Past Will Hayward

[Kennedy Parker]

Will Hayward
Spritely Sydney Swans forward Will Hayward

19

Will Hayward

Age

27

Ht

186cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.6

3star

K

6.6

3star

HB

4.0

3star

M

3.4

3star

T

2.8

4star

G

1.1

4star

D

9.0

2star

K

4.3

2star

HB

4.7

3star

M

2.7

3star

T

2.7

4star

G

0.7

4star

D

9.4

3star

K

6.2

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

2.6

3star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.4

5star

enjoyed a rocketing start to his career as he became the 11th-youngest player in the AFL era to reach 50 career goals in 2018. The 2016 draftee’s nippy pace and cunning goal awareness have made him a dangerous option in coach John Longmire’s forward line. A broken jaw and a persistent hip injury limited Hayward to just 12 goals in 13 senior games in 2019, but the South Australian is attacking the 2020 campaign on the back of his first full pre-season. Don’t be surprised if the exciting Swan finds himself on a wing this year.

Will Hayward

19

Will Hayward

Age

27

Ht

186cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.6

3star

K

6.6

3star

HB

4.0

3star

M

3.4

3star

T

2.8

4star

G

1.1

4star

D

9.0

2star

K

4.3

2star

HB

4.7

3star

M

2.7

3star

T

2.7

4star

G

0.7

4star

D

9.4

3star

K

6.2

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

2.6

3star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.4

5star

DOB: 26 October 1998
DEBUT: 2017
DRAFT: #21, 2016 National Draft
RECRUITED FROM: Walkerville (SA)/North Adelaide (SANFL)

Will Hayward | AFL

Follow Will Hayward's progress through AFL

www.sydneyswans.com.au

 

[Tedeski]

This isn't about making the decision to get rid of them, it's about how they were managed and communicated to.

Do you know how it really went down Zyzz?
We don't really know the other side of the story.
From a list management point of view, many of us on here thought that we gave too much to both Ollie & Will when we resigned them after they held off for a while. Now we know why they held off & that's because teams came sniffing around & throwing good money at them, carlton with Will which he has admitted to.

So what we don't really know is how the club deep down felt about having to fork out more money because we didn't want to lose them. then we made the GF again. I agree 100% that these two boys weren't alone in going missing in big games where we were smashed by good opponents, but compared to a young Roberts who wouldn't be on much, they needed to answer to more criticism.

I love Will & Ollie & I am grateful that the Swans got a deal done to get them both to another club together as Roos did with Schneider & Dempster, but I am very happy that we have finally begun to get our list moving aggressively.
We brought in a need with some of it an unknown quantity & released a couple of known quantities that in my opinion, were not going to give any more than they have thus far, but who were now going to be on a greater amount of money for the next 4 years.

Our club has done the right thing. Sure, it comes across harsh but if we didn't pay up when Will & Ollie were uncontracted in 2024, then the bitterness from supporters may have been directed at Will & Ollie if they left for "greener pastures" at The Old Dark Maybelose!

 

[Tedeski]

2025 Bris bt Geel
2024 Bris bt Syd
2023 Coll bt Bris
2022 Geel bt Syd

So last 4 GFs only 4 teams are represented, incl us twice.
But instead of recognising we are doing a fair few things right, lets throw the toys out of the pram because we didn't perform on the last day.

No!
We are just making the appropriate adjustments that the new coach sees fit, in order to add our name alongside those other 3 that have a premiership each from their efforts in your examples, where we have none from 2 attempts.
If one could call them attempts because that would mean there was some effort & an 80 point loss followed by a fortunate 60 point loss with 3 junk time goals from Parker, suggesting we showed no effort.

 

[Wheresbuddy]

This is the only correct answer. Sorry but a rocket needs to be fired into the playing group and this while not popular is the only way to both improve the team and send a message to the players.

If fans want to hold onto the idea that players of the likes of Hayward and Florent should be untouchable then we are never going to see this group win a premiership and it’s no wonder Horse walked away when he did.

Don't disagree with this, just not convinced about Curnow. It's definitely not the same as when we got Buddy.

Let's just say that what is good enough for the players should apply to Cox Keane, Cameron et al. I think some very dubious calls were made last year but most were willing to give Cox the benefit of the doubt as it was his first year and we had plenty of injuries. He now has the team he wants and a full season under his belt so if the team doesn't perform, then he (and the rest) need to be held accountable.

 

[Tedeski]

The latest from The Hun

Carlton might have to pony-up $5 million to secure Sydney free agent Will Hayward, given the price for the medium-sized forward is likely to hit $800,000 a season.
It was reported this week the Blues will offer Hayward a six-year deal, after the Herald Sun reported in March he would put talks on hold with multiple suitors.

