Player Watch #11 Tom Papley

[Kennedy Parker]

Tom Papley

Player Profile
Tom Papley

11

Tom Papley

Age

28

Ht

177cm

Wt

77kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

9.1

4star

HB

5.0

4star

M

3.7

4star

T

3.2

5star

G

1.5

5star

D

12.3

3star

K

8.9

4star

HB

3.4

2star

M

4.5

4star

T

1.5

2star

G

2.4

5star

D

13.4

4star

K

8.0

3star

HB

5.4

4star

M

3.4

4star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.6

5star

swapped his plumbing tools for a Sherrin when the Sydney Swans sprung a draft surprise in 2015 – and the pocket-rocket forward has since become a crucial member of coach John Longmire’s side. Papley has played 20 or more senior games in every one of his four full seasons in the AFL and was at his best in 2019, topping Sydney’s goal-kicking leaderboard and finishing fourth in the Bob Skilton Medal voting. The Gippsland Power product took on more time in the midfield in 2019 and is likely to again split his time between the forward line and centre bounce this year. Papley was selected in the AFL Players’ Association’s 22Under22 team in 2017. Draft history: 2016 Rookie Draft selection (Sydney) No. 12; 2016 AFL Draft rookie elevation (Sydney).

Tom Papley

11

Tom Papley

Age

28

Ht

177cm

Wt

77kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

14.1

4star

K

9.1

4star

HB

5.0

4star

M

3.7

4star

T

3.2

5star

G

1.5

5star

D

12.3

3star

K

8.9

4star

HB

3.4

2star

M

4.5

4star

T

1.5

2star

G

2.4

5star

D

13.4

4star

K

8.0

3star

HB

5.4

4star

M

3.4

4star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.6

5star

DOB: 13 July 1996
DEBUT:2016
DRAFT: 2016
RECRUITED FROM: Bunyip (Vic)/Gippsland U18

Tom Papley | AFL

Follow Tom Papley's progress through AFL

www.sydneyswans.com.au

 

[Callipygian]

The first part of today's episode of Paps' The Early Crow podcast is so insightful about his preparation and Saturday's final....

eg. there's mention of a car accident before the game

That was great. It helps a LOT that Papley is apparently great mates with the interviewer on our left. That familiarity probably meant he could ask more probing questions and that Papley was more relaxed and candid. There were a couple of moments where I felt like they could have done a bit less talking and let Papley do a bit more (but I often have that thought watching podcasts and the like, it's the same with Dyl & Friends - usually I want to hear more from the person being interviewed than from the interviewer).

 

[JackHiscoxWasFast]

Our, Thomas Papley.

And I ask you is he any good ?

 

[JackHiscoxWasFast]

Song for the prelim.

Tubthumping

 

[Adnico26Parker]

 

[tombomb]

I am glad it all worked out, but I am still curious to hear the club's side of what happened during that trade request.

It doesn't make much sense to me that we would have held Papley against his will.

 

[MR0808]

I am glad it all worked out, but I am still curious to hear the club's side of what happened during that trade request.

It doesn't make much sense to me that we would have held Papley against his will.

Wasn't it all based around the Daniher trade?

 

[monopoly19]

Can anyone summarise? I can’t access it.

 

[tombomb]

Wasn't it all based around the Daniher trade?

Well the media story was we were willing to accept pick 9 from Carlton on the condition that we could use that selection as part of the deal for Daniher.

Dodoro being Dodoro made the Daniher deal impossible because he wasn't willing to do any realistic deal.

But I still think there are gaps in the story.

 

[tombomb]

Can anyone summarise? I can’t access it.

Tom Papley was prepared to give it all away. As his family endured a personal crisis across 2019 in the Gippsland town of Bunyip, Papley chose the people close to him over the football club he loved.

His father David chokes up with emotion as he recalls those dramatic months where Papley wanted out of Sydney and the Swans instead told him he was going nowhere.

It was a period that broke — then restored — a father-son friendship that now includes twice-weekly phone calls to discuss life as well as their underperforming racehorses.

