Sydney forced its way back into flag contention after line in the sand moment against Carlton
SYDNEY’S season was effectively over after Round 6 but an embarrassing loss to Carlton provided a line in the sand moment that forced the Swans into dramatic changes.
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NICK Smith vividly remembers the look on Dane Rampe’s face — a mixture of regret and dread.
The brilliant Sydney defender had just broken his arm, not on the ground, but on a fool’s errand.
Rampe fell as he jumped over a 20cm high chain-link fence outside the SCG only days before a Round 2 clash against the Western Bulldogs.
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And, worse than the pain of an arm broken just below the elbow, was the realisation he had to go and tell the boss.
“I remember him coming into the rooms,” Smith said this week.
“His elbow was already seriously swollen. He was there trying to build up the courage to go and tell ‘Horse’ (coach John Longmire) what had happened.
“It was just a light jog and it was only a bit of chain and his foot got caught. He was out for seven or eight weeks.”
Everything that could go wrong for the Swans did. And it continued for weeks.
A late start to pre-season training, post-season surgery for several stars and injuries and illness for key players — Isaac Heeney suffered glandular fever.
By Round 6, the Swans were winless, their season effectively over considering no team had ever made the finals after making such a disastrous start.
If there is a book about the Swans’ season, it will have a villain (those pesky Hawks), a triumphant hero (Longmire) and a dramatic turning point.
The reality is perhaps more mundane, but 187-gamer Smith said a line was drawn in the sand after the Round 6 loss to Carlton.
The flashpoint was Carlton’s rag-dolling of Rising Star winner Callum Mills, as the Swans slumped to an embarrassing loss at the MCG.
Their stars were out of form, their football was awful and they hadn’t even stood up for their star kid.
“It wasn’t good enough by us,” Smith said.
“Millsy is a pretty strong kid and he can cope with it all right, but it is pretty disappointing to reflect on how that happened and I am glad we have done something about.
“You look back and it is like, ‘S---, it wasn’t good enough’. We decided we needed to take some ownership of it. Guys had been trying to get their own backyard right instead and then the problems snowball.”
After that Blue day, Sydney was officially at rock bottom.
According to Longmire, football manager Tom Harley and Smith, it was a result of a series of misadventures that began with a late pre-season.
A harrowing Grand Final loss to the Bulldogs was bad enough, but when the Swans planned their pre-season they knew they were up against it.
Normally able to slot in 28 football sessions, they had time for only 20 before the pre-season competition.
Lance Franklin needed shoulder surgery, Luke Parker PCL surgery, Sam Naismith shoulder surgery and Dan Hannebery was battling a serious medial ligament injury.
And the hits kept coming: Jarrod McVeigh’s calf was slow to heal; Allir Allir had turf toe; Tom Papley a knee injury and Gary Rohan a bad back.
By the end of the pre-season only Jake Lloyd and Zak Jones had completed all 20 sessions.
As the early losses mounted, footage of Longmire screaming profanities behind his hand in the coaches box became common but, as Harley recently reflected, behind the scenes it might have been his greatest hour.
“John has never coached better,” Harley said.
“We all had to roll our sleeves up — the players, coaches, support staff — and get on with it and back our systems and processes and believe it would turn around.”
The Swans couldn’t get the ball in their hands, couldn’t move it when they did and were conceding 99 points a game.
Smith said Longmire stripped it right back.
“There was a view that we just have to try harder, and just play better. But after Round 6 we really pinpointed areas to work on.
“We had focus points we could actually measure rather than just wanting to play well.
“When you are playing badly there are 1000 things you aren’t doing well — contested ball, ball movement, stoppages. Having a few of them that we could look up and relate how we went on a Monday was good.”
Round 7 (Brisbane Lions) and Round 8 (North Melbourne) were soft kills and the momentum started growing.
Kieren Jack, so terrible as he battled hip injuries, is back with two-way run, and Parker and Hannebery have finally shrugged off their injuries. In the past 14 weeks — with only two six-point losses, both to Hawthorn — the Swans have been remarkable.
Mick O’Loughlin, the Sydney 300-gamer who was the club’s academy coach until last year, said it was how Sydney operated.
“Everyone just knuckled down and tightened up in the areas they had to and what could have been a waste of a season turned out to be really good,” O’Loughlin said.
“This is a huge game against Adelaide (Friday night). I am flying over for it. I love John Longmire. He was the forwards coach when I was playing. He knows how to motivate and get players up.
“He is so meticulous. Football isn’t rocket science. You just continue to work hard and do the right things and eventually it turns.”
Smith said there was no nonsense with Longmire — he told players what they were doing wrong and how to fix it.
“The one word I would use is ‘honest’,” Smith said. “Whether it be giving sprays or not, he just said it how it was. We have got guys with good character and if you hit them between the eyes, they respond.”
Sydney’s premiership credentials look irresistible, at least on a par with Adelaide.
From Round 7 on, the Swans have jumped from 16th to second in points for, 13th to first for points against, 17th to first for contested possessions. They rank first in offensive ball movement, third for defensive ball movement and first for overall ball movement.
Former star Jude Bolton said the Bloods had “got their fear factor back”.
“That was always the hallmark of the Swans during their successful periods — teams don’t want to play them,” Bolton said. “From talking to some players, they were still very confident during that early period.
“In Melbourne or Adelaide you might have your tail between your legs and have so much pressure on you.
“But up there you don’t see massive fluctuations. They are so measured. They don’t ride the rollercoaster.
“It would be a remarkable story if they can get up.”
The AFL, which can be a cruel business, threw up a miracle last year in the Western Bulldogs’ fairytale run to a premiership.
To paraphrase Anthony Hudson’s famous call after the 2006 Grand Final, who would have thought the sequel might be better than the original?
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