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Two of the teams most likely to play in this year’s Grand Final get the penultimate round of the 2017 underway in what looks like as close to a finals preview we’ve seen this season.
Tonight means everything for the Swans. Should Sydney get the job done against the Crows, they will keep their name in the top four conversation should one of the teams above them slip up in their last two games. If they lose, fifth looms as their ceiling. Richmond might Richmond up one of their games against Fremantle or St Kilda, but surely not both. Geelong hold a six premiership point advantage making it mathematically impossible for the Swans to leapfrog them unless Sydney wins out and the Cats don’t win again.
It’s a similar story for Port Adelaide in sixth – victory against the Western Bulldogs is a foot in a slamming door that separates them from double chance and elimination football. That’s for the Saturday afternoon forecast guy to worry about though.
Under any objective measure, Adelaide and Sydney are two of the best three teams in football this season. I still marvel at the notion that the Swans are in the conversation for top four as opposed to bottom four, which looked almost certain after six rounds. You’ve doubtlessly seen this ladder a few times but here it is again, just to illustrate where these two teams sit in the hierarchy.
| Team | Wins | Draws | Losses | % |
| Sydney | 12 | 0 | 2 | 154.0% |
| Adelaide | 9 | 1 | 4 | 133.5% |
| GWS | 8 | 2 | 5 | 111.1% |
| Geelong | 8 | 1 | 5 | 108.0% |
| Hawthorn | 8 | 1 | 5 | 104.5% |
| Port Adelaide | 8 | 0 | 6 | 111.6% |
| Richmond | 8 | 0 | 6 | 109.7% |
| Melbourne | 8 | 0 | 6 | 104.8% |
| Essendon | 7 | 0 | 7 | 109.8% |
| WCE | 7 | 0 | 7 | 102.5% |
| Western Bulldogs | 7 | 0 | 7 | 93.0% |
| StKilda | 7 | 0 | 7 | 91.8% |
| Collingwood | 6 | 1 | 7 | 100.9% |
| Fremantle | 5 | 0 | 9 | 78.0% |
| North Melbourne | 4 | 0 | 10 | 86.1% |
| Brisbane Lions | 4 | 0 | 10 | 77.2% |
| Gold Coast | 4 | 0 | 10 | 76.6% |
| Carlton | 3 | 0 | 11 | 82.1% |
Sydney sit atop the Round 7 to Round 21 ladder, with a 12-2 record and a monster percentage of 154 per cent. In second place are the Giants – go and check out their selected team for this week and weep – and in third is Adelaide, with an 8-1-5 record but the second best percentage in the game of 133.5 per cent. If we want to get even more selective, and shift the frame of reference forward two more rounds to eliminate two of Adelaide’s five losses for the season, the two teams have almost identical percentages of 153 per cent (Sydney) and 154 per cent (Adelaide) respectively.
They are both in outstanding shape, both from a season and current game point of view. Champion Data, through the official AFL Player Ratings system, reckons Adelaide has selected its second strongest team of the year, while Sydney has selected its strongest team of 2017 to date. With the weather predicted to be fine by the evening, everything is perfect. It’s what we want to watch at the pointy end of the season, just a few weeks early.
Adelaide has entered gameday with an unchanged line up, despite a couple of players – Rory Sloane and Taylor Walker, so, you know, important players – carrying niggling injuries. One would assume tonight is their “last game of the year” given a win will lock them into the minor premiership; there’s plenty of time for rest against West Coast in Round 23 and during the pre-finals bye.
Sydney regains captain Josh P Kennedy from a hamstring strain, losing Nic Newman. It means the Swans are going in with a four tall line-up, retaining Lance Franklin, Sam Reid, Callum Sinclair and Kurt Tippett.
Adelaide also has four talls to roll through the forward line and ruck (Sam Jacobs, Josh Jenkins, Tom Lynch and Taylor Walker), with both teams also maintaining their tall-ish back lines.
In recent times a number of teams have tried to go with extremely small line ups in their forward 50 and a lone ruckman; these two teams are doing the opposite, yet find themselves in the reckoning for this year’s premiership. This kind of diversity should be welcomed.
Remarkably, this is the first and only time the Crows and Swans face off this season – Adelaide also missing out on the double up against GWS in 2017. Indeed, the two teams haven’t been doubled up on each other in the home and away season since 2005 – 12 years ago.
Last time they met was the 2016 semi final in Sydney, with the Swans comfortable 36 point winners. That was a typical result, with Sydney winning four of the past five by an average of 44 points. Two of those three wins came at the Adelaide Oval, for what it’s worth.
There’s a lot of padding in this piece and that’s because I am not comfortable predicting either team as the winner. Adelaide has been insatiable with the ball in hand this year, expressing a desire for points no team has matched except for Hawthorn at their absolute peak. Their aggressive ball movement is hard to run with and even more difficult to stop. Sydney has bested them in the recent past but this iteration of Adelaide is a different kind of challenge.
(AAP Image/David Mariuz)
Sydney are something of a yang to Adelaide’s yin, preferring the art of defence to attack. The Swans have the league’s best defence on the full year, conceding just under 76 points per game. If we once again strip out their 0-6 start, the Swans are conceding 65.8 points per game. When we compare that to the league average, the Swans have a Defensive Efficiency Rating of +24.9; Adelaide’s Offensive Efficiency Rating is +26.3. See, yin and yang.
The teams match up well through the middle of the ground, Adelaide having better depth on the outside and Sydney better depth on the inside. Last time they met the Swans flipped a stoppage dominance into control on the outside; Adelaide’s performance at stoppages and uncontested possessions in wins (+3.4 per game, +27.4 per game, respectively) and losses (-3.4, -27.2) are strangely mirrored. Chopping the Crows off in tight helps reduce their ability to score.
Can Sydney do it? The market thinks no, and I’m inclined to agree. Adelaide has been rock solid at the Adelaide Oval this year, winning eight of 10 for a percentage of 166 per cent. No matter, it will be an outstanding game, a true finals preview, which the Crows will win by 18 points.
That’s my Friday night forecast, what’s yours?