The Sydney Swans deputy chairman rang his football manager to tell him about a young Harry Perryman. And that’s when the reality of Greater Western Sydney’s claim to the Riverina set in.

“I rang Andrew Ireland and said put this bloke on the list. He said, we will but it’s a GWS zone,” McMaster said.

“So it hurts a bit in that way. But don’t get me wrong, because the game development is important.”

McMaster – born and bred in Temora – was the special guest at the Christmas party of Wagga’s Sydney Swans supporters group on Sunday.

Formed in 1997 – the year after locals Paul Kelly, Brad Seymour, Daniel McPherson and Jason Mooney played in the Swans’ grand final side – the Wagga supporters have no intention of relinquishing their rights to the Riverina.

“We’ll keep it Swans territory,” Coral Harris insisted. 

The Swans supporters group’s first trip to Sydney next season will be for the GWS game at the SCG. 

McMaster has been on Sydney’s board for longer than the Wagga supporters group has been in existence.

He is standing down at the end of this year after 22 years, spanning the club’s rise from the doldrums. 

“We weren’t a very good footy club – that’s the facts of the matter – and if you look back now, I think we are a good club,” McMaster said.

“In fact, we’re hated in parts which is a mark of how far we’ve come.”

So, too, are the Giants, for their rights to their zone. And the Swans might be fierce critics given McMaster says they were prevented from setting up a GWS-style academy here years ago. But he recognises the Riverina comes before club rivalries. 

“They (the AFL) have set GWS and this region, I believe, up for good success, so there can’t be anything wrong with it. 

“It just makes them a bloody good side and hard to beat,” he said.

“But this is something our critics don’t get because they're steeped in the traditional model – this is not about Sydney and GWS versus Melbourne. It’s about Australian rules football versus the rest. Unless we get our act together… we might get taken over. We can’t take it for granted.”

McMaster joined the Swans board in 1995, the year that Paul Kelly won the Brownlow, and declares it one of the highlights of his two decades at the club.

“He’s just a true legend of the game in every sense of the word,” he said. 

Declaring Kelly the club’s heart and soul in its lean years, McMaster said the inspirational captain deserves the credit for laying the foundations of success in the years ahead.

The tide was turning in the 1995 season and the club’s fortunes rose with the arrival of gun goalkicker, and cult figure, Tony Lockett. The shift was dramatic, and long-term, eventually leading to one of the most consistent and successful cultures in the AFL.

“I think Tony Lockett was the game-changer in more ways than one, and then just the sheer pursuit of excellence led by (former footballer manager-turned-CEO) Andrew Ireland and Paul Roos and now John Longmire,” McMaster said.

“But facilitated by the players themselves, coming up with the Bloods culture. That wasn’t a board directive obviously – that was the players and if they’re on board, you’re in business.”

He bristles, however, at any suggestion that the club’s consistency was necessary – and fortuitous – because fickle Sydney supporters wouldn’t stick if things turned sour.

“I’m a bit defensive. I reckon even if we had a bad year, our supporters – these people here – would stick solid… I just think we’ve matured a bit in that sense,” McMaster said.

“This thing that Sydney likes winners is true, but Melbourne likes winners as well. Where are the Collingwood and Carlton supporters in recent years? I mean, it’s a joke.”

The club is proud of its record of being able to adjust its playing roster without bottoming out, with the long-standing director pointing it “reinvigorated” its list this year and still made the grand final. 

And speaking of list management, McMaster does lay claim to one signing. With family connections through marriage to Osborne, he says he pushed hard for the club to draft Adam Schneider in 2001. 

“I’ll claim him… we got him at (pick) 60,” McMaster said of the Swans 2005 premiership player, who also played in the 2006 grand final before playing in three grand finals with St Kilda.

And in recent years, McMaster has been joined in the board room by one of Wagga’s 1996 Sydney grand final players – Brad Seymour is also now a director at the Swans with a responsibility to liaise between the football department and the board.