THE FAILED PAPLEY TRADE: WHERE WOULD SWANS BE NOW?

“We have three horses together, but I have told (wife) Susie we only have two … one should be dog food and one is still going around,” David Papley says with a chuckle down the phone line from Bunyip.

And yet ask him about those turbulent months and he pauses to compose himself, talking about his son’s potential sacrifice. In the most difficult period of Tom Papley’s career, father David’s battles with bipolar disorder meant the family was going through personal challenges and Tom felt helpless and guilty 900km away in Sydney.

It came to a head with a confrontation in Bunyip between Tom and David that saw son realise dad wasn’t well.

He requested a trade to Carlton to be closer to his wider family, even if he didn’t exactly tell the family why he wanted to come home.

“I was not really home; I was a bit crook and Susie was on her own with the kids,” David Papley told the Herald Sun this week.

“He (Tom) just felt useless. And he wanted to be there for his mum. He said he was going to give it away. He said, ‘If they don’t clear me I will come and play twos (reserves) at Bunyip’. He was adamant. He got it into his head that he wanted to come home, and that was it. It was going to happen.

“In the end he stayed and it was obviously the best thing he did. He went through a patch and we were proud of the reason why (he wanted to come home). As a parent you are pretty chuffed.”


It took until the following September for Papley to decide he would remain at Sydney and commit for the long haul after his 2019 trade failed to go through because the Swans could not replace him with Joe Daniher as Essendon held firm.

Father and son are tighter than ever, even if it took those fraught moments in mid-2019 for the pair to better understand David’s journey through bipolar as their friendship grew closer.

“Yeah, we had a bit of an argument one night and it did strengthen ties,” David says.

“We moved on and he rings me twice a week. It’s good. We are good mates with his fiance Annie’s parents, so we go to games together. It was a great feeling in the rooms after the finals win.”

As Tom says, his dad David is now “flying”, in a good space with his mental health as the town of Bunyip gets behind their boy.

Tom explained that chapter a year later as he said of the confrontation: “During the year I had a few beers with the old man and had a bit of an argument. He’s actually got bipolar so that turned into a little bit of an episode”.

“I’ve never really spoken about it, not many people actually know.

“Then he had a bit of an episode, I sort of felt that guilt, that it was my fault.

“I’ve been able to speak about it with my old man – this is probably the first time I’ve told my mates. My old man’s flying, now he’s happy to talk about it.”

Papley was famously overlooked across a number of drafts until he kicked three goals for Casey in the VFL on Jimmy Bartel (returning from injury) to spark the interest of Sydney.

Now he wears the No. 11 jumper of grandfather Max, who won South Melbourne’s 1966 best-and-fairest, with his other grandfather Jeff Bray also a Swans player who played alongside Max.

“It’s such a great ride,” says David Papley. “Coming from a little community, everyone is on board. People might not barrack for the Swans, but the amount of messages I have had since Sunday is amazing. It’s been a great journey so far. It was pretty hard when he moved to Sydney from Bunyip. His mum took it pretty hard. She wasn’t that keen on her little boy going interstate. He missed out on some drafts and we were going out to buy in a van for plumbing and then (Sydney recruiter) Kinnear (Beatson) rang.”

Max Papley doesn’t go to the football much any more, but speaks to Tom on game day every week. As David says, he would have watched the preliminary final five times by now.

Both of them shake their heads at the crazy and provocative antics of football’s agent provocateur.

“There are times I would like to grab him by the scruff of the neck when he is putting on his performance,” Max said this week.

“But anyway, it seems to work. It seems to put his opponents off their game.

“It amuses me that people you see in the street want to talk about the way he carries on rather than the goals he kicked or the goals he gave away. I said you never used to be like that in the TAC Cup, how come now? And he said they told me to be more expressive.

“So they might have got more than they bargained for. People love him or absolutely hate him, but that’s the way he goes about it.”


“The way he carries on, sometimes it just f---ing cringe-worthy. He is a bloody idiot,” he says with a laugh.

