‘Last year was a shambles’: Inside Curnow’s leap of faith to Sydney

Sydney Swans star recruit Charlie Curnow is imagining the most unusual of work reunions. On March 5, he will run out for the Swans at a sold-out SCG against his former club for the AFL’s opening weekend.

Curnow spent nine years at Carlton, developing lifelong friendships and inspiring a legion of children to wear his number 30 jersey. The full-forward rarely has problems grappling with opponents, but he knows it will be different when he lines up against Carlton’s star defender Jacob Weitering.

“It’s going to be wild. I was talking to a few of the boys a bit more about it just recently, but I honestly reckon it’s going to feel like a match simulation.

“It’s just going to feel like a fiery backyard school match because you all know each other so well, there’s going to be a bit of heated hits and stuff, but I’m sure after the game I’ll catch up with the boys and have a beer with them.

“I don’t know what ‘Weiters’ [Weitering] is going to be like. He doesn’t say much, and we always have so much respect for each other on the training track ... we’d rarely talk shit.

“I’m going to be like, ‘Hey, mate, what are we doing here? Like, what do you want to do here? Are we going to have a laugh?’ I’ll try and make him laugh at the start, probably, and just try and get one smile out of him, and then he can go all serious, and then he can be serious for the rest of the game.”

Curnow can finally smile and relax in Sydney after a tumultuous trade period, when his trade to the Harbour City came within minutes of not happening at all. After Curnow made it clear he wanted to leave Carlton, the Swans had to bring some valuable assets to the negotiating table in order to secure the full-forward.

The Swans gave the Blues pick 11, first-round draft picks in 2026 and 2027, and experienced forward Will Hayward. Ollie Florent was also separately traded. Ultimately, Curnow’s decision to join Sydney came down to doing what was best for him, both as a footballer but as a person.

“To leave a club [Carlton] is a hard decision to make, but to actually kind of go, ‘This isn’t right for me right now, where I’m at in life, and I don’t think I’m as good a person as I can be here at this football club … ’ And then to put your balls on the line and actually move, it was a fair bit of emotion,” Curnow said.

“I’m looking forward to just dissecting it with my partner [Tiana Simic] and having a red wine on the beach.”

Curnow credits Simic’s stellar support throughout the trade period, but also spoke extensively about his brother Ed, a former Carlton player who racked up 221 games over 12 years at the club. Although still loyal to Carlton, Ed’s priority was to ensure his younger brother did what was best for him.

“[Ed] guided me through, to help me understand my situation a bit more, but he always made it so you could kind of make your own decision and find your own way, make your own mistakes ...

“He was great through the trade period, but he would have been torn a little bit inside because he does love the Blues, and I do, too.

“But he’s loving it [the move to Sydney]. He’s got four kids, and they all got Sydney Swans blankets and they’re listening to the Swans theme song flat-out …

“He directed me through the situation I was in and probably made me realise that it was warranted how I was feeling at the time.”

Curnow is settled at his new home near Tamarama Beach. He said this is the best he had felt in two years. That’s largely down to completing a full pre-season, one in which he has relished tangling with the Swans defenders. Last year Curnow managed 18 games.

“I’m feeling good and strong. And it was unfortunate, but I was able to finish the season a bit earlier last year, and I put my body first, which is probably what I hadn’t done for a long time – because you just think about toughing it out and playing game after game. In hindsight, there’s probably games I just shouldn’t have played, I reckon, last year,” he said.

“Last year was like a shambles … I had to get ankle surgery because I played through an ankle injury the year before … and then I had to get two knee surgeries after that ’cause for whatever reason a few things just didn’t get picked up, which were just maintenance stuff, but it means I just couldn’t do pre-season [last year]. And then I ended up playing round two, which, when you start behind like that, you need to not play for a while and try and work your way back into the season, which I didn’t really do.”

After his season ended in July due to injury, Curnow had plenty of time to look at other AFL clubs. Although the Swans were disappointing last season, finishing 10th, Curnow said he believed the club’s culture and history still presented a huge upside.

“Ed and me, we spoke about this. If you look at the last 20 years across the competition, there’s probably like three clubs, I’d say, that stand out to you as a footballer inside the football system ... Hawthorn, Geelong, Sydney,” he said.

“That’s three clubs you’re like, their culture’s been pretty strong and they look like they train hard and they look like they have a lot of fun along the way and they’ve generally had a lot of this success, which is right.

“They’ve played a lot of finals campaigns, made it to the last day and won a couple along the way recently, too – like 2012, I mean, you’d still say recent success.

“Even with the [lost] grand finals – making the grand finals is seriously hard, it was pretty obvious to me that there’s obviously something going on that’s good here, and I was just excited.”

During the interview, Curnow is regularly greeted by his new teammates, with whom he has built friendships. The full-forward is conscious that two popular former players, Will Hayward and Ollie Florent, have departed to help facilitate his trade, and is motivated to repay the faith shown in him.

“They’ve got guys that have played a lot of footy and they’re still quite young, so I’m looking at that, and obviously they’ve got some absolute stars that dominate, too.

“I’m really thankful for the club because, to make something happen … they got me out of some deep water there, too.

“I mean, the effort was shown from their end, and everything they said, they did. It’s awesome. Unfortunately, they had to lose a few boys, but hopefully, it works out.”

There is a scar on Curnow’s right knee from previous surgeries, which almost jeopardised his career in 2020. The full-forward is pleased with his pre-season work and said the scope he had done on his knee in recent months was just part of the routine for many footballers.

“You feel more pressure when you know you’re underdone – that’s when it’s hard,” Curnow said.

“I’ve come back from a huge knee injury [before]. It’s been talked up heaps because it was part of the trade, but this is nothing like to what I’ve come back from. This is just a knee-scope, everyone has one of them every year, pretty much, I just need to get back to where I was.”

Like many new arrivals to Sydney, Curnow has focused on working hard in his new job and rarely leaving the beaches of the eastern suburbs. He is keen to explore the whole city, including the western suburbs, the inner city and the northern beaches. Ultimately, he has come to Sydney to help win the club’s first premiership since 2012.

Curnow is enjoying the perfect service from Errol Gulden’s left boot and building a strong partnership with the club’s other midfield stars, Isaac Heeney and Chad Warner.

Curnow has been described as the missing piece in the Swans’ puzzle, a physical goalkicking threat that can finally provide a ruthless target for the dynamic midfield. He has received a supportive message from former star Swans full-forward Lance Franklin, but sees himself in a completely different mould.

“I just want to come here and generally play some really exciting footy,” Curnow said.

“But I feel like we’ve got something awesome here. I don’t know what it is, there’s a good vibe at the moment, and it’d be unreal to take home the big one.

“I feel like they’ve had a fair bit of amazing football over the last four years, so to top it off and be able to come here and join them is unbelievable.”