Player Watch #5 Isaac Heeney

[Kennedy Parker]

Isaac Heeney

Isaac Heeney

5

Isaac Heeney

Age

27

Ht

185cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

18.2

5star

K

10.4

4star

HB

7.7

5star

M

4.9

5star

T

4.1

5star

CL

2.2

4star

D

14.3

3star

K

8.8

4star

HB

5.5

3star

M

4.8

4star

T

2.5

3star

CL

0.8

3star

D

10.4

3star

K

7.2

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

2.8

3star

T

2.4

4star

CL

0.8

3star

is a crowd favourite and one of the best young players in the competition. The QBE Sydney Swans Academy graduate won the 2018 AFL Mark of the Year award, was selected in the AFL Players’ Association’s 22Under22 team in two of his eligible four years and played his 100th senior game in 2019. Heeney can be used in the midfield, forward line – where he booted four goals in star teammate Lance Franklin’s absence in Round 20 last year – or as a loose man in defence.

Isaac Heeney

5

Isaac Heeney

Age

27

Ht

185cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

18.2

5star

K

10.4

4star

HB

7.7

5star

M

4.9

5star

T

4.1

5star

CL

2.2

4star

D

14.3

3star

K

8.8

4star

HB

5.5

3star

M

4.8

4star

T

2.5

3star

CL

0.8

3star

D

10.4

3star

K

7.2

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

2.8

3star

T

2.4

4star

CL

0.8

3star

DOB: 05 May 1996
DEBUT: 2015
DRAFT: #18, 2014 National Draft
RECRUITED FROM: Cardiff (NSW)

Isaac Heeney | AFL

Follow Isaac Heeney's progress through AFL

www.sydneyswans.com.au

 

[J_Moore]

From a marketing/match day perspective, do feel like the club needs to do more to capitalise on the guy having one of the great individual starts to season in the modern game’s history.

I mean it’s great when these things happen organically, but sometimes you can give them a little nudge along (see how they handled Errol in 22).

Pump out more social content centered around him, figure out a way to pump him up a bit in the match day stuff. Get the punters excited.

He’s a smiling blonde Adonis with the ball on a string. That’s cash money baby

 

[S120]

From a marketing/match day perspective, do feel like the club needs to do more to capitalise on the guy having one of the great individual starts to season in the modern game’s history.

I mean it’s great when these things happen organically, but sometimes you can give them a little nudge along (see how they handled Errol in 22).

Pump out more social content centered around him, figure out a way to pump him up a bit in the match day stuff. Get the punters excited.

He’s a smiling blonde Adonis with the ball on a string. That’s cash money baby

It’s funny because I think actually he has tended to be a primary marketing tool of the club for the last 5 years but it seems to me that in the last 12-18 months they’ve moved to really pushing Errol, Chad, and Blakey as our biggest stars taking over from Bud and Heeney. You hear the club talk about who the kids love the most and they always mention the first three too, so I think the club is consciously pumping out content to focus on those guys more than Heeney atm despite his advertising appeal clearly being strong on paper as you say.

All of that is to say, seems like the punters want the young guys; in fact, maybe Heeney’s benefiting in part from being a little off Broadway in terms of attention at the club?

 

[liz]

It’s funny because I think actually he has tended to be a primary marketing tool of the club for the last 5 years but it seems to me that in the last 12-18 months they’ve moved to really pushing Errol, Chad, and Blakey as our biggest stars taking over from Bud and Heeney. You hear the club talk about who the kids love the most and they always mention the first three too, so I think the club is consciously pumping out content to focus on those guys more than Heeney atm despite his advertising appeal clearly being strong on paper as you say.

All of that is to say, seems like the punters want the young guys; in fact, maybe Heeney’s benefiting in part from being a little off Broadway in terms of attention at the club?

This is my gut feeling - it probably is testable but I haven't tried to gather the data and am not sure how you'd go about it - but I reckon the amount of marketing Heeney (and Mills) has been used for has remained around the same. We know that Buddy got a large chunk of the marketing budget in his contract because the club pointed out that this didn't attract COLA (in response to baseless and meaningless arguments that we had misused COLA to recruit Buddy). Once his initial contract was over I imagine there was suddenly a lot more marketing money available to share around the rest of the players. And happily, this coincided with the next rung of stars emerging to warrant having marketing money spent on them.

So what you're noticing is other players taking over Buddy's share of the marketing allowance while Heeney's has remained around the same. He's still the most commonly seen face on the ads that run on the club website - the QBE one with Molloy and Blakey (and someone else who I can't remember off the top of my head); the one with Mills where they are watching videos of themselves and which I can't even recall what they're advertising (maybe the cryptoexchange?)

The appeal of using Mills, Heeney, Errol and Blakey for marketing in the NSW market is pretty obvious. Wicks, Campbell and/or Clearly or Kirk could eventually join them but they need to elevate their football first so that they're amongst the best players in team.

 

[GoTheSwannies]

But he hasn't

He will have once the votes are read out

 

[the hypnotoad]

It’s funny because I think actually he has tended to be a primary marketing tool of the club for the last 5 years but it seems to me that in the last 12-18 months they’ve moved to really pushing Errol, Chad, and Blakey as our biggest stars taking over from Bud and Heeney. You hear the club talk about who the kids love the most and they always mention the first three too, so I think the club is consciously pumping out content to focus on those guys more than Heeney atm despite his advertising appeal clearly being strong on paper as you say.

All of that is to say, seems like the punters want the young guys; in fact, maybe Heeney’s benefiting in part from being a little off Broadway in terms of attention at the club?

blakey is becoming one of the genuine characters of the club and the league, even beyond the cult status he's been elevated to the past couple of years ...
he's clearly intelligent, and with a "different" take on the world, and seems to be able to have a laugh at himself too
and hayward, too, comes across as someone able to laugh at himself and not take things too seriously, which is significant coz he cops way too much personal criticism on this board, let alone outside the club
i can see both having careers in media after their football is over
tony armstrong is an example of what's possible, and i'm sure he'd be the first to admit he wasn't the footballer blakey (or hayward) is
i've seen the qbe ads featuring heeney, mills, blakey and chloe molloy, and blakey seems to revel in that "weird other guy" role

 

[Morefunn]

Heeney is the Malcolm Blight / Peter Knights of the modern era. Gun who can can play anywhere. Been a gun since he started - but elevated so far this season. Hope he keeps it going!

 

[Crust]

Heeney is the Malcolm Blight / Peter Knights of the modern era. Gun who can can play anywhere. Been a gun since he started - but elevated so far this season. Hope he keeps it going!

Not a fan of Norf but f I loved watching Blight play.