“But it gets under their skin. It stirs them up and gets them off their game. I used to call him Ballantyne. After that annoying little shit (Hayden Ballantyne). But as Horse (John Longmire) said to him, it gets under their skin. He’s had a few fines for being a dickhead, so he won’t learn.”

The Papleys will support their son on Saturday, aware of what a premiership would mean after he won 20 possessions and kicked a goal in the 2022 Grand Final but his side was trounced.

“I played in five losing ones before I won one, so there is nothing worse. This is his third Grand Final so it would be enormous. That Geelong one was so hard to watch. It was devastating. It was like a morgue in the rooms. You don’t say anything … He was pretty upset, but it makes them stronger.”


The Bunyip football club also produced AFL players in Shane Mumford and Max’s grandsons Michael Ross and Ben Ross, with Shane’s 2012 premiership celebrations still living long in the memory.

Papley might eclipse them if his side can conquer Brisbane on Saturday but it will also be a victory for the town.

Are the Papleys or Mumford more famous in Bunyip?

“Nah, it’s about the same,” says David.

“Hopefully we have put it on the map. It’s great for our little footy club to get four kids drafted out of that club. We are pretty proud down here about that.”

 

[RedBloodBlackSwan]

Tom Papley was prepared to give it all away. As his family endured a personal crisis across 2019 in the Gippsland town of Bunyip, Papley chose the people close to him over the football club he loved.

His father David chokes up with emotion as he recalls those dramatic months where Papley wanted out of Sydney and the Swans instead told him he was going nowhere.

It was a period that broke — then restored — a father-son friendship that now includes twice-weekly phone calls to discuss life as well as their underperforming racehorses.

THE FAILED PAPLEY TRADE: WHERE WOULD SWANS BE NOW?

“We have three horses together, but I have told (wife) Susie we only have two … one should be dog food and one is still going around,” David Papley says with a chuckle down the phone line from Bunyip.

And yet ask him about those turbulent months and he pauses to compose himself, talking about his son’s potential sacrifice. In the most difficult period of Tom Papley’s career, father David’s battles with bipolar disorder meant the family was going through personal challenges and Tom felt helpless and guilty 900km away in Sydney.

It came to a head with a confrontation in Bunyip between Tom and David that saw son realise dad wasn’t well.

He requested a trade to Carlton to be closer to his wider family, even if he didn’t exactly tell the family why he wanted to come home.

“I was not really home; I was a bit crook and Susie was on her own with the kids,” David Papley told the Herald Sun this week.

“He (Tom) just felt useless. And he wanted to be there for his mum. He said he was going to give it away. He said, ‘If they don’t clear me I will come and play twos (reserves) at Bunyip’. He was adamant. He got it into his head that he wanted to come home, and that was it. It was going to happen.

“In the end he stayed and it was obviously the best thing he did. He went through a patch and we were proud of the reason why (he wanted to come home). As a parent you are pretty chuffed.”


It took until the following September for Papley to decide he would remain at Sydney and commit for the long haul after his 2019 trade failed to go through because the Swans could not replace him with Joe Daniher as Essendon held firm.

Father and son are tighter than ever, even if it took those fraught moments in mid-2019 for the pair to better understand David’s journey through bipolar as their friendship grew closer.

“Yeah, we had a bit of an argument one night and it did strengthen ties,” David says.

“We moved on and he rings me twice a week. It’s good. We are good mates with his fiance Annie’s parents, so we go to games together. It was a great feeling in the rooms after the finals win.”

As Tom says, his dad David is now “flying”, in a good space with his mental health as the town of Bunyip gets behind their boy.

Tom explained that chapter a year later as he said of the confrontation: “During the year I had a few beers with the old man and had a bit of an argument. He’s actually got bipolar so that turned into a little bit of an episode”.

“I’ve never really spoken about it, not many people actually know.

“Then he had a bit of an episode, I sort of felt that guilt, that it was my fault.

“I’ve been able to speak about it with my old man – this is probably the first time I’ve told my mates. My old man’s flying, now he’s happy to talk about it.”