Port Adelaide is keen to lure him across the border so with the bidding war fierce, Carlton might need to offer a deal of $750,000-$800,000 a year over six years to get him to move south. It would result in an end-of-first-round compensation pick for Sydney.


Rest of the paywalled article can be found here:

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/afl-trade-wrap-the-latest-news-from-around-the-competition/news-story/6b15b4362e96485b448d60a263afb019

Adelaide offer

The above quotes are from Ticky & Adnico from May 2024.
Right in that time frame where Will was being romanced by a number of clubs, thus inflating the cost for us to keep him at the club.
We paid up. So I guess we didn't see any value in the money we would have needed to pay for him these next 4 years.

 

[Kiama Chris]

The above quotes are from Ticky & Adnico from May 2024.
Right in that time frame where Will was being romanced by a number of clubs, thus inflating the cost for us to keep him at the club.
We paid up. So I guess we didn't see any value in the money we would have needed to pay for him these next 4 years.

Not sure that's how it went.
Wouldn't mind betting we offered Carlton 2 firsts and Florent and they countered with 3 firsts and Hayward. We got Florent done for a small canteen of cutlery to offload his salary and tried to hold on to Hayward. Eventually gave in, getting a couple of later picks back as consolation.
If anything I get the feeling that Rowie was the other player we wanted to offload, not Will, but had no takers that we could convince him to go to. If so, good for him.

 

[Adnico26Parker]

The above quotes are from Ticky & Adnico from May 2024.
Right in that time frame where Will was being romanced by a number of clubs, thus inflating the cost for us to keep him at the club.
We paid up. So I guess we didn't see any value in the money we would have needed to pay for him these next 4 years.

I'd forgotten about the fact we basically matched Adelaide's (and Carlton's) offer, albeit with a 6th year trigger rather than 6 years.

Could have had 3 x end of first round picks last year if he decided to leave, and we didn't match the FA offer.

 

[bedford]

The above quotes are from Ticky & Adnico from May 2024.
Right in that time frame where Will was being romanced by a number of clubs, thus inflating the cost for us to keep him at the club.
We paid up. So I guess we didn't see any value in the money we would have needed to pay for him these next 4 years.

As was told to me by people that really know .

 

[Tedeski]

Whats with this notion that the players need some sort of enlightenment? They made two GF's and one of them prematurely.

Sometimes the oppo plays through their skin and it's not your day, it just happened to happen to us at the cruelest moments and your lots coping mechanism is to throw the toys out and declare we're not good enough to win it. We are more than capable, and on another day we could've one both those games. For me 2022 and 2024 were a resounding success even tho I'm burning that I can't hang up the premiership posters on my wall.

We had a profile that can go all the way. Shaking things up only risks us shitting the bed, and we're already halfway there after seeing our method this year. There's not much more improvement you can find after reaching a gf, it's a minute difference in overall ability and room for improvement between winning and losing that game, whereas the drop off to the teams behind us begging for the day theyre half decent to even get there is stark.

The whole this team needs a shake up us a load of shit

So is over paying for the roles they do & hence the out put they give.

 

[tombomb]

It's possible that both things are correct.

The players have a right to be pissed off, especially Will. At the same time, the club handled it the way it should be handled.

I am not sure if those two things are true or not.

But it doesn't make much sense to me to wait until the trade period itself to have conversations with players. They should be having conversations with every player on the list, including those who have zero chance of being moved.

If handled appropriately it doesn't need to be the 'oh f*** they want to get rid of me' outcome.

Ollie, at least, should have known after his exit interview that they would be potentially looking at moving him on.

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

Not sure that's how it went.
Wouldn't mind betting we offered Carlton 2 firsts and Florent and they countered with 3 firsts and Hayward. We got Florent done for a small canteen of cutlery to offload his salary and tried to hold on to Hayward. Eventually gave in, getting a couple of later picks back as consolation.
If anything I get the feeling that Rowie was the other player we wanted to offload, not Will, but had no takers that we could convince him to go to. If so, good for him.

Probably also several players that were offered but publicly through their manager(Amartey) or podcast (Papley) ruled themselves out.

Who knows who else that we dont know about.

 

[GoTheSwannies]

Sounds like a bit of sour grapes from Ollie, which is fair enough given the circumstances. He really was pushed out, but its not as if his salary/performance played an insignificant part in the decision to move him on.

Hayward obviously would have wanted to stay but was a required part of the trade for Curnow so obviously didn't feel highly valued by the club.

I would have liked to have kept Hayward, and have always been a fan of his, but he's not irreplaceable, and when you force a club to pay a premium for your services, then the expectation lifts as well. If, for arguments sake, Hayward is on 800-850k, and you can bring Curnow in on $1mill, then it becomes a pretty easy decision when you look at the investment vs return, and considering team balance. Hayward was a good, consistent and durable player, hes a player you'd like to keep, but in the interests of team balance, you can't overpay for his role & output.

