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The Sydney Swans are through to the grand final for the third time in this still-young decade, after blowing the Geelong Cats away early last night.
Here’s five of the biggest talking points from the Andre Agassi-attended match.
Slow start kills the Cats
Starting matches slowly has been a problem for the Cats throughout the season. The vast majority of their losses this year have come in games where they put in poor efforts in the first quarter.
That was never more true than it was last night when the Cats were held goalless in the first term and allowed the Swans to kick seven goals against them. The game was effectively over at quarter time.
Sydney are too good a team to allow that kind of head start go to waste, especially when it comes to finals. It’s surely going to be the Cats coaching staff’s biggest focus during the off-season.
The great pre-finals bye debate
Whatever the result was tonight people were always going to link it back to the pre-finals bye and the Cats’ slow start will make that especially the case.
Given the Cats have had those slow start problems all year long I reckon it is jumping to conclusions for anyone to blame the pre-finals bye for this one.
Maintaining focus and intensity during a finals campaign is what the best teams do and if the Cats can’t do that they don’t deserve a grand final berth.
The merits of the pre-finals bye are still up for debate but it would be a bit sensationalist to suggest that the Cats have been robbed by a quirk of the fixture – instead, they were simply beaten by a better team.
Fingers crossed for Aliir
It was a story good enough for Malcolm Turnbull to give it a run at the UN during the week, Aliir Aliir, the journey from being a refugee to perhaps becoming an AFL premiership player.
Now, however, it seems unlikely he’ll be able to take the field after a knee injury early in the piece saw him sit out the majority of last night’s match.
That said, we felt the same about Gary Rohan last week yet he pulled up just fine and put in a big performance. Fingers crossed that Aliir can do the same in time for the grand final.
Hope and heartbreak for potential premiership Swans
There’s always a bittersweet story in a premiership and it’s the players who miss out for one reason or another. If the Swans do come away with the flag next week there’ll be some tales both great and tragic.
Ben McGlynn, for example, after missing the 2012 grand final due to injury, then struggling through the 2014 loss, could finally realise his dream of being a premiership player.
However the likes of Jarrad McVeigh and Callum Mills are racing against the clock to be fit for a recall ahead of the big game – and if they do pull up in time, it’ll be a hard luck story for guys like Jeremy Laidler and Zak Jones.
Aliir might miss as discussed, which would open the door for Ted Richards to potentially end his career on a massive high as a surprise inclusion.
Whichever way it goes down, it’s sure to be a dramatic week at the selection table for the Swans.
Exit stage Enright?
Jimmy Bartel will play on in 2017 seems to be the word, but Corey Enright’s fate is yet to become clear and his reaction as the match ended on Friday night felt like that of a man who realises his career has come to an end.
Maybe the Cats have decided that they need to move him on – their defence has been pretty cramped this year with a lot of young talent coming through but the old blokes still proving strong hands.
Or, perhaps he will make the call himself.
It may be just the emotion of losing a big game, and he will sign on again for 2017. He’s certainly in good enough form to do so, winning All-Australian honours yet again this year.
There’s also the bigger question for the Cats though of what they can do to improve next year. The Dangerfield recruitment has brought them back into the top four conversation, but they’ve ultimately fallen well short of another flag.
Can they improve again in 2017? And if so, will it come from retaining the older players, or do they need to move some of them on and allow new shoots to grow? These are the questions they’ll ask themselves over the next week or so before the off-season begins.