Footy Fix: From the big dance to disaster in ten games - understanding the Swans' almighty fall from grace

For reasons both on-field and off, the decline of Sydney has flown under the radar thus far in 2023.

There have been excuses. Their defence is decimated by injury – and now with Callum Mills joining the casualty ward with a calf injury in the opening minutes on Saturday afternoon, the rest of the field is starting to catch up. They’ve thrown away games they should have won. They’re just having a down patch.

There have been distractions. Last week, rightly or wrongly, the booing of Lance Franklin distracted from any major autopsies of a 29-point loss to Collingwood that, while close on the scoreboard throughout, was a scrappy affair the polar opposite of the silky Swans of 2021 and 2022.

The thrill of Ollie Florent’s kick after the siren against Port Adelaide was the major talking point out of that loss, not the Swans’ poor ball use moving forward that thundered in 67 inside 50s on a backline with a weakness against power forwards for just nine goals.

Toby Greene’s magical game-winner in the Sydney Derby sparked analysis into how the Swans stuffed up the crucial boundary throw-in that led to it, but fell short of going further into a game in which the Sydney defence, even with Tom McCartin back in the line-up, leaked like a sieve.

All of the excuses may be true, and the distractions worth discussing – but a reigning grand finalist really has no business losing on their own ground to a Fremantle outfit that, prior to events at the SCG, were far and away the year’s most disappointing side. It’s time to take a closer look.

The issue with finding out what has sparked the Sydney fall from grace is that there is no one obvious statistical collapse from last year beyond the amount of goals they’re conceding – another 100-plus-point offering from an unassuming Fremantle attack the latest sizeable score conceded.

They’re giving up one more inside 50 per game than 2022 while being virtually identical for their own average entries; they’re still middle of the road for contested possessions and clearances, and have actually jumped from 15th to fourth for average centre clearances, even with the Dockers mauling them 20-9 from that source on Saturday. They’re winning 10 more disposals a game this year than last, and are still one of the league’s heaviest-kicking teams.

21 scoring shots and 13 goals from 44 inside 50s is an excellent effort, even against a Dockers defence that has taken major steps backwards in 2023: indeed, this year they’re averaging a score every 2.3 inside 50s, only mildly down from 2.17 in 2022. That’s not a 2nd-to-14th on the ladder side.

The big fall has come from their ball use and their backline strength under fire: the Swans have gone from 12th last year for average clangers per game up to third, and they’re conceding 11 marks inside 50 per game, up almost two from 2022. That’s effectively two extra clean shots at goal per game.

Lance Franklin of the Swans speaks to his teammates. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/AFL Photos/Getty Images)

One other key factor is accuracy: counting scores alone, the Swans’ opponents kicked for goal with 51.8 per cent accuracy last year, well and truly in the middle of the pack. This year, it’s up at 58 per cent, second-worst in the league ahead of Port Adelaide.

There’s obviously an element of luck in the opposition kicking for goal, and the Swans have been bitten more than once this year by teams blowing their expected score tally out of the water – including in defeat to GWS – but 16.7 was far from an outrageously accurate day by Freo.

Those numbers speak as much of a backline that hasn’t adjusted at all to its missing pieces as anything exceptional from their opposition.

There were multiple instances against the Dockers that prove this point, but my favourite is this one: when Neil Erasmus marks right on 50 in the third quarter, the Swans take the precious two seconds it takes for the youngster to get boot to ball to flood back in numbers. His kick is a poor one, and by the time it reaches Josh Treacy, who had to abort his dash towards goal to turn and fly for the ball, he’s surrounded by four Swans.

Up to here, everything has gone right: for the next eight seconds, everything goes wrong. Marking these balls is normally the domain of one of the McCartins, with the rest of the defence either waiting at ground level or putting body work into opposition forwards to clear the path for the brothers.

