Bullet Dodged - Sydney Avoid a 0-3 Start

It wasn’t the sort of weather you might expect for what could be called an apocalyptic sort of match-up between two teams who know that going 0-3 to start an AFL season – even a long season – would not be at all conducive to playing finals football. Where there should perhaps have been dark storm clouds gathering on the fringes of horizon around the picturesque Adelaide Oval, there were instead clear blue skies and unfettered sunshine. In short, it was a perfect day for football.

At least to begin the day. For, after four quarters of football, someone’s season would be on shaky ground. Although it was billed as the Match of Round, it really wasn’t, not with Collingwood and Geelong to square off at the MCG tonight, but what this football game certainly featured was a titanic struggle between two desperate teams.

Adelaide Oval looked tremendous. The revamped grandstands, the traditional hill, the vintage scoreboard and the 19^th Man, as Dwayne Russell has apparently taken to calling the Crows fans when they were in full voice – I wonder if he has been watching a little too much Seattle Seahawks football over the summer – was up and about. It had the feel of a late-season game between two teams on the outer and looking in, still hunting for a spot in the Finals. 

It was good footy, and there were good signs early from the Swans. The players who had been less than their usually-impressive selves in the first two games, losses to GWS and then Collingwood, were getting the football and, more importantly, making good decisions when they had it. McVeigh, Parker, Kennedy, McGlynn and O’Keefe looked like different guys.

If the Swans had been underdone during their first two games of the season, they look to have found their fitness. Doubtless, the thought of going to three games without a win has spurred them on. The midfield, that vaunted Rolls Royce of the football team, was slick and fast, precise and surgical. It was an encouraging start.

Leading by five goals at the first break, the Swans had to know the Crows would come. And they did, with a flourish. If they handed the scoreboard advantage to the most dominant team of the quarter, then Adelaide would have held the lead at half-time and perhaps again at the final change, for they were superb in general play, limiting the Swans for the most part, though a combination of a woeful lack of scoreboard pressure – they had the majority of the ball and the Inside 50s, but could not convert – and equally woeful turnovers kept the Swans in the game and in the lead.

Oh, the Crows were close. They had momentum fully on their side in the third, coming within two points, and it seemed like Uncle Mo might propel the home team to the lead. It was a deafening home field advantage then, the 19^th Man up and about. 

Yet, this was to be Sydney’s day. It seemed that whenever the team needed a steadying goal, it came. Invariably, it came via one of the old hands: Jack, McVeigh or one of those new-old hands like Luke Parker. Harry Cunningham showed his ability to kick a clutch goal or two in his best performance for the Swans. 

Oh, and there’s that guy who wears #23 for the Swans. I think he came across in the off-season in a trade that was somewhat off the radar. What’s his name again? That’s right…Lance Franklin. Buddy finished with four goals and nine scoring assists to his name. As he looked better against Collingwood than against GWS, Buddy looked better against Adelaide than he did against the Magpies. He seems to be gelling with his midfield, and certainly got the best delivery from them that he’s ever seen. 

There were flashes of Franklin’s individual brilliance, too. His ability to kick a long ball is a joy to behold. It was the imposing Buddy of old. Most encouraging of all? Seeing him in the defensive end making tackles late in the first half, when the Crows were pressing for another goal. That’s the sort of play that will endear you to the Swans, famous for their working-class, all-in attitude.

Yet, the star of the day was definitely Parker, who kicked four, popped up to do some beautiful defensive work and apparently had the footy on a string, rolling up twenty-six touches. It seemed that every moment the Swans needed something, it eventuated only after #26 took possession of the footy. If it had been his idea during the week to take the Swans team on his shoulder and will them across the line, then it worked. It worked brilliantly.

Parker’s third goal of the game was the fourth straight for the Swans after the Crows crept to within two points midway through the third, and the fourth was all Sydney, all the time. The resurgent Bloods kicked seven unanswered to storm home for a 63-point win that didn’t look anywhere near as secure at three-quarter time. Jarrad McVeigh took an incredible mark to start the onslaught, and sub Gary Rohan was a timely injection of pace throughout.  Sydney, the team who looked winded and impotent in the last quarter against Collingwood, were full of run and precision and killer instinct this week. The 19^th Man was pretty quiet by that stage.

Adelaide were woeful in the final term, and at times Sydney looked as though they were playing an intra-club scrimmage, such was the lack of compete from their opposition. By way of that last-quarter capitulation. It will be a long week for Brenton Sanderson and the Adelaide Football Club. Like the media in Sydney has been tough on Franklin and the Swans, the South Australian media will shine a spotlight on another week where the Crows were in the game in the third quarter, and completely fell apart in the fourth.

On the other side, it will be sighs of relief and a sense, perhaps, that things are coming together for the Swans. A week without innuendo and rumour in the press will be a welcome change. Perhaps Buddy might get lauded for his strong four-goal game – shock, horror, I know – though the lion’s share of press coverage should go to Parker, who was outstanding in every way possible. So was Kennedy, whose twenty-eight touches nicely complimented what Parker did.

Rumours of Sydney’s demise (some fuelled by Melbourne’s media corps, who are still stung by Franklin’s desire to leave it’s fishbowl-like environment) has been greatly exaggerated, and the Swans have a nice chance to build. Buddy will get better again and with two games at the Sydney Cricket Ground in as many weeks – North Melbourne next Sunday, Fremantle on Easter Saturday – the Swans can re-stake their claim to a top four spot, and settle down a somewhat nervous fan base. 

Based on what I saw today and last night, there’s no reason to think that the Swans won’t give Fremantle a massive shake, particularly on the close confines of the SCG, which the team in red and white play better than anyone else. With Melbourne and Brisbane to come after that, the mid-season run is setting itself up very nicely.

Breathe easy now, Swans fans. That pall of doom and gloom just might be lifting.