Papley was famously overlooked across a number of drafts until he kicked three goals for Casey in the VFL on Jimmy Bartel (returning from injury) to spark the interest of Sydney.

Now he wears the No. 11 jumper of grandfather Max, who won South Melbourne’s 1966 best-and-fairest, with his other grandfather Jeff Bray also a Swans player who played alongside Max.

“It’s such a great ride,” says David Papley. “Coming from a little community, everyone is on board. People might not barrack for the Swans, but the amount of messages I have had since Sunday is amazing. It’s been a great journey so far. It was pretty hard when he moved to Sydney from Bunyip. His mum took it pretty hard. She wasn’t that keen on her little boy going interstate. He missed out on some drafts and we were going out to buy in a van for plumbing and then (Sydney recruiter) Kinnear (Beatson) rang.”

Max Papley doesn’t go to the football much any more, but speaks to Tom on game day every week. As David says, he would have watched the preliminary final five times by now.

Both of them shake their heads at the crazy and provocative antics of football’s agent provocateur.

“There are times I would like to grab him by the scruff of the neck when he is putting on his performance,” Max said this week.

“But anyway, it seems to work. It seems to put his opponents off their game.

“It amuses me that people you see in the street want to talk about the way he carries on rather than the goals he kicked or the goals he gave away. I said you never used to be like that in the TAC Cup, how come now? And he said they told me to be more expressive.

“So they might have got more than they bargained for. People love him or absolutely hate him, but that’s the way he goes about it.”


“The way he carries on, sometimes it just f---ing cringe-worthy. He is a bloody idiot,” he says with a laugh.

“But it gets under their skin. It stirs them up and gets them off their game. I used to call him Ballantyne. After that annoying little shit (Hayden Ballantyne). But as Horse (John Longmire) said to him, it gets under their skin. He’s had a few fines for being a dickhead, so he won’t learn.”

The Papleys will support their son on Saturday, aware of what a premiership would mean after he won 20 possessions and kicked a goal in the 2022 Grand Final but his side was trounced.

“I played in five losing ones before I won one, so there is nothing worse. This is his third Grand Final so it would be enormous. That Geelong one was so hard to watch. It was devastating. It was like a morgue in the rooms. You don’t say anything … He was pretty upset, but it makes them stronger.”


The Bunyip football club also produced AFL players in Shane Mumford and Max’s grandsons Michael Ross and Ben Ross, with Shane’s 2012 premiership celebrations still living long in the memory.

Papley might eclipse them if his side can conquer Brisbane on Saturday but it will also be a victory for the town.

Are the Papleys or Mumford more famous in Bunyip?

“Nah, it’s about the same,” says David.

“Hopefully we have put it on the map. It’s great for our little footy club to get four kids drafted out of that club. We are pretty proud down here about that.”

I love the honesty

“The way he carries on, sometimes it just f---ing cringe-worthy. He is a bloody idiot,” he says with a laugh.

“But it gets under their skin. It stirs them up and gets them off their game. I used to call him Ballantyne. After that annoying little shit (Hayden Ballantyne). But as Horse (John Longmire) said to him, it gets under their skin. He’s had a few fines for being a dickhead, so he won’t learn.”

I respect that people can hate Papley as a footballer (I probably would if he played for another team!) but I don’t think anyone can question that he has a huge heart. I’m glad he and his family have been able to find a place of peace while Papley can still be a Blood.

 

[bedford]

I love the honesty

“The way he carries on, sometimes it just f---ing cringe-worthy. He is a bloody idiot,” he says with a laugh.

“But it gets under their skin. It stirs them up and gets them off their game. I used to call him Ballantyne. After that annoying little shit (Hayden Ballantyne). But as Horse (John Longmire) said to him, it gets under their skin. He’s had a few fines for being a dickhead, so he won’t learn.”

I respect that people can hate Papley as a footballer (I probably would if he played for another team!) but I don’t think anyone can question that he has a huge heart. I’m glad he and his family have been able to find a place of peace while Papley can still be a Blood.

