Loading “Obviously nine years there. I felt like pretty much, ‘There’s the door, see you later.’ I’m not sure if it was just because of injuries and everything that was happening, but it was pretty hard at the time. “What really annoyed me was when the trade and that all happened they came out and said, ‘He wanted to go back for family reasons and that kind of stuff.’ "It really hit me and my wife pretty hard. Obviously they couldn’t say ‘We wanted to trade him’. But that really hurt. Obviously being at the club for nine years.” Rohan and wife Amie last year lost one of their twin daughters, Willow, hours after her birth to a rare condition. They recently celebrated Bella's first birthday.

Swans coach John Longmire was unwilling to discuss the specifics of Rohan's departure when asked about his comments on Monday. "Gary went through a really tough time last year, a really tough time," Longmire said. "And I think in the end he’s back closer to home, closer to family and playing good footy - good on him. I’m not going to get involved in the details of that." Rohan's latest version of events, however, contrasts with comments he made in an interview with The Age late last month.

The 27-year-old was asked about his claim on The Sunday Footy Show that he felt like he was "walking on eggshells" in his last season with Sydney. "They are hard-nosed pros and they have to do everything by the book and I was walking around thinking, 'Have I done everything right' instead of enjoying the time I was there," Rohan told The Age. "I have got a great relationship with 'Horse' [Longmire] and always will and he just said, 'Mate, we understand. We're not going to hold a grudge if you want to go home'." Sydney traded Rohan for pick 61 in last year's draft, which they then swapped with North Melbourne for midfielder Ryan Clarke. “Gary expressed to us his desire to get back to Victoria during the trade period to be closer to his family,” Swans CEO Tom Harley told the club's website in October last year.