Sydney v Geelong: Inaccurate Cats topple Swans as Jack, McVeigh injured
SYDNEY is licking its wounds after being comprehensively outplayed by a Geelong side that suffered a severe case of the yips and losing a pair of veterans with what appear to be long-term injuries.
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Geelong have done it the hard way to down the Swans by 12 points in a pivotal match at the SCG
The Cats almost kicked themselves out of the match with appalling wastefulness in front of goal finishing with 8.23 for the night.
The Swans again showed their ability to absorb pressure and stay in the match but Geelong would have been incredibly unlucky to come out losers. They had 31 scoring shots to the Swans 14 and a plus 13 inside 50 count but couldn’t close the deal until the dying minutes of the match.
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In a twist of fate Harry Taylor kicked the sealer with just over a minute left on the clock after missing a shot after the siren to lose to the Western Bulldogs last week.
“It was nice for Harry to get the sealer,” Geelong coach Chris Scott said.
“I thought his attitude this weeks was really good. He took responsibility for it not that the loss last week was his fault at all.”
It was one of his few important involvements as he played forward again but struggled to make an impact. Aliir Aliir kept him quiet early and then turned the screws after the break as he produced one of the best performances of his career. He finished with 19 possessions including 12 contested and eight marks.
“Aliir is a real positive,” Swans coach Longmire said.
“He was good last week as well, he picked up some form in the reserves and he’s carried that through. It’s good to have him back in a bit of form.”
As well as the possibility of dropping outside the top four the Swans also suffered serious injuries to former co-captains Kieren Jack and Jarrad McVeigh.
Jack who copped a first quarter knock to his left knee, had it strapped up and tried to play on but had the tracksuit on by the end of the term. The early diagnosis is medial ligament damage.
“It looks like a medial indications are,” Jack said.
“I did one a couple of years ago and it felt similar. I think it is on the minor side and we did tests and it is classic medial symptoms. We pulled the pin. Get some scans and the physio will let me know. Probably miss a bit of footy I would have thought.”
McVeigh went down late in the last term with a broken collarbone.
“Macca has a broken collarbone so we’ve lost a few tonight,” Longmire said.
Dan Hannebery was looking for an improvement in form but again struggled to find the ball picking up just 12 disposals for the match. Longmire revealing after the match the midfielder had picked up a calf strain early in the match.
“He hurt it early so we pushed Hanners forward,” Longmire said.
“We were a bit short on the runners through the midfield, I don’t know if he tore it but he was affected by it.”
Lance Franklin finished with four goals for the night to finish a solitary goal shy of the 900 mark for his career.
He looked the only Swan likely to hit the scoreboard and finished up with almost half his team’s goals.
His opposite number Tom Hawkins could have won the game off his own boot but finished with 2.5 for the night. It was against the grain this season with the big man coming into the match with 28.15 for the year.
While their accuracy was diabolical there were plenty of positives for the Cats who halted a two game losing streak.
They also improved their clearance rate significantly with a rare 42-37.
Geelong came into the match as the worst clearance side in the AFL at 10.7 per game.
“It’s a bit unusual when you are looking at the scoreboard and seeing that number of behinds,” Scott said.
“It wasn’t just the misses it was the number of entries we were having, we were dominant for big parts and not getting the rewards.”
“We’ve had some challenges but we’re backing in our system and if we can get all the pieces of the puzzle in shape we can play good enough footy to beat anyone.”
The Cats dominance at stoppages forced the Swans to start their attacks from half back with Jake Lloyd once again the driving force with 33 touches.
Chris Scott clearly felt the Sydney defender wasn’t causing them too much damage and was happy to let him roam unchecked.
NEIL CORDY’S BEST AND VOTES
SYDNEY: Lloyd Parker Jones Ronke Aliir Cunningham Robinson
GEELONG: Duncan T Kelly Selwood Stewart Dangerfield Tuohy
VOTES
3 Duncan
2 Parker
1 Kelly
MATCH WRAP
GEELONG 1.4 4.11 5.16 8.23 (71) d SYDNEY 2.2 3.2 7.4 9.5 (59)
GOALS
GEELONG: T Hawkins 2 T Kelly 2 H Taylor L Fogarty P Dangerfield Q Narkle.
SYDNEY: L Franklin 4 L Parker 2 D Robinson O Florent T McCartin.
UMPIRES: Matt Stevic, Jacob Mollison, Andrew Stephens.
OFFICIAL CROWD: 34,363 at SCG.