Swans AFLW captain says club has taken ‘reputational hit’

Swans AFLW captain Lucy McEvoy and coach Colin O’Riordan are speaking for the first time since five of the club’s men’s players were stood down for breaching club standards, and a police investigation into an alleged sexual assault continues.

The Swans AFLW team are playing as part of a double-header at the SCG on Sunday. It will be just the second time the women’s team have played for competition points at the historic ground, but the occasion has been overshadowed by the sexual assault allegation surrounding members of the men’s team.

McEvoy and O’Riordan are speaking three hours after men’s team captain Callum Mills and coach Dean Cox broke their silence on the situation, with Mills apologising for the “actions of a few within our group”.

The five players – James Jordon, Chad Warner, Isaac Heeney, Riley Bice and Nick Blakey – along with an ex-AFL player and a mystery man were partying in a hotel room in Melbourne’s east in the early hours of Monday morning when the alleged assault took place.

Mills acknowledged that the women’s game at the SCG had been “overshadowed”.

“It’s a historic weekend for the football club, it’s our first double-header of AFLW and men’s program together on the SCG,” Mills said.

“And whilst this has overshadowed it, I think it’s an incredible, powerful moment that we’ve come together, and we celebrate that moment of AFLW program out on the SCG.”

“I addressed the AFLW players, and I acknowledge their pain, and I deeply apologised for the actions of a few within our group,” Mills said.