Dane Rampe is leading on and off the field during a difficult period. Picture @sydneyswans.com.au
How is Dane Rampe providing support while enduring another extended stint on the road? The Sydney Swans co-captain spoke about how the strong relationship the team shares are especially important during another challenging football season.
Rampe, like almost every member of the Swans, is away from their home base in New South Wales, and he spoke about the latest stint on the road and his role as captain during difficult times.
“The strength of our group is that we’ve got a great coaching staff and a big diverse leadership group as well. It’s all about everyone rowing the boat, and, probably the same as the Giants boys, there’s no one correct way to go about it, it’s all kind of new to us,” he said.
“So, we’re kind of acting and leading as we see fit, and hopefully we’re doing an okay job.”
Rampe says players who may be injured or perhaps down on form who may need a boost are especially important to deal with on a personal level.
“Absolutely, I think that’s a big part of it. Not just injuries, it might be a drop in form or struggles at home, a lot of them [the team] have interstate girlfriends that have moved up, only for the boys to just move back down to Victoria. That presents challenges in itself,” he said.
“So, we’ve just gotta be aware of it, and try and be as open and honest with them, and I guess hearing them out is the main thing and doing what we can.”
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With all the challenges Sydney is facing, few would be expecting them to triumph over adversity.
But after a lackluster few games leading into the bye, fresh legs have seen it defeated narrowly by Port Adelaide in Adelaide, followed by impressive back-to-back wins, accounting for West Coast and the Western Bulldogs.
Rampe agreed that the bye came at the perfect time for the Swans, with them recapturing the form of early in the season.
“I think so. What the bye did was give us a really good chance to reassess, and probably make some changes to our game plan, that we wouldn’t be able to train, and talk about if we were still on the week-to-week schedule,” he said.
“So, while we were still really confident- you know we had that bad loss to Hawthorn, you know where they smashed us around the ball, really strong in the contested possession, we made some changes, and we were really clear about what we needed to do.
“While we didn’t get the chocolates against Port Adelaide, what we’ve done since- like I said, we’re really confident in the changes we’ve made, and we seem to have implemented them pretty well.”
As has been the case for most of the year, Sydney’s revival has been off the back of some youngsters taking the next step with Jordan Dawson, Nick Blakey, and Tom McCartin all having had extremely strong fortnights.
Rampe spoke about how good it is to get a front-row seat to some new faces stamping their name on the competition.
“The performances of the weekend, particularly of Jordan Dawson and Tom McCartin, they’re not just performances out of the box, they come off the back of a lot of hard work, a lot of time spent away from the club working on their craft. And to see the benefits of that is really rewarding for all of us to see, as well as our supporters.”
The youngsters will get their chance to shine once again this coming Sunday in Sydney Derby XXI.
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