Expert
Two of the modern eras strongest teams meet tonight when the Sydney Swans host the Geelong Cats at ANZ Stadium. Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 7.20pm AEST.
This same fixture was heavily anticipated last year but ended in disappointment for fans of good footy, as the Swans flattened the Cats into the ground with a 110-point defeat.
While you wouldn’t expect the magnitude of the win to be quite the same this time around it does appear that the Swans have turned the corner around Geelong sometime in the last few years.
Geelong in recent weeks have looked a bit average, playing well for most of the game but allowing their opponents to get back into the match with patches of sloppy play.
They have two straight wins over Richmond and Collingwood headed into this match, but weren’t really able to put either team away and out of the match at any point.
Sydney on the other hand have been in fairly solid form, despite losses to Fremantle and the Western Bulldogs. They’re in winning form, having comfortably trumped Melbourne last week.
The Swans have made only a single change and it’s a forced one – young gun Isaac Heeney is out with a knee injury expected to cost him around two months of football, and Dean Towers has been recalled to the side.
The Cats have made two changes. The luckless Josh Cowan is back out of the team due to a hamstring injury while Nakia Cockatoo has been omitted. Returning to the side is Mathew Stokes, and former Demon Sam Blease will play his first game for the club.
Blease was a first round draft pick for the Demons in the talent-laden 2008 draft, delisted last year after 33 games for the club. Geelong picked him up as a delisted free agent and this week he will get his first chance in the white and navy blue hoops.
He and indeed the rest of the Cats face a huge challenge against a Sydney team that have become experts at punishing opposition mistakes.
Prediction
The Swans are a class above the Cats, plain and simple.
Sydney by 42 points.
Join The Roar for live scores and coverage from 7.20pm AEST.