They are a good and close nit family these days and Max is one of the best

 

[sthmelb_dimmies]

“We have three horses together, but I have told (wife) Susie we only have two … one should be dog food and one is still going around,” David Papley says with a chuckle down the phone line from Bunyip.

Horse racing is disgusting. I’ll never understand this

 

[bedford]

Horse racing is disgusting. I’ll never understand this

It's not , but not the tread for that discussion !

 

[bedford]

Tom Papley was prepared to give it all away. As his family endured a personal crisis across 2019 in the Gippsland town of Bunyip, Papley chose the people close to him over the football club he loved.

His father David chokes up with emotion as he recalls those dramatic months where Papley wanted out of Sydney and the Swans instead told him he was going nowhere.

It was a period that broke — then restored — a father-son friendship that now includes twice-weekly phone calls to discuss life as well as their underperforming racehorses.

THE FAILED PAPLEY TRADE: WHERE WOULD SWANS BE NOW?

“We have three horses together, but I have told (wife) Susie we only have two … one should be dog food and one is still going around,” David Papley says with a chuckle down the phone line from Bunyip.

And yet ask him about those turbulent months and he pauses to compose himself, talking about his son’s potential sacrifice. In the most difficult period of Tom Papley’s career, father David’s battles with bipolar disorder meant the family was going through personal challenges and Tom felt helpless and guilty 900km away in Sydney.

It came to a head with a confrontation in Bunyip between Tom and David that saw son realise dad wasn’t well.

He requested a trade to Carlton to be closer to his wider family, even if he didn’t exactly tell the family why he wanted to come home.

“I was not really home; I was a bit crook and Susie was on her own with the kids,” David Papley told the Herald Sun this week.

“He (Tom) just felt useless. And he wanted to be there for his mum. He said he was going to give it away. He said, ‘If they don’t clear me I will come and play twos (reserves) at Bunyip’. He was adamant. He got it into his head that he wanted to come home, and that was it. It was going to happen.

“In the end he stayed and it was obviously the best thing he did. He went through a patch and we were proud of the reason why (he wanted to come home). As a parent you are pretty chuffed.”


It took until the following September for Papley to decide he would remain at Sydney and commit for the long haul after his 2019 trade failed to go through because the Swans could not replace him with Joe Daniher as Essendon held firm.

Father and son are tighter than ever, even if it took those fraught moments in mid-2019 for the pair to better understand David’s journey through bipolar as their friendship grew closer.

“Yeah, we had a bit of an argument one night and it did strengthen ties,” David says.

“We moved on and he rings me twice a week. It’s good. We are good mates with his fiance Annie’s parents, so we go to games together. It was a great feeling in the rooms after the finals win.”

As Tom says, his dad David is now “flying”, in a good space with his mental health as the town of Bunyip gets behind their boy.

Tom explained that chapter a year later as he said of the confrontation: “During the year I had a few beers with the old man and had a bit of an argument. He’s actually got bipolar so that turned into a little bit of an episode”.

“I’ve never really spoken about it, not many people actually know.

“Then he had a bit of an episode, I sort of felt that guilt, that it was my fault.

“I’ve been able to speak about it with my old man – this is probably the first time I’ve told my mates. My old man’s flying, now he’s happy to talk about it.”

Papley was famously overlooked across a number of drafts until he kicked three goals for Casey in the VFL on Jimmy Bartel (returning from injury) to spark the interest of Sydney.

Now he wears the No. 11 jumper of grandfather Max, who won South Melbourne’s 1966 best-and-fairest, with his other grandfather Jeff Bray also a Swans player who played alongside Max.

“It’s such a great ride,” says David Papley. “Coming from a little community, everyone is on board. People might not barrack for the Swans, but the amount of messages I have had since Sunday is amazing. It’s been a great journey so far. It was pretty hard when he moved to Sydney from Bunyip. His mum took it pretty hard. She wasn’t that keen on her little boy going interstate. He missed out on some drafts and we were going out to buy in a van for plumbing and then (Sydney recruiter) Kinnear (Beatson) rang.”

Max Papley doesn’t go to the football much any more, but speaks to Tom on game day every week. As David says, he would have watched the preliminary final five times by now.

