SYDNEY 7.0 8.2 10.6 12.8 (80) GEELONG 1.1 3.3 6.6 11.8 (74)
GOALS Sydney: McGlynn 2, Jack 2, Reid 2, Everitt, Bolton, Kennedy, Jetta, Pyke, Armstrong. Geelong: Podsiadly 2, Chapman 2, Enright, Hunt, Selwood, Motlop, Hawkins, Hunt, West.
BEST Sydney: Jack, Bolton, Johnson, McGlynn, Kennedy, O'Keefe. Geelong: Bartel, Enright, Selwood, Taylor, Chapman, Johnson.
UMPIRES C Donlon, S McInerney, D Margetts.
CROWD: 27,400 at SCG.
One of these days - somewhere in the near future - I'd love to see the Swans play a four-quarter game. It'll certainly do wonders for the legions of red-and-white fans who pack the stands each week. Last night, under the Friday night spotlight against the defending premiers, apart from their colours being different to Essendon's two weeks ago, it seemed like I was watching the same fourth quarter from that epic win at Etihad Stadium two Saturdays previous, when the Swans had to withstand a hell of a comeback from the Bombers, who very nearly erased a 47-point three-quarter-time deficit.
After two weeks to digest that near-meltdown in the last quarter...it couldn't happen again...surely it couldn't happen again, right? Wrong. It nearly happened again. After playing like world beaters in the opening three terms - and particularly during another scintillating opening quarter - Geelong came storm back into the contest, spearheaded by the irrepressible Paul Chapman, and that unfortunately for the faithful in Sydney coincided with a major fade-out by their team. As patented as the Swans and their fast starts at the SCG are becoming (9.0 three weeks ago, 7.0 this week), it seems that their late-game meltdowns are becoming patented, as well, and to the heartache of so many. Last night was not good for those with a week heart.
The last quarter was pulsating football, and the Swans seemed destined to lose. Geelong, it could be side, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They were all over the Swans, attacking where the Swans could only lock the football down. They had the momentum, every single bit of it. Their stars were up and about. The same could not quite be said fot the Swans, whose big guns, Goodes and ruckman Shane Mumford, trumpeted returnees this week, were ineffective in their first games back, which is, of course, not a surprise.
John Longmire's brave move to sub Goodes for Andrejs Everitt in the fourth proved the match winner. It was a good substitue on a night, in it's final gasps, where fresh legs were going to make all the difference. And they did. Sydney seemed to revive somewhat on the back of a gorgeous running goal from the enigmatic Kieran Jack and, at the twenty-eight minute mark of the final quarter, there was another attacking foray, a desperate one - it was that time where you sensed that the next goal, either way, would probably win the game - that ended with the brother of Swans cult hero Peter 'Spida' Everitt taking a mark. But he was forty meters out, at the least, and on a tight angle. And the junior Everitt hadn't exactly displayed sharpshooting skills to this point.
No problem. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, as Dennis Cometti says. Everitt's bomb barely looked like missing. It was a beautiful kick, and a spectacular on-field celebration as the SCG went into pandemonium. It was shades of Nick Davis in 2005 all over again. Great for Swans fans, a recurring nightmare for those in dark blue and white. That goal, to the construction end of the venerable ground, proved to be the difference. For Sydney, it was a desperate win against all odds considering how the last quarter had gone. For Geelong, perhaps just one contested mark away from reviving their top four aspirations, it was a cruel loss. So close, yet so far.
So the Swans march on, albeit a little shakily. They must be considered genuine premiership contenders now. In Essendon two weeks ago and Geelong this week, they have beaten other teams touted as being genuine premiership contenders. Of course, it would be good for them to play four quarters. You can't take a quarter off in a final and hope to win a flag.
At the end of it all, as the crowd filed home, many hoarse from screaming, frustrated and then delirious with celebration, the Sydney Swans sit atop the 2012 Toyota AFL Premiership ladder - as they were after their victory against Essendon two weeks before - at least through about 4.00pm this afternoon. And that should make the rest of the football world really sit up and take notice.
GWS next week at ANZ Stadium in the second edition of the Sydney Derby. Go Bloods!!
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