Leo Barry
1995-2009
237 games
56 goals
Premiership Player 2005
Co-Captain 2006-2008
All Australian 2004, 2005

In The Rise of the Swans, author Martin Blake tells of Barry family legend. He describes a young Leo deliberately riding his three-wheeler off the edge of the verandah just for the adrenaline rush. While his football wasn’t quite as reckless, he played with a universally admired fearlessness.

Growing up on the family farm outside Deniliquin with his parents and five siblings, Barry’s childhood was filled with sport. The local footy and netball club played a central role in their weekend pursuits, and Leo also tried his hand at tennis, soccer, and cricket, though he now jokes that it was just his excuse to escape farm work with Dad.

By 15, he displayed significant football potential, playing half a season in the ‘Denny’ senior side. The family assessed the option of playing with the Murray Bushrangers in the TAC Cup, but a two-hour each-way trek meant that commitment wasn’t feasible. Barry played in the Teal Cup with NSW instead, catching the eye of Swans recruiters.

At the time, the AFL granted the Swans three priority picks for New South Wales talent. Sydney CEO Ron Joseph arranged for Barry’s Year 11 enrolment at Riverview to ensure he stayed in their zone. Later that year, Barry was drafted to the Sydney Swans even though he had another year of schooling to complete.

“I was only 17,” Barry recalled. “I was at Riverview, trying to do Year 12, and I’d jump in a cab twice a week to get to the SCG for training while doing the rest of my training at the school gym. It wasn’t the easiest situation in both aspects—school and footy—and it added to the complexity of it all, but it also made the journey even more satisfying.”

“I still remember my first training session on the old Showgrounds and meeting Plugger and Roosy for the first time. They also drafted Micky O’Loughlin that year, and from that point, we went on to have a pretty exciting 1995 season, which started to galvanise the momentum of the footy club.”

After playing most of the year in the reserves, Barry was chosen to debut in the Swans’ final-round match against Collingwood at the SCG. The game marked Australian football icon Ron Barassi’s final match as coach, and Sydney celebrated a 23-point win, denying the Magpies a finals appearance.

As a high-marking forward, Barry struggled for continuity due to significant shoulder and knee injuries. He watched from the stands as the Swans fell short in the ’96 Grand Final, and senior coach Rodney Eade made him earn a recall to the team, which came partway through 1997.

Barry played the first of his 17 finals that year and worked hard over the summer months to start 1998 in the senior team. In May, a Sydney Morning Herald feature described his progress. “Only lately have his football nous and skills started to match his physical power. Now that they are all starting to work in combination, Barry is looking more and more impressive as a spectacular and committed forward pocket, the sort of player who excites the crowd whenever he is near the ball.”

Excite he did, earning the nickname ‘Leaping Leo’ for his willingness to attack the ball in flight. However, injury and inconsistency thwarted his progress as a forward. In 2001, Eade moved Barry into the Swans’ defensive line, and almost immediately, he thrived in the new role.

“Playing in the backline, I could use my ability to read the flight of the ball, and I always had a reasonable turn of speed, which allowed me to either close down my direct opponent or slide off and take some intercept marks. Right from the get-go, I really enjoyed that element of the game,” Barry said.

After playing 19 games that year, Barry received the Swans’ Most Improved Player award. His closing speed and physical strength made him a formidable opponent for the game’s best key forwards. During the tumultuous 2002 season, the Swans replaced Eade with Paul Roos, who’d already been influential as Barry’s defensive coach.

The coaching change brought a shift in philosophy, and during the critical formative stages of creating the ‘Bloods Culture’, Roos said, “Leo Barry, on the verge of 100 games, was a strong, intelligent voice”. Elected to the Swans’ inaugural leadership group, Barry played a crucial role in shaping team values. On the field, Roos encouraged Barry to launch for his marks, and in 2003, he represented Australia in the International Rules series against Ireland.

“It was a paradigm shift in terms of the way most football clubs had been run,” Barry recalled. “Roosy was very good at giving the players more ownership of how the team should function, and he was fantastic as a facilitator in developing that.”

“So, ultimately, it’s the playing group that really drives the club’s success and having strong standards around that is important. We certainly drove that pretty hard. It instilled a strong leadership ethos within the club, and that’s what you see now 20 years later; those same values are true today.”

Focusing on his positioning and mobility to overcome the height discrepancy he often faced, Barry surged towards the upper echelon of AFL players. In 2004, he gained All-Australian selection, placing third in the Swans’ best and fairest count. After playing in a preliminary final in ’03, Sydney bowed out at the semi-final stage, and the playing group, driven and united, set their sights on going further.

The Swans stormed into the 2005 finals series after winning 10 of their last 12 matches. Barry played with supreme confidence, featuring in every match of the season. Ultimately, the team’s outstanding form carried it into the Grand Final against the West Coast Eagles. The game, showcasing all the drama, excitement, and passion that footy has to offer, was decided by one of the AFL’s most iconic moments.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller, Blink, he analyses the art of ‘thin-slicing’—filtering the very few factors that matter from overwhelming variables—delving deep into the unconscious. Essentially, some of us are expert decision-makers, even with a minuscule amount of time afforded to make them. Thankfully, Leo Barry belongs here.

With the Swans leading by four points and just seconds left on the clock, a pack of eight players formed deep in the Swans’ defensive zone. Barry hurled himself across the mass of bodies, clutching an unforgettable match-winning mark. And, for the first time in 72 years, the Swans were premiers.

“I just felt immense pride,” Barry recalled. “The power of having such strong belief in your teammates was incredible. To win under those circumstances, as the first Swans team to win a premiership since 1933, it was a hell of a time. We probably underappreciated how much it would mean to long-suffering South Melbourne supporters, and the impact it had on them is something we can always be really proud of.”

The following year, Barry joined a captaincy trio when named alongside Brett Kirk and Barry Hall as Swans’ co-captains. That new structure worked well, and they reached another Grand Final, ultimately losing by a solitary point. Barry took great enjoyment from the captaincy role, helping to lead the team to further finals series in ’07 and ’08.

After a final season impacted by injury, Barry retired alongside longtime teammates Michael O’Loughlin and Jared Crouch in 2009. “I really enjoyed my time playing at the club. To be involved in such a transformative time at the Swans was a tremendous honour. You need good people working towards a common goal to gain success, and nobody can question that happening at the Swans.”

In a tribute to one of his most impactful players, Roos said, “He is truly one of the great gentlemen and family men of the game. Leo played on some of the biggest, fastest and best full-forwards of all time and constantly beat them.”

“This he did with his fantastic athleticism but, most importantly, an incredible self-belief and desire to be the best player he could possibly be.”