven matches, but missed the preliminary final and grand final with a hamstring issue.
The 28-year-old’s injury issues continued this year and has yet to play a game due to a foot injury.
His absence continues to hurt the club with Cornes calling on Isaac Heeney to be made captain.
“There’s definitely a lack of leadership at Sydney,” Cornes said on Kane’s Call.
“Dean Cox has really been challenged on how to halt that momentum, which he is really struggling with as an inexperienced coach. And with their good players out, it’s really hurt them.
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“I think the biggest on that has hurt them is Mills — he is the captain of his footy club and since he has been made captain, he’s played about seven games, he’s been injured on Mad Monday and we haven’t seen him this year.
“They’re missing him and they have got to give the captaincy to Isaac Heeney pretty quickly I would have thought. He is clearly the captain, Mills has been disappointing.”
Meanwhile, frustrated coach Cox has implored his midfield group to respond after a second-half mauling from Gold Coast.
Gold Coast finished with superior numbers at clearances (39-30) and centre clearances (14-13).
Cox said his side’s inability to disrupt the Suns’ dominance once they had regained control was troubling.
“The concern all year’s been the inconsistency,” he said.
“The ability to put your foot down when you’ve got ascendancy, but then stop it.
“We’ve got to work hard through it. We’re not going to shy away from it.
“Contest and clearance. Plain and simple. We took that away from them and then couldn’t sustain it.
“If you can’t get it done around the ball at times you need to be able to cover that in other areas. We need to fight for longer.
Cox moved the magnets looking for answers but insisted the club had the midfield depth to address his concerns.
“Ideally I don’t want to have to keep changing it around,” he said.
“But at times you need to spark players to get them into the game and it’s something we’ll always talk about it and was the end result of what happened through the middle of the ground, which is the area we need to fix first.
“That’s now our job. Make sure we get the players back to doing that.”
Defender Ben Patton was substituted out with calf tightness at halftime while Cox said sidelined forward Logan McDonald (ankle) was not likely to return to the AFL in the “near future”.
