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Two of the most successful teams of the past decade, the Geelong Cats and Sydney Swans, face off in a final for the first time in over a decade.
Their last September encounter was one to remember, and with all of the variables at play, this one is set to be the same.
It is remarkable, isn’t it? Geelong and Sydney have played in nine of the past ten finals series each – 22 and 20 games respectively – and yet this is the first time they will play each other since the Nick Davis game in 2005.
We talked about this in my finals mega column; here is the highlights video of Davis, among other things, ripping the soul out of Cameron Mooney.
Things have changed a bit since that game. The feature of it that sticks out the most is how scrambley both teams are: the ball is moving more like a bar of soap to and from packs of players than in any game of the past three years, yet “congestion” has become a big talking point. It goes part was to proving two things about the way the AFL is covered: we have short memories, and seem to love nothing more than to find fault in an outstanding game – albeit the change crowd has been somewhat quieter this season due to the evenness at the top.
Sydney are a case in point for how football has changed. Under Paul Roos, and in the first few years of John Longmire’s reign, the Swans were the avatar of congested football. Their evolution, which we’ve talked about a few times this year, from this workmanlike unit to a group of prim and proper modern footballers, has seen them into a preliminary final.
The Swans’ midfield largely put Adelaide to the sword in last weekend’s semi-final, with the Crows unable to stop Sydney moving through the middle of the ground with chains of handballs. Adelaide had seven extra inside 50s, and controlled the ball for eight per cent more of the game, but couldn’t convert it to scores. It seemed as though Sydney were content to hang back on Adelaide and absorb their attacking thrusts, and back their ability to move the ball by hand on counter attack. It worked.
The Swans begin this game with some continuity; Geelong have played one game of football in almost a month. It is an intriguing sub-plot to this game, and there will be a reaction one way or the other. If Geelong win, the extra week off helped them be fresh and prepared. If Geelong lose, then the extra week has broken their continuity.
As it stands, Geelong have come into the game with a remarkably tall back line, particularly given the Swans will only enter the game with three big players who take park marks: Kurt Tippett, Sam Naismith and Xavier Richards – and one of those guys will be in the ruck. Don’t be surprised if the returning Lachie Henderson, recruited as a notional swingman around this time last year, spends some time forward of the ball to help out the lone hand in Hawkins.
Neither the Swans or Cats are particularly loaded with forward-line talent. The Swans have Lance Franklin and a bunch of youngsters, where the Cats have Tom Hawkins, who played his best game in some time in Geelong’s qualifying final win a fortnight ago. Both teams will come in expecting their defensive halves to have solid victories, making this a battle of the midfields.
Need some extra proof? There was an excellent piece of analysis published on Figuring Footy in a guest post by the two fellows from blog Hurling People Now. It confirmed what we’ve known to be true for some time: Sydney are very good at defending the most efficient scoring zones on the ground, and the Cats are the masters of winning the ball in the air. These two will net out this evening, making the middle part of the ground the most critical for victory.
In this respect, it is the double act of Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood up against the more thinly spread elite talent of Josh Kennedy, Dan Hannebery, Luke Parker, Kieran Jack and Tom Mitchell. After the last couple of weeks, you can probably throw Isaac Heeney in there too.
Isaac Heeney decides his time as a forward is over, ready to enter the midfield #ProudlySydney #AFL #AFLFinals pic.twitter.com/qz1U3RFbpk
— Ryan Buckland (@RyanBuckland7) September 19, 2016
When the two midfield groups are lined up side by side, it makes for interesting reading. Sydney bat deeper, but the Cats arguably have a greater spread of middle-range talent.
Josh Caddy, Mitch Duncan and Cam Guthrie aren’t as reliably effective as Parker, Jack and Mitchell, but when summed together with the rest of their team’s respective groups they have more experience and playing time together than the mob at Sydney. It has the potential to make for an interesting perspective on the old football adage that you’re only as good as the bottom quarter of your team.
Hawthorn showed the competition that avoiding long kicks to contests is the path to victory against Geelong, and the Swans are set up to do exactly that by virtue of their personnel. In Round 16, the Swans travelled to Geelong and beat them up to the tune of 38 points – Geelong’s only Kardinia Park loss for the year. The Cats had nine more inside 50 entries and won the centre clearances 16-10, but could only muster 60 points to Sydney’s 98.
Geelong managed to get their famed press working well, winning many repeat opportunities to score. But as soon as Sydney broke through, their handball game was too much for the hefty Cats defence to take. It looms large as a tactical edge for John Longmire to exploit.
The counter to that of course is that Geelong have Patrick Dangerfield, who since we last spoke of him has continued to sweep the pool of 2016 awards. He’s now an All-Australian, AFL Coaches Association Award winner and AFL Player’s Association MVP – the only individual medals he has left to collect for this year are the Brownlow on Monday night and a Norm Smith medal on grand final Day. There is a reason for this: he is very good at football.
When the two sides met in Round 16, he had a lazy 34 touches, pumped the ball inside 50 ten times and gained 805 metres for his team. He did all he could off of his own bat, but Sydney’s depth through the middle saw them home in the end.
The great wildcard in this one is what effect the bye will have on both teams. I lean towards it being a net positive for the Cats, and mostly neutral for the Swans given they played last weekend. That is not enough to get me to tip the Cats, however.
We’ve talked all finals long about how match ups matter. Last week, the Bulldogs grunt was a diabolical match up for Alastair Clarkson’s Hawthorn side. In week one, the Giants were a bad match up for Sydney. Tonight, I see the Swans as being a particularly bad match up for the Cats. Sydney’s depth through the middle of the ground, and want to move the ball by hand rather than foot, messes with Geelong’s equilibrium. The Cats are set up to counter teams that kick: Sydney have the second lowest kick-to-handball ratio of all of this year’s finalists, behind the handball happy Dogs.
It once again reinforces how critical the battle through the middle will be, and right now, I give the points to Sydney. That means I think the Swans will also accumulate the most points on the scoreboard tonight, winning a reasonably low-scoring encounter by 12 points.
It has the makings of a great game, pitting the stars and scrubs of Geelong against the top end class of Sydney.(Click to Tweet)
We could also see Dangerfield drop another nuclear bomb on the MCG and eek his team out another win off of his own flaming boots. That would be fun.
That’s my Finals Forecast, what’s yours?