Both of them shake their heads at the crazy and provocative antics of football’s agent provocateur.

“There are times I would like to grab him by the scruff of the neck when he is putting on his performance,” Max said this week.

“But anyway, it seems to work. It seems to put his opponents off their game.

“It amuses me that people you see in the street want to talk about the way he carries on rather than the goals he kicked or the goals he gave away. I said you never used to be like that in the TAC Cup, how come now? And he said they told me to be more expressive.

“So they might have got more than they bargained for. People love him or absolutely hate him, but that’s the way he goes about it.”


“The way he carries on, sometimes it just f---ing cringe-worthy. He is a bloody idiot,” he says with a laugh.

“But it gets under their skin. It stirs them up and gets them off their game. I used to call him Ballantyne. After that annoying little shit (Hayden Ballantyne). But as Horse (John Longmire) said to him, it gets under their skin. He’s had a few fines for being a dickhead, so he won’t learn.”

The Papleys will support their son on Saturday, aware of what a premiership would mean after he won 20 possessions and kicked a goal in the 2022 Grand Final but his side was trounced.

“I played in five losing ones before I won one, so there is nothing worse. This is his third Grand Final so it would be enormous. That Geelong one was so hard to watch. It was devastating. It was like a morgue in the rooms. You don’t say anything … He was pretty upset, but it makes them stronger.”


The Bunyip football club also produced AFL players in Shane Mumford and Max’s grandsons Michael Ross and Ben Ross, with Shane’s 2012 premiership celebrations still living long in the memory.

Papley might eclipse them if his side can conquer Brisbane on Saturday but it will also be a victory for the town.

Are the Papleys or Mumford more famous in Bunyip?

“Nah, it’s about the same,” says David.

“Hopefully we have put it on the map. It’s great for our little footy club to get four kids drafted out of that club. We are pretty proud down here about that.”

It says in the pics that David is second from the left , well that's not him , he's in the middle

 

[Kiama Chris]

I am glad it all worked out, but I am still curious to hear the club's side of what happened during that trade request.

It doesn't make much sense to me that we would have held Papley against his will.

We talked with him and helped him address the issues that were driving this. Yellow journalism dragging it up now.
Edit: After reading it all not so. Interest piece done OK.

 

[tombomb]

We talked with him and helped him address the issues that were driving this. Yellow journalism dragging it up now.
Edit: After reading it all not so. Interest piece done OK.

That still doesn't explain why we held him in the first place when he was so desperate to leave.

Especially when we were going to accept the Carlton offer if Essendon traded us Daniher.

 

[liz]

That still doesn't explain why we held him in the first place when he was so desperate to leave.

Especially when we were going to accept the Carlton offer if Essendon traded us Daniher.

I don't think Essendon were ever going to trade us Daniher. Am I'm not convinced Carlton were ever going to give us that top 10 pick for Papley without something major going back the other way (like a second rounder), which would have been poor value for Papley (evident then and even more with hindsight).

I don't think we ever really wanted Daniher anyway. At least not then. I reckon Harley was chewing the fat with him, with a view to maybe making a play at the end of the following season when he was out of contract (and Buddy was one year closer to the end of his contract), but then was surprised when Daniher came out and requested a trade. I think all the hypotheticals about maybe trading Papley and maybe trading for Daniher was just smoke to stop anyone looking silly.

 

[bedford]

Who cares now , he's a Blood and busts his guts for us . Old news , personal story

 

[ashep]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that the best sledge a sniper like Greene could come up with in a qualifying final was "You're puffed Paps!"

 

[bedford]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that the best sledge a sniper like Greene could come up with in a qualifying final was "You're puffed Paps!"

Sniper !

 

[ashep]

Sniper !

You disagree? I'm all for playing on the edge but I think he clearly crosses the line.

 

[KingV23]

Does anyone else find it hilarious that the best sledge a sniper like Greene could come up with in a qualifying final was "You're puffed Paps!"

Hahah I guess he can't say too much when he was doing sweet F all during the match.