If Curnow gets injured, this all goes pear shaped. But on the balance of cost, output and Curnow being a KF rather than a medium forward, it makes sense that the club made the trade.

All the best for Hayward, I feel like his best footy is ahead of him, and sadly it won't be with the Swans. But you need to give quality to get quality in return.

 

[Highflying Swans]

Sounds like a bit of sour grapes from Ollie, which is fair enough given the circumstances. He really was pushed out, but its not as if his salary/performance played an insignificant part in the decision to move him on.

Hayward obviously would have wanted to stay but was a required part of the trade for Curnow so obviously didn't feel highly valued by the club.

I would have liked to have kept Hayward, and have always been a fan of his, but he's not irreplaceable, and when you force a club to pay a premium for your services, then the expectation lifts as well. If, for arguments sake, Hayward is on 800-850k, and you can bring Curnow in on $1mill, then it becomes a pretty easy decision when you look at the investment vs return, and considering team balance. Hayward was a good, consistent and durable player, hes a player you'd like to keep, but in the interests of team balance, you can't overpay for his role & output.

If Curnow gets injured, this all goes pear shaped. But on the balance of cost, output and Curnow being a KF rather than a medium forward, it makes sense that the club made the trade.

All the best for Hayward, I feel like his best footy is ahead of him, and sadly it won't be with the Swans. But you need to give quality to get quality in return.

Your last sentence summed it up well. In order to get Curnow a quality player needed to be part of the trade and it happened to be Hayward. I liked Will too but to be honest he was a bit hot and cold and whilst he was a mainstay in the side could have expected a lot more. Perhaps this was in Cox’s thinking also. So when the opportunity came to get a Key forward the club siezed the opportunity. If we had gone into next year with Amartey and the 2 Macs and Will slotting 30 -40 goals the status quo would have been maintained but would we have gone the next step? Then we we would be on here lambasting the club for not getting Charlie. Footy is a ruthless business and whilst the departure of Will may not seem ideal or could have been handled better we have to back the club in because they are at the forefront of decision making and only doing what they think is best in moving forward.

 

[bedford]

Sounds like a bit of sour grapes from Ollie, which is fair enough given the circumstances. He really was pushed out, but its not as if his salary/performance played an insignificant part in the decision to move him on.

Hayward obviously would have wanted to stay but was a required part of the trade for Curnow so obviously didn't feel highly valued by the club.

I would have liked to have kept Hayward, and have always been a fan of his, but he's not irreplaceable, and when you force a club to pay a premium for your services, then the expectation lifts as well. If, for arguments sake, Hayward is on 800-850k, and you can bring Curnow in on $1mill, then it becomes a pretty easy decision when you look at the investment vs return, and considering team balance. Hayward was a good, consistent and durable player, hes a player you'd like to keep, but in the interests of team balance, you can't overpay for his role & output.

If Curnow gets injured, this all goes pear shaped. But on the balance of cost, output and Curnow being a KF rather than a medium forward, it makes sense that the club made the trade.

All the best for Hayward, I feel like his best footy is ahead of him, and sadly it won't be with the Swans. But you need to give quality to get quality in return.

184 games to find his best

 

[Wolfgang West]

Don't disagree with this, just not convinced about Curnow. It's definitely not the same as when we got Buddy.

Let's just say that what is good enough for the players should apply to Cox Keane, Cameron et al. I think some very dubious calls were made last year but most were willing to give Cox the benefit of the doubt as it was his first year and we had plenty of injuries. He now has the team he wants and a full season under his belt so if the team doesn't perform, then he (and the rest) need to be held accountable.

Sorry but who can compare to him ? Some of the holding Curnow to Franklin standards in this thread is ridiculous. Curnow is already on a hiding to nothing with fanboys and the crying over the Hayward and Florent exits so hope he does not read BF because come halfway through the year and his expected output to be that of Lance Franklin he will be looking for a psychologist.

 

[Kiama Chris]

Sorry but who can compare to him ? Some of the holding Curnow to Franklin standards in this thread is ridiculous. Curnow is already on a hiding to nothing with fanboys and the crying over the Hayward and Florent exits so hope he does not read BF because come halfway through the year and his expected output to be that of Lance Franklin he will be looking for a psychologist.

I didn't want us to get Buddy and didn't want us to get Curnow but what's done is done and we need to wrap our arms around him, make him feel welcome and help him be his best.
As to Hayward and Florent the moaning and groaning is all a bit over the top. They have known for quite a while that this was on the cards. Hayward alluded to it early on in the trade season. Financially he has done well out of it and Florent has lost nothing.
The hit job in AFL.com is annoying.

