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Ross Sweetman was a dependable defender for South Fremantle over an often interrupted decade of football. The six footer often gave away many inches to key forwards when at centre half back, but a good leap and the ability to use both sides of his body enabled him to more than hold his own. More at home on a half back flank, he hankered to become a midfielder. “Brownie put me on a wing one day when Tony Morley wasn’t available, I got Sandover Medal votes, but was back in the backline when Tony came back the following week,” he laughed. But Sweetman was a State player in another sport. A keen lacrosse player in his teens, he did pre season training with the Bulldogs in 1973 as a seventeen year old but decided they were “too bloody big,” so, returning to lacrosse at the East Fremantle club, he made the State under eighteen side. Cricket was also on the agenda, opening the batting and bowling for Fremantle under sixteens.   Ross gave Fremantle Oval a more serious shot the following season, starting with the colts, and was selected for the last three games in the league side, debuting against East Perth at centre half back on John Daniels. He played nineteen games in 1975, but was dropped for the finals, which ended disastrously for the Bulldogs, going down to West Perth by a record margin on grand final day. It was to be a different story five years later.After going through a frustrating five years, two of which went without much participation from Sweetman due to a broken shoulder and what was later to be known as osteopubis, 1980 was a revelation. “It was a fantastic year for more reasons than one,” he said. “On the day before the grand final our son was born. It was an incredible day for me, and I remember lying on the rub down table before the game, with our phys ed coach Ken Smith giving me emotional support.”The premiership win over Swan Districts was notable not only for the winning margin of South, but the presence of a number of stars on both sides. Rioli, Michael, Carter, McKay, Haddow, Vigona, Barrett, Delmenico, Hardie, Campbell, Morley, Cronin, Outhwaite, and Vasoli for the Bulldogs, and Swans players Boucher, Beasley, Hoyer, Neesham, Melrose, Richardson, Sidebottom, Skwirowski, Narkle, Mullooly, Holden, Solin, Gillespie, Langsford, and Holmes among others was a showcase of the talent that abounded in Western Australian football at the time. Things went downhill for Sweetman after the exhilaration of 1980.Another series of injuries restricted his on field activity, and he retired from league football after the first round of the 1983 season. “I’d had enough, with a crook knee, and a three year old, so after ten years at Souths, I called it quits,” he said. Tony Morley was the first to call after the announcement, and Ross joined him at Kwinana, where the former State wingman was coaching. “I reckoned I’d be able to have a bit of fun in a more social environment at a lower level,” Sweetman told us. “But I quickly received a rude awakening at Gosnells when playing at centre half forward.  No sooner had the ball been bounced in the middle, than I was cleaned up from behind in a crude charge. The obvious targets that ex league players provided in the competition led me to reassess my future in the game.”  After a couple of years away from Fremantle Oval, Sweetman returned to help Don Haddow, and ran the gauntlet of selection, runner, rehab co-ordinator, development coach, and junior coach. Along with Terry Dean and Jim Hurst he formed the Southern Warriors. “ The Southern Warriors programme concentrates on ensuring that on completing junior football in the Bulldogs District the members of the club’s sixteens team will have developed their football skills to the best of their ability to enable them to progress to the club’s colts team and into senior football,” Ross explained.  “Beginning in the thirteens age group via the talent identification process, into the fourteens and through to the fifteens age and to sixteens, it also places importance on the players developing  life skills during this time to enable them to be worthwhile citizens and members of society.”  Ross Sweetman is a proud recipient of life membership at South Fremantle, and he is still a regular at the club, lunching with former teammates, and with one of them, Kevin Cornell, on the instigation of another, Paul Mountain, formed a social golf event branded the “Sweet Corn Cup,” using a combination of Sweetman and Cornell, which is a hotly contested affair run each February and July for members of the 1980 side.  He and Susanne have a boy, Ben, who played colts at South, and a girl, Milannie, who have provided them with four grand children. A cartographer, Ross has been with Alcoa for over thirty years, specializing in geographical information systems.  Given the height advantage they would have enjoyed, it was understandable that he nominated Simon Beasley( six foot five) and Warren Ralph(six foot three) as hardest to beat.  The champ, Maurice Rioli got the nod as best he’d played with.  Ross Sweetman played just sixty eight league games, but was a sound performer in defence, especially in 1980, and has had an influential role in junior development at the Port club. His life membership is an indication of the standing he still enjoys at South Fremantle. 

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