Without either of them, Will Hayward and Jake Lloyd don’t know whose job it is to fly, and they end up both going for the mark. They spoil each other, with a little help from Treacy, and by the time the ball hits the ground they’re both effectively out of the contest. Having busted a gut to outwork their Freo opponents to get to that contest in the first place, those Dockers arrive on the loose ball: Sam Switkowski can’t collect cleanly, but Caleb Serong can, and with Lachie Schultz having snuck out the back at the very start of the play and remained in the goalsquare, he’s still free enough to snap through from three metres out.

Last year, Paddy McCartin claimed 71 intercept marks, while Tom had 50. Next-best at the club was Nick Blakey with 38, then Ollie Florent with 19. That’s a hell of a lot of aerial influence out of action this year – not to mention the flow-on effect it has on players like Blakey required to play taller.

Blakey has punched above his weight admirably for much of this year, but he’s a third tall at best and a rebounding, pacy runner by trade: whether this is a push in the back or not (spoiler: yes. Yes it was) it’s hard to imagine Paddy McCartin being shunted off the ball by Luke Jackson quite this easily, let alone not being able to shepherd the Docker out of influencing the marking contest to let Aaron Francis intercept.

For what it’s worth, the Swans still took 19 intercept marks at the SCG; at times, Blakey and Francis’ aerial work was the only thing keeping them in the match.

The problem was that when it hit the ground, the Swans who last year were on hand to gather the spilled ball are normally required to fly for spoils this year, with no McCartins: that meant chaos, and multiple opportunities for the crafty Schultz and his fellow Freo smalls.

A quarter-time lead was entirely due to the Dockers going without a mark inside 50 from a whopping 16 entries, again mostly Blakey and Francis’ doing; but with Freo continuing to dominate stoppages, it always felt like the dam wall would eventually burst. Sure enough, seven goals were kicked by the Dockers’ three key forward targets, while at their feet, Schultz finished with four.

The Swans made their name on line-breaking runs from half-back, precise kicking forward at high pace, and an open 50 with forward options aplenty in open space.

That’s the second issue, against Fremantle as obviously as anywhere: the Swans, for whatever reason, are butchering the ball far more than they used to.

It manifested in 67 turnovers against the Dockers, and just 15 inside 50s to half time as Sydney’s ball movement frequently sputtered and died down the corridor. Only West Coast on Friday night have had fewer entries in a first half this year – even more unbelievable considering the legendary small stature of the SCG.

It works well here, but this is an example: a clearing kick from defensive 50 by Braeden Campbell misses both wide open targets, in James Rowbottom and Justin McInerney.

Freo would, after quarter time, clamp down hard on punishing that same kick, and it would remain the Swans’ only goal for the first three quarters from a defensive 50 possession chain.

It was profligate kicking inside 50 against Port Adelaide that saw them muster just nine marks in attack from 67 entries; this time, it was their kicks rebounding from 50 that were the problem, in particular in a second term that saw Freo’s first three goals all come from intercepts.

It would be remiss not to give Freo their due: this was clearly their most impressive performance of the season to date, and Justin Longmuir’s best coaching effort in quite some time, too.

Homework was done on the Swans’ defensive frailties and their contested-ball mediocrity: Freo’s key talls in Treacy, Jackson and Jye Amiss spread out with almost every entry, rarely if ever had more than one flying for the same ball, and ensured at least one of them always had a mismatch to exploit.

Around the ball, Sean Darcy was far too strong for Tom Hickey, though it took his midfielders until the second quarter to shark his taps, with the Swans winning clearances 12-8 in the first term. For the rest of the game, Freo would boss that stat 41-24, including 20-9 from centre bounces.

Jaeger O’Meara is in the middle of a really nice month, and is starting to gel with the Dockers’ on-ball brigade: he’s not as slick outside as Will Brodie, but he’s winning more than his fair share of the hard ball, with 12 disposals and five clearances. It has made Caleb Serong’s life easier, and he’s thriving too, adding to his 15 contested possessions and eight clearances with more of an outside game typified by a season-high 660 metres gained.

Jackson looked as good as he has ever looked at either the Dockers or Melbourne, with his contested marking a highlight and his ground-ball follow-up efforts even more impressive. Starved for quality looks at the ball in the first month and a bit of the year, it’s no surprise the Dockers’ dominance in inside-50 numbers in the last fortnight have seen him explode.

