Swans turn up big-time under the Friday night lights and put a belting on a listless Collingwood!
SYDNEY 4.5 7.9 11.11 15.12 (102) COLLINGWOOD 3.2 3.4 4.5 8.7 (55)
Goals: Sydney: A Goodes 3 B McGlynn 2 D Hannebery 2 M Pyke 2 C Bird J Bolton K Jack L Jetta M Morton S Reid. Collingwood: T Cloke 3 J Elliott 2 J Witts P Seedsman S Dwyer.
Best: Sydney: Goodes, Hannabery, Jack, O'Keefe, Parker, Grundy. Collingwood: O'Brien, Pendlebury, Reid, Clarke, Ball, Elliott.
Umpires: Simon Meredith, Mathew Nicholls, Dean Margetts.
Official Crowd: 65,306 at MCG.
Well, this was a night for the ages. One that most of us won't soon forget. It started weirdly, with the team bus breaking down. Jarrad McVeigh and Dan Hannebery took a cab to the MCG. The rest of the team took advantage of Melbourne's tram service - I hope they had their Myki with them - and it appears that the unconventional game prep actually did the trick. You can imagine that the Swans front office might be considering funding a tram line to every venue they play at, if it's going to reap benefits as it reaped benefits tonight.
Make no mistake, this was a shellacking of the highest order. Yes, the Pies kicked some late goals to bring the game back to around the fifty-point margin, but when the game was on the line, Collingwood went missing. But, for the most part, were slow, listless, hapless, tired, bored. Not really there. The Swans, on fire tonight, played all over them from about halfway through the first period, holding the Pies goalless in the second quarter.
This game was won, the Pies stifled and shut down, thanks to a solid combination of hard running, fierce tackling and an incredible ability, unseen last week at home and two weeks ago at the MCG, ability to move the football from the back line into their attacking zone with relative ease. The scoreboard told the story: 7.6 to 1.3 in the second and third quarter was where the game was won.
The Pies were never really in this. They were second at every contest. Their forward line was impotent, other than Travis Cloke, their defenders run over the top of, their midfield dominated. It was Adam Goodes, now a 400-goal superstar, who had the best game of his season tonight Hannebery fresh off his cab ride to the 'G, Kieran Jack, Jarrad McVeigh, Luke Parker and Ryan O'Keefe, the usual suspects, responsible for the Collingwood midfield stars being neutralised. Dane Swan was barely noticed. So, too, was Scott Pendlebury and Nick Maxwell. The fleet of small Collingwood forwards, Andrew Krakouer amongst them, were ineffective at best, woeful at worst. Lewis Jetta had a return to form, adding another run-and-goal to his ever-growing highlight reel. This highlight effectively won Sydney the game.
It seemed like the Swans had brought their own footy on the tram to the MCG, such was their domination. Most Collingwood raids were snuffed out, Grundy, Malceski and Richards and Rampe patrolled the Swans' back half with relative ease. Cloke was mostly double-teamed, his effectiveness countered by Richards and co getting across, frustrating him, almost worrying him out of the football. Of course, it didn't help that the Pies were so one dimensional in attack.
This wasn't the same team who knocked Geelong off their perch last Saturday, that's for sure. I must admit a certain amount of nervousness when they kicked two goals straight and looked to have found a spark midway through the fourth quarter. But the score ballooned back out as the Swans, who had possibly taken the foot off the accelerator to some point, jammed it back on, and won by 47 in the end, a result very few saw coming.
A good win, against Collingwood and at the MCG, and the Swans have had trouble doing both in recent times. I wasn't exactly sure it would be a win tonight, and I certainly didn't expect the Bloods to win so handily. But a pleasant surprise, and a warning, perhaps, to the AFL that the Swans can now get it done in Melbourne, and they look in good shape, with the likes of Kurt Tippet, Marty Mattner, Rhyce Shaw and Lewis Roberts-Thomson still to come back. Next week's game against Essendon is a salivating one, and sure to be a belter.
Sadly, now, to the story that will dominate the aftermath of the game: the apparent racial slur directed at Adam Goodes by a young Collingwood fan in the last quarter. Goodes heard it, was obviously appalled, and made security aware of what had happened. We then saw the footage of the fan being escorted from the ground. Suddenly, the result of the game was less important. Goodes left the ground, and didn't return for the final siren or the post-game celebrations. The star of the game not going out onto the field for press commitments? Something obviously very wrong had happened. Goodes doesn't jump at shadows. For him to react like that...you can only imagine what horrible things were yelled over the fence. Senseless, dumb, stupid. Words can not accurately describe this girl's brain fade.
If it was indeed a racial slur, and that is still to be proven, this is a major blight on the game, on a game that has come so far socially, and has worked so hard to eradicate racism from the football community. And it has worked. Their cultural awareness programs are something the League should be mightily proud of. Tonight, it seems, and through no fault of their own, the AFL has taken a giant step backward.
Let's get one thing straight: There is absolutely no place in footy - or in life - for that sort of behaviour. That it's happened during the AFL's indigenous round is even worse. This is the week, with it's centrepiece Dreamtime at the 'G, where we're highlighting the amazing contribution that indigenous stars like Goodes and Lewis Jetta, Harry O'Brien and Andrew Krakouer, and remembering the great stars of Aboriginal descent who have gone before.
This is going to be a bad week of press, if the worst is confirmed. For Collingwood, in the twenty-year shadow of their supporters villifying Nicky Winmar at Victoria Park, which brought about the St Kilda star's famous jumper-raising moment, this is a travesty. It will do no good for the reputation of Collingwood fans, already not great, and they will surely be in damage control over this. As will the AFL. It was a disgusting act, and a life ban doesn't seem quite enough for a moment that, sadly, will define Indigenous Round in 2013. A shame, because the focus should be on Adam Goodes for his work on the field, which was lifted from the Top Shelf tonight.
Go Bloods.
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