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Sydney were fantastic on Friday night.
There are plenty of instances in footy these days where there is more to be learned about the vanquished than the victors, and so it was at the Gabba.
The Swans were never going to knock over Brisbane on their own deck, and from about the halfway point of the second quarter they never looked likely to.
For starters, this is a team that headed north without their two premier key defenders against one of if not the most dangerous forward line in the game, at the ground where they’ve been all but unbeatable outside September for more than four years.
Throw in the loss of Isaac Heeney and Lance Franklin to injury to further decimate the other end of the ground, and add no Callum Mills in midfield for good measure, and the Swans had no business getting close to a Lions outfit at full enough strength to leave two veterans in Jack Gunston and Daniel Rich out of the team and not miss a beat.
But while the scoreboard reads an eighth loss in 13 games in 2023 for the Swans, and will leave them two games and percentage out of the eight at round’s end with their chances of finals all but gone, this was a performance full of pride, heart and spirit all the same.
This was a team that would fling themselves into a point post to save a goal – which Nick Blakey was only too happy to prove.
Even if this season is indeed shot – and while you should never say never in footy, it would require a turnaround of epic proportions – the future for Sydney remains as bright as it has ever been.
It began in the mind of John Longmire, who after more than a decade in the top job is still clearly the man to take this team forward.
The plan was simple: get the ball forward by hook or by crook, either with quick hacks from stoppages or with fast rebound play from half-back, and then tackle like your life depended on it to lock the ball in. Then capitalise on the Lions’ weakness in defending contests inside 50, and try and kick straight.
By quarter time, the Swans had executed perfectly. While they’d finish with only one extra clearance and two fewer contested possessions, their efficiency was something to behold. Three of their four goals had come from stoppages, all in their attacking half, frequently cutting through the Lions with precise handballs and attacking play reminiscent of the slashing side they were last year.
With a whopping 29 ball-ups or boundary throw-ins in the quarter alone – it only took until the 20-minute mark to break the season record for most ball-ups in an opening term – the match was being played in tight and tough, where the Lions, who rank a lowly tenth for contested possessions despite the services of clearance beasts Lachie Neale and Josh Dunkley, are vulnerable. The Swans didn’t have to dominate those stoppages to be very, very dangerous.
Given free reign to press well up the ground, the Swans’ half-backs were likewise in the thick of the action, Braeden Campbell making direct opponent Jarrod Berry pay for being sucked up into the contest by holding his space wider, receiving via a clever Sam Wicks soccer, and booting a wonderful goal on the run.
With five tackles inside 50 for the quarter – their season average of 9.8 would be surged past midway through the second – the Swans were giving the Lions no freedom anywhere on the ground. It was far from pretty to watch, but with a two-goal lead at quarter time, it was proving supremely effective.
Defensively, the Swans looked sharper than they have been for a while, denying the Lions their trademark of marks inside 50 with tremendous pressure on the ball carrier and an absence of quality ball movement going in. The Lions would only take two marks inside 50 for the term – one, from Berry, coming after Jake Lloyd looked suspiciously like he had been pushed square in the back.
Making things even harder for the Lions was the Swans’ slick ball movement, going at nearly 78 per cent disposal efficiency for the term and winning it 22 more times.
The Lions have struggled all year to win the ball back once teams take control, wherever on the ground they find it: 40 per cent of the Swans’ defensive 50 exits ended in an inside 50 that quarter, nearly double the league average. That rose past two-thirds when you extended that to the defensive half.
That they were barely scoring from this manner didn’t matter; the plan was clear. Once it was in, whether the kick inside was marked or not, it was tackle, pressure, harass and try for repeat inside 50s, trusting that the dam wall would break.
As the game wore on, the Lions slowly got on top, as more talented teams usually do in this game of ours. It’s one thing to keep the best sides in check for a quarter, even a half, and quite another to keep them under wraps for a full game, especially with the supreme offensive talent Brisbane wield.
If the Lions began to get on top at stoppages, not break even like in the first quarter, or if their ball use improved coming off half-back, the worm was inevitably going to turn.
The flashpoint came midway through the second: from a 50/50 contest at ground level in Sydney’s attacking half, the Lions worked it out to Deven Robertson on the wing, who found running Jaspa Fletcher with a difficult yet perfectly executed kick for him to mark without breaking stride.
