As far as football matches go, they don’t come much better – especially not in June – than the one we witnessed today in Sydney. In front of more than 41,000 fans at the Sydney Cricket Ground (the biggest football crowd in seventeen long years at the city’s most storied sporting venue), the Swans held off a surging, gallant Port Adelaide side to pull within one win of the Power, who remain atop the AFL Toyota Premiership Ladder.
Be that as it may, it will likely be the Swans who are installed as premiership favourites, at least with the bookmakers, but almost certainly with a lot of AFL pundits and scribes, for they were nearly at their best today, and their best, with some notable players not in today’s side, seems pretty damn good at the moment.
Two weeks after putting Geelong to the sword on the same ground, the Swans were faced with a team eerily similar to their own: blessed by a brilliant midfield, electric forwards and a sturdy defence. No matter where you looked, there were good players, and tough match-ups. No matter that Port Adelaide have a dismal record at the SCG, winning only 3 of 12 coming in. You sensed this one was going to go to the wire.
Boy, did it ever. Early on, it was the Swans. They kicked the first two, and were it not for inaccurate kicking might have flown away from the slow-starting Power like they flew away from Geelong two weeks ago. Had Sydney lost, they might have rued their early kicking gremlins. As it was, they allowed Port Adelaide a sniff. The visitors from South Australia soon found their legs, and got right back into the contest.
The lead flipped back and forth a few times, and no lead felt like a comfortable one. Not the way momentum was slipping and sliding. Not even when the Swans went ahead by twenty-one points in the third, and appeared ready to march onwards to victory. It turned out to be a false dawn, the game going right down to the final half-minute, when Sydney relied on a rushed behind after a frenzied exchange in the shadow of their own goal to ice the victory. The subsequent kick-out allowed Swans fans to breathe a sigh of relief and to preserve a narrow four-point win.
I saw today why Port Adelaide are such an exciting team. Their brand of football is a brave, impulsive, fast-flowing one, and it’s great to watch. Sydney, of course, match them in that area, but it was the Power late who looked the goods. A nervous buzz seemed to circulate the SCG, because the visitors were on top. They were coming home with a wet sail, the Swans with a limp one, their midfield visibly sagging under the onslaught, which is to be anticipated after a short six-day turnaround coming on the heels of a tough battle against the Gold Coast and their fleet of blue-chip midfield stars.
Of course, it would have been no injustice for the Swans to have lost to the Power on Saturday afternoon. Not when the Power sat – and still sit – atop the AFL Premiership ladder. And especially not because Port are known for coming home hard, for their ability to finish, for their ability to run harder and for longer than the other team, and for running the other team ragged. It was all on display today.
So, too, was the worth of Lance Franklin’s off-season recruitment, a move that has been scrutinised more than any other player transaction in Sydney’s history. The power forward stepped to the plate when his side needed him the most. On perhaps the biggest stage there’s been in footy so far this year, the superstar strutted his stuff. And, let me tell you, that’s some strut.
After a slow start, Franklin cut loose, kicking the last five Sydney goals of the game to give the Swans an impressive win, another win against a league heavyweight, following wins over Geelong, Hawthorn and Fremantle on a winning streak stretched now to eight.
To say that Buddy kicked five goals scarcely does his performance today the justice it deserves. This was one from the top shelf. We’ve all seen Franklin do magical things on the footy field before, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that we will remember this day – well, the second half, anyway – as one of the greatest when his glittering career is all said and done.
When Franklin got off the chain, there was no stopping him. There were times there where it seemed like he was toying with the Port Adelaide defenders. A 50m bomb as the game ticked into time on in the final quarter was something extraordinary, bettered only by a thumping 70m goal that brought the SCG fans to their feet that’ll surely be replayed a thousand and one times over the next week. There’s nothing more exciting and, for opposing teams, fearsome, than Buddy in full flight. When he’s up and about, when that trademark strut is on, watch out.
Earlier in the game, it was Adam Goodes. The two indigenous superstars filled the void left by Kurt Tippett, who underwent knee surgery in the week. Goodes was superb in the first half, taking advantage of Port Adelaide’s double-team on Franklin to turn back the clock, showing off some vintage skills, enthralling a crowd, in whose eyes Goodes can do no wrong. His career may be winding down, but the last few games have proven that the Australian of the Year can still turn a game on it’s head.
Port Adelaide have lost few admirers after today’s narrow loss and Buddy, who has not exactly experienced a unanimous welcome to the harbour city, certainly gained a few more admirers tonight. The Buddy Show, it’s a hell of a thing, isn’t it? I look forward to a September rematch.
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