Equally, there are positives for the Swans: Errol Gulden was at times the only man keeping them in the game against Freo, and has had 77 mostly flawless disposals across the last fortnight. Francis looked well worth pursuing as a key defender, especially if Paddy McCartin has indeed played his last game.

But the cold hard facts are these: the Swans are 3-6, 14th on the ladder, and while the road back to finals isn’t beyond them, something radical will need to change. These are the sort of matches teams in their position simply have to win.

Injuries are a problem, but this is something that was bound to arise sooner or later: the Swans last year had a remarkable 13 players either play every game or miss just one, while a 14th, Lance Franklin, only missed two. They’ve had an excellent run of injuries for a long time, and now that they’ve come in a rush, they’ve struggled to cope. There’s no shame in that.

Having said that, 14 Swans have played all nine games this year; the ones who haven’t are quite important, it’s true, but it’s not as if they’ve endured a West Coast-like run of injuries. Even St Kilda, who have had a similarly cruel toll on key position stocks to start the year, have found away around the issues that has presented.

The problem, too, is that Paddy McCartin might be done, Mills will surely be sidelined for at least a week, Dane Rampe won’t be back for a while yet, and Hickey will need time to get back to his best – if, at 32 years of age, he still has that level in him. By the time the cavalry arrives, the season could be shot – if indeed it isn’t already.

The problem, I think, is hidden in the similarity of stats year on year mentioned before: the Swans are trying to play in the same way as they were in 2022, but with a vastly depleted crop of cattle. They are among the AFL’s most aggressive teams rebounding from defence – but where last year they could trust Rampe and the McCartins to keep the backline strong in reserve for turnovers, this year they mean death.

Hacked kicks forward from stoppages, which the Swans continue to leak, are now infinitely more dangerous than they were last year; Sydney can’t afford to be losing that count as heavily as they did against the Dockers.

They’re, in a sense, trying to play slingshot footy with a rotten frame. They say staying still in footy means going backwards, and it’s definitely ringing true here.

Teams don’t let the Swans charge down the middle of the SCG with impunity any more; they’re forced wide, or back, or into turnovers. Gulden’s numbers, as impressive as they are, show just how much more the Swans are using their wings this year than last. And with no Sam Reid, the Swans’ most capable contested-marking option ahead of the ball last year, long hopeful kicks up the line aren’t a reliable avenue to success.

So what can change? For one thing, stronger, tougher bodies around stoppages are required. With Mills hurt, an opportunity presents itself for Isaac Heeney to fill in as a full-time midfielder. Strong, skilled and tough, Heeney is a wonderful forward, but has never taken the next step into true, big-boy superstardom that you can only really take in modern footy as a midfielder. Could this be his time?

Behind the ball, greater protections are required, perhaps in the form of the wingers, Gulden included, becoming more defensively minded and looking to clog up space in defensive 50. In attack, it might be time for honest conversations about the best way to use Lance Franklin; he’s still in the best 22, just about, but the Swans get very Buddy-conscious wherever he is, and he’s no longer capable of making the magic happen against two or three defenders who know exactly where the ball is going.

The Swans have Brisbane, Geelong and St Kilda on the horizon – even if they kill off North Melbourne and West Coast and deal with a potentially tricky Carlton in their other matches over the next six weeks, they’d almost need to win out from there unless they can snag a win in that trio of toughies.

And as we learned on Saturday, there is almost no one, those grisly bottom three of the Kangaroos, Eagles and Hawthorn aside, who can be chalked up as an easy kill for a Swans outfit in their current malaise.

This is no time for Sydney to panic: their draw opens up enough from here that if they get on a run, finals are still in the frame. Their best footy, like what they showed in the dying minutes of the third quarter against Fremantle, is still eye-catching.

But time is running out, and the whole footy world knows the Swans are vulnerable. Teams who get thrashed in grand finals have made a habit of missing September the year after in recent memory; as it stands right now, Sydney are well on track to do exactly that.