HE TOOK the call, listened to their sales pitch, even made the trip to Sydney to see exactly what was on offer. But no matter how good the Swans' hard sell was, Martin Mattner knew he would stay in Adelaide with the Crows.

So what changed?

After a flat finish to 2007, the Swans acted swiftly to refresh their player roster. Mattner was at the top of the list but before they could barter with Adelaide, the Swans had to sell the move to the player.

"Sydney contacted my manager after the season finished and he spoke to me about the prospects of a trade," Mattner recalled this week. "We came up and had a look around, spoke to a few people, and a few players, but even at that stage when I came and had a look, I was still staying in Adelaide."

But a fortnight later, after keeping the lines of communication open with some of the Swans and coach Paul Roos, he changed his mind.

"They spoke about the opportunities they saw with me fitting into the team. But what they really showed was enthusiasm to have me here, and Roosy was very keen to have [Nick] Malceski and [Tadhg] Kennelly and myself playing through the halfback and wing spot … So it was a culmination of everything, but I'm really happy I'm here. It's been a great decision."

The man who grew up on a farm in Ki Ki, 150 kilometres south-east of Adelaide, with a population of "about 10 or 11" had no problem moving to Sydney.

"A lot of people call Adelaide the fishbowl in the AFL world. You are just scrutinised so much, then to come here and you can do what you want, even just down the street you don't get noticed, it's great," he said.

"Back in Adelaide, they have such a big fan base, and everyone's into footy, if you go to the shop you get noticed and everyone wants to ask you questions and have a chat about this or that, which is fine, and you don't mind doing it, but it gets to the point where every time you go out of the house, you think, 'I hope I can just go to the shop, get my stuff done and get home before anyone notices."'

Mattner played country football until he was 17, when the Sturt football club asked him to join them for pre-season in 1999. He played a few games for the reserves and then graduated to the senior team. At the end of 2001, the Crows invited him to train with the club and the following year he was put on Adelaide's rookie list.

In July 2002, Mattner made his senior debut for Adelaide against Collingwood. He played seven matches that season, but was also a part of the Sturt team which won the club's first premiership in 26 years. Then tragedy struck the club.

Mattner joined Adelaide for their end-of-season trip to Cairns and had planned to head to Bali to join his Sturt teammates. But finding connecting flights was the problem. He would have had only a couple of days in Indonesia before the team would head home, so he opted out of the trip.

He could have easily been partying with several of his Sturt teammates at Bali's Sari Club on October 12. That night, a terrorist's bomb killed Mattner's teammate Josh Deegan and club official Bob Marshall.

"It was a really hard time at the footy club. It's taken the boys from Sturt a long time to get over it," he said. "It went from winning a premiership to a month later being the biggest disaster in the club's history."

Meanwhile, one of the big selling points that lured Mattner to Sydney - the partnership with Malceski and Kennelly in the back line - looked destined not to materialise, at least not in 2008. First, Malceski ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, a supposedly season-ending injury. Revolutionary surgery got Malceski back on the field in round eight against Essendon, but then Kennelly went down with a dislocated knee.

He missed most of that match and the following week's game, before returning last week against Richmond. With everyone daring not to breathe, the trio all got through safely.

"It has been a bit funny because it's taken a long time for it to actually happen," Mattner said. "Before last week, we'd played about five minutes together. But I think it showed on the weekend when we do get all three of us up and running, it's pretty good."