Sydney coach John Longmire has addressed Sam Wicks’ situation following the emergence of a report at the weekend.
SEN reporter Sam Edmund revealed that an alleged dispute occurred between Wicks and a teammate in recent days.
The 24-year-old was omitted ahead of Sunday’s clash with Richmond and didn’t play for the reserves side either, instead remaining in Sydney.
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Edmund’s report outlined a situation involving multiple Swans players, with Wicks ultimately found “innocent”.
“Wicks had been accused of acting inappropriately with the former girlfriend of another Swans player,” Edmund said on SEN’s Crunch Time on Saturday morning.
“A thorough club investigation found that those allegations were categorically false, and that Wicks nor his teammate had done anything wrong.
“While all parties were ultimately innocent, the bad blood, which was brought into the open on a night out involving a group of Sydney players, had threatened to fester in the changerooms.”
Veteran reporter Caroline Wilson said on Monday night of the incident with a “senior teammate”: “The allegation became so heated and so potentially divisive during the week that by the time club bosses thought they’d got to the bottom of it, too much damage had been done.”
She suggested it was “a situation he (Wicks) could have contained a bit earlier”.
Longmire offered a coy response to a question about the incident post-game on Sunday.
“We made a decision this week to pick our best team that we thought could give us a chance to win,” Longmire told reporters.
Asked to clarify if Wicks’ exclusion had to do with the events of the previous days, he bluntly replied: “I’m not going into that.”
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However, speaking on Fox Footy’s AFL 360, Longmire provided a more detailed answer.
“I’ve been involved in footy for over 20 years and most of the things you deal with in football over my time — a lot of it’s been non-football,” Longmire began on Monday evening.
“So, it’s just one of those things that you need to make sure that you work through.
“We believe we’re working through that well. We certainly think we gave ourselves the best possible chance to win the game on the weekend.
“We didn’t do that, and unfortunately, that was the end result of what happened on Sunday. But we’re mature enough to be able to work through that and get our focus on the footy.”
Asked if Wicks would be an inclusion for Sydney’s Gather Round bout with West Coast next Saturday, Longmire said: “Not sure yet, we’ll see how the week progresses.”
Wicks has played 53 AFL games since being drafted to the Bloods as a Category B rookie in 2019, playing a small forward for Longmire when he’s been a part of the senior side.
Taylor Adams played substantial game time for Sydney’s reserves on Sunday afternoon, promoting the possibility he could return for the club’s South Australia trip.
The Swans play the Eagles at Adelaide Hills in Mt Barker.
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