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Opinion

These young Bloods are the real deal

3rd April, 2021
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3rd April, 2021
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Who saw this coming? The Sydney Swans proved they are a completely different team after their demolition of the Richmond Tigers.

It’s hard to say how off the Tigers were relative to how good the Swans were, as always it’s probably somewhere in the middle. Sydney came out breathing fire. Young gun Chad Warner attacked the ball at centre clearances so well, Sam Wicks found all the right openings up forward, as did most of the Swans forwards, and Errol Gulden had the composure of someone old enough to have the name Errol.

Last year there would not have been a soul in the football universe who would name those three players along with two or three other young Bloods as the impetuous for a Swans revival.

To add to that all-important injection of youth are the maturing young guns ready to take the helm of the club: Callum Mills, Oliver Florent, Tom Papley and Jordan Dawson. These four players are exactly what the Swans hoped they would be.

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The final ingredient is of course the established stars who have maintained the proverbial rage: Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker and Jake Lloyd.

They’re exciting to watch, they move the ball at speed, with dare and, when they need, slow precision. The speed threw out the Tigers defence numerous times during the afternoon. There were Swans forwards free as if they had an extra man on the field and, and when they weren’t free they were mismatched.

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It looked at times like John Longmire had exploited Richmond’s zone defence to gain a mismatch by letting them zone and then spreading systematically to catch his opponents off guard.

In four years we have not seen the Tigers break mentally like they did on Saturday. There was frustration boiling over into unforced errors and silly free kicks all over the park. As someone who has been tortured by Richmond’s ability to perform to such a high level under pressure, it was joyfully funny to watch Noah Balta come to the verge of snapping.

Don’t hate, Tigers fans – he’s a gun and you got him from nowhere. Let us have this moment.

Finally, to John Longmire. Last year Damien Hardwick went after his style of play – he attacked his ability to move the ball. Well, Damo, how did you enjoy that ball movement?

If I were Longmire, I would have had an absolute field day in the press conference. I hope he seized that chance.

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