Heeney interview axed, club responds over banned Swan link as ‘up to eight’ rivals circle

An Isaac Heeney tell-all interview recorded prior to the events of Monday morning has reportedly been pulled from production.

Meanwhile, one of the Swans Five is already being linked with a move away from Sydney at season’s end, with a Carlton boss responding over his club’s potential interest.

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It comes as the Swans, led by chairman Andrew Pridham, launch a review into the events that led to the suspensions of Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice.

Sydney’s season spiralled into crisis in the early hours of Monday morning, with a post-match celebration in Melbourne ultimately triggering a Victoria Police investigation and the dramatic standing-down of the five players in question.

Detectives from the Sexual Crimes Squad continue to investigate an alleged sexual assault at the Pullman Hotel, while the Swans maintain no players have been interviewed by police as yet.

According to multiple reports, a Channel Seven sit-down with Heeney that was filmed at the Pullman East Melbourne on Saturday night now won’t go to air.

The stood-down Swan is said to have detailed his upcoming wedding plans with fiancée Steffie Waters, as well as his future goals.

Waters has since travelled to Noosa to be with family during the difficult time.

Code Sports reports that “despite urgings from many quarters” to air the interview, the broadcaster has opted not to, with a source telling the publication: “It’ll never see the light of day.”

The club’s culture and standards have come under fire after the revelation of the wild night partying on the eve of finals.

And on Saturday, Herald Sun chief football reporter Jay Clark said the futures of the five Sydney players banned for the rest of the season were “most certainly up in the air”.

In particular, Blakey, who Clark said could be courted by as many as eight Victorian clubs this offseason, naming five who could potentially be in play.

“We stress that the alleged victims in that alleged sexual assault at the Pullman Hotel in the early hours of Monday morning are the primary concern here, and that all football matters really come secondary to their welfare at the moment,” Clark began on Fox Footy’s Super Saturday Live.

“But it’s fair to say the futures of those five players — Blakey, Heeney, Warner, Bice and Jordon — (it’s) unclear whether they’ll play another game for the Sydney Football Club.

“Nick Blakey is certainly a player of very strong interest for Melbourne clubs.

“I believe up to eight clubs will be chasing Nick Blakey, including St Kilda (who) want a half-back.

“North Melbourne, obviously, Melbourne have two first-round picks, (and) Collingwood and Carlton will do their due diligence, too.”

Blakey has ties to North Melbourne via his father, John, who played 359 games for Fitzroy and North Melbourne between 1985 and 2002.

The left-footer picked a path to the Swans over the Kangaroos — where he could have been a father-son pick — in 2018, with John an assistant coach at Sydney at the time.

The Roos and Saints could use more counterattacking class, while the Demons have a rich draft hand and have also reportedly targeted Hawthorn rebounder Bailey Macdonald this year.

Blues chief executive Graham Wright was asked on Saturday whether his club would consider pursuing Blakey this offseason.

“This is a non-football issue at the moment,” Wright told 3AW.

“And it’s something we take really seriously, but we won’t be making any inquiries about (Swans) players at the moment.”

Wright was also probed on how Carlton viewed the situation.

“We’ve taken the opportunity to look at it broadly inside the club — within your own football club, and have conversations,” he said.

“We’ve had conversations with our men’s team and our women’s team, and more broadly as a club around respect and inclusion and integration.

“We feel that our AFLW program is really well integrated into our club.

“And, touching base again with them (on Friday), they do have enormous respect internally and that they are part of what we do, and they will continue to be that.

“And they are so well integrated into the day-to-day — there are guys and girls in the gym all the time, and it’s the same on the ground, and they’re a big part of what we do.”

It comes as Pridham confirmed to The Age on Saturday that the club will launch a comprehensive review into why the events of early Monday morning occurred.

“No culture is perfect,” Swans chairman Andrew Pridham told the Age on Saturday.

“We have never said it is. Clearly we need to look into what went wrong. The standards we set were not the problem. It is that they were breached. We need to understand why this happened. We will do this thoroughly.”

The revered ‘Bloods culture’ is under heavy scrutiny at present, and former Swans assistant coach Josh Francou joined the chorus questioning the club’s “standards”.

“If John Longmire was still at the helm, I’m confident this wouldn’t have unfolded,” Francou told ABC Sport on Saturday.

“Having worked with him for four years, I know how seriously he took standards, preparation and accountability; and he knew his responsibility to uphold the ‘Bloods culture’ …

“He set clear expectations and made sure players knew the standards required. For me, this isn’t just about one night out; it’s about the culture and leadership that allows it to happen.”

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