 

[bedford]

I didn't want us to get Buddy and didn't want us to get Curnow but what's done is done and we need to wrap our arms around him, make him feel welcome and help him be his best.
As to Hayward and Florent the moaning and groaning is all a bit over the top. They have known for quite a while that this was on the cards. Hayward alluded to it early on in the trade season. Financially he has done well out of it and Florent has lost nothing.
The hit job in AFL.com is annoying.

AFL.com is just clickbait and content , so called journo's incapable of writing a proper story

 

[Wolfgang West]

I didn't want us to get Buddy and didn't want us to get Curnow but what's done is done and we need to wrap our arms around him, make him feel welcome and help him be his best.
As to Hayward and Florent the moaning and groaning is all a bit over the top. They have known for quite a while that this was on the cards. Hayward alluded to it early on in the trade season. Financially he has done well out of it and Florent has lost nothing.
The hit job in AFL.com is annoying.

Nobody knew we were getting him. It was never really discussed.

 

[GoTheSwannies]

184 games to find his best

In fairness to Will, he's been consistent for a long time now. He runs at a over a goal a game. And without looking at his stats, I think he'd score at least 1 goal in 90%+ of his games. So when I say the best is yet to come. He's about to hit his absolute peak. So I wouldn't be surprised if he's averaging 1.8-2.3 goals per game, instead of the 1.5 he was kicking the last couple of years. But if he stayed, we probably would have seen more of the same output.

But you're right, at 184 games, we SHOULD HAVE seen more of his best, and I would have liked for him to have starred in a final with something like a 4 goal game. But he was always just part of a unit, and never a star within it. And at 800k+, I would like to have seen a bit more than a goal a game, play your role type player. And thats the category he placed himself in when getting the club to pay more.

 

[Kiama Chris]

Nobody knew we were getting him. It was never really discussed.

Once it was announced I wished it hadn't happened. Turned out a lot better than I expected. Perhaps my phrasing could be improved.

 

[Wolfgang West]

Once it was announced I wished it hadn't happened. Turned out a lot better than I expected. Perhaps my phrasing could be improved.

Each to their own but apart from the length of the contract how could anyone not be pleased that we managed to secure a player who had the possibility of being one of the greatest players ever ? Anyway ancient history now as they say.

 

[bloodsbigot]

Geez louise. The 850k alone is worth getting rid of him for. I think getting back some cap is a huge win for us. For 850k you'd expect way, way more in return. Isn't 850k what we're paying Curnow now?

 

[dosser]

Sorry but who can compare to him ? Some of the holding Curnow to Franklin standards in this thread is ridiculous. Curnow is already on a hiding to nothing with fanboys and the crying over the Hayward and Florent exits so hope he does not read BF because come halfway through the year and his expected output to be that of Lance Franklin he will be looking for a psychologist.

All true, but it would pale beside the treatment he would have received from Carlton supporters over the years. Those people can be feral!

 

[Wheresbuddy]

Sorry but who can compare to him ? Some of the holding Curnow to Franklin standards in this thread is ridiculous. Curnow is already on a hiding to nothing with fanboys and the crying over the Hayward and Florent exits so hope he does not read BF because come halfway through the year and his expected output to be that of Lance Franklin he will be looking for a psychologist.

The context of my comment regarding the Buddy and Curnow trades is that I have concerns whether Curnow is the right player. He's coming off an average year and has had plenty of injuries. Compare that to Buddy, who came to us at the peak of his powers and fitness. So as a trade, Buddy was definitely more of a sure thing to lift our team compared to Curnow. I have zero expectation for Curnow to be as good as Buddy given Franklin's status. I just hope he can improve our team and have us challenging again.

 

[Kiama Chris]

The context of my comment regarding the Buddy and Curnow trades is that I have concerns whether Curnow is the right player. He's coming off an average year and has had plenty of injuries. Compare that to Buddy, who came to us at the peak of his powers and fitness. So as a trade, Buddy was definitely more of a sure thing to lift our team compared to Curnow. I have zero expectation for Curnow to be as good as Buddy given Franklin's status. I just hope he can improve our team and have us challenging again.

That's a reasonable expectation. Comparing to 2024 goals (2025 was such a bust):
Hayward 44
Amartey 43
McDonald 37
McLean 27
Total 151
2026?
Curnow 60
Amartey 45
McDonald 45
Total 150
Seems pretty achievable?
We got quite a lot from our mids so maybe it's not quite enough but if McLean is second ruck we might get another 15 or so. He was for most of 2024 IIRC.

 

[hashdag]

Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a gun son, because otherwise we are going to be talking about another slam dunkley that we missed in 20 years