Fletcher, in this moment, promptly displayed the freakish talent that makes it clear the Lions have a second father-son gun on their hands to go with Will Ashcroft. After marking, he instantly turned inwards, wrong-footing the oncoming Aaron Francis, he burst inside 50, still well ahead of chaser Ollie Florent, and drilled a quite spectacular first AFL goal at full tilt.
The space he had in front of him was Sydney’s doing, having pressed up the ground looking for forward-half turnovers they struggled to capitalise on anyway (by half time, they had just two goals to five from this source despite numbers being almost identical); the rest was pure skill from the first-gamer.
And skill usually wins out in this game, especially when there’s enough of it and conditions are perfect.
By the finish, the Lions had worked their way on top in every facet: Lachie Neale, contained early by James Rowbottom, asserted his class around stoppages the longer the evening went on, finishing with a game-high 10 clearances and 16 contested possessions, while Zac Bailey’s zip, penetrating kicking and ferocity in close comfortably shaded the Swans’ usual suspect for that sort of play in Chad Warner.
More than making up for Harry Cunningham’s superb blanket job on Charlie Cameron was Brandon Starcevich doing likewise on Tom Papley, and the Swans just didn’t have enough other X-factor options to be able to afford a quiet night from him like the Lions were.
But while 40 inside 50s to 24 in the second half is a paddlin’, to quote Jasper Beardly, as is 2 clearances to 20, what was admirable was how faultlessly the Swans stuck to their guns. Even with opportunities drying up, even barely clinging on as a superior opponent flexed its muscle and began to open up play, Sydney were always hanging there and thereabouts.
Yes, the Lions’ inaccuracy was a primary reason why – they kicked 6.14 to 6.3 after the break – but it wasn’t as if they were spraying sitters left, right and centre. Indeed, the defining image of the second half might have been a Lions player streaming towards goal before a desperate lunging tackle from a Swan saved the day.
James Rowbottom kicks the ball. (Photo by Russell Freeman/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
In the end, it was the Swans’ inability to retain possession that cost them: the Lions scored seven goals to two from forward half intercepts. Last year, Sydney were just about the most lethal team in the game at dashing from defence, hitting up targets with pinpoint precision, and surging forward in an unstoppable wave: this year, teams have defended more stoutly and higher up the ground to them to cut those chains off at the source, and this combined with some ordinary decision-making at times, has seen their clanger numbers skyrocket.
They’d finish with 76 on the night, well ahead of the Lions’ 69.
But while this Swans team are not the side that rampaged to a grand final last year, nor even the one which dawned so unexpectedly in 2021. This is a team dealing with a swathe of injuries to its most important players, one learning on the fly to build a forward structure in the post-Franklin era with the most important piece, Logan McDonald, also sidelined.
This is a team dealt the roughest of hands this year, but still fighting to try and find a way. That they were able to stay within touch of a team like Brisbane, on their own turf, until the very last minutes, is a foundation stone on which this team can build its next premiership tilt in the years to come.
There is still talent to spare at Sydney. Errol Gulden was again wonderful, with two opportunist goals among 27 disposals full of dare and danger. Nick Blakey is there for the long term and has every attribute a great defender needs – pace, height, strength overhead and bravery to name a few.
Rowbottom had probably the best game of his career, fighting a fierce battle with Neale that he only officially lost, albeit with plenty of dignity, in the last 15 minutes; Joel Amartey and Hayden McLean’s hands will be a dangerous proposition in years to come; they’ve unearthed another beauty in Angus Sheldrick, whose breakout two-goal third quarter was unfairly overshadowed by Fletcher’s heroics on the winning side.
That’s without mentioning Luke Parker, among the best afield on return, whose 11 tackles and 10 clearances did more to will his team on than anyone else on either team – he remains as crucial to the team he leads as ever.
It was all but inevitable that Sydney’s trip to the Gabba would end in defeat, and further shred their all but faded hopes of a September berth, never mind defending their grand final appearance.
But there was so much to like about the way they went about things, and all of it will hold them in good stead when the cavalry returns. 2023 might be shot, but hope still springs eternal for the years to come.
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