Sydney captain Callum Mills believes Swans teammate Errol Gulden will go to even greater heights this season after his history-making deeds in 2023.
The 21-year-old was a dominant winner of the Bob Skilton Medal last October, a feat that saw him become the youngest Swan to win the best-and-fairest since the club moved north to Sydney in 1982.
A month earlier, the dynamic midfielder claimed his first All Australian guernsey and finished fourth in the Brownlow Medal after emerging as a true star of the competition.
Gulden, who also won the Paul Kelly Player’s Player Award in 2023, topped the AFL for inside 50m entries and was Sydney’s leading disposal winner in a superb season.
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Ahead of Thursday night’s season opening clash against Melbourne at the SCG, Mills said Gulden is poised to produce even better footy this year after a strong pre-season.
“He constantly improves. He constantly wants to get the best out of himself,” Mills said.
“And … he’s taken the next step with his leadership as well. We don’t need him to be the best player in the world. We just need him to do his job. And he does that over and over again, which is the best thing.”
The vote of confidence in Gulden’s growing leadership skills in important given the Swans, which fell in an elimination final last September, face a early-season void in the area.
Mills will be unavailable until mid-season after he injured a shoulder when an off-season wrestle with teammate Jacob Konstanty went wrong, resulting in a tear to his rotator cuff.
Former skipper Luke Parker broke an arm in a pre-season game, while experienced recruit Taylor Adams has been ruled out for up to four weeks after straining a medial ligament.
The timing of Mills’ injury is scarcely ideal, with the Swans opting for a sole skipper this year after using co-captains for the majority of Sydney coach John Longmire’s tenure.
But Longmire said in February the Swans had little hesitation in rewarding Mills given the growth they had witnessed from him in recent years.
“He’s just got a great ability to be able to think ‘team’ and do things on the ground, as far as setting the tone, and off the ground (he has) been superb for a long period of time,” Longmire told SEN.
“So from that regard, I think most people internally would have thought there was a natural progression for Callum.
“Obviously what happened at the end of the year, it certainly didn’t change our minds. Everyone makes mistakes, as Callum has put his hand up to, but in the end he was the man to lead us forward.”
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The 26-year-old said having to inform Longmire and the Swans of the mishap which occurred at a Surry Hills pub was “definitely” among the scariest moments of his career.
“As you can imagine, it was a pretty hard conversation,” he said.
“But … I think the relationship that we’ve got is strong enough to be able to handle that, obviously, (but) yeah, it wasn’t fun walking in there. But that’s behind us now, which is nice.”
It is not uncommon for captains sidelined with long-term injuries to join the coaching staff in the box during matches to add to their leadership repertoire and knowledge of what the hierarchy wants from the team.
But Mills is instead planning to sit on the interchange bench alongside Longmire during games to soak in the wisdom of the veteran coach while also being on hand to offer support to his teammates.
“I think I might sit on the bench actually, and sit shotgun with ‘Horse’ (Longmire) and see how that goes,” he said.
“(I want to) be able to help out as much as possible on the ground, just being that extra hand for players on the field.”
The 2016 AFL Rising Star Award winner described holding the captaincy on his own as exciting but also said there are no shortage of senior personnel to seek advice from.
“It gives me great confidence that they have backed me in to be the person to do the job and I am really excited by it, to be honest,” he said.
“We’ve got a great group, a really exciting group and we just want to harness that as much as possible.
“I think (I’ll lean) a bit on everyone. Having Dane (Rampe) and Luke (Parker) there, who have done the job, and we’ve done it together over a long period of time (helps).
“It’s also really nice to be able to bounce ideas off Jarrad McVeigh and Dean Cox who have been leaders through their own journey and are now coaches at the club as well. I’ll be myself. I’ll be who I am … but I plan to lean on the people who are around me.”
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