AFL great Dermott Brereton says the Grand Final rematch will come down to personnel

IT is shaping up as a classic encounter. But when Sydney and the Western Bulldogs square off, it will be the Dogs laughing last, writes Dermott Brereton.

Marcus Bontempelli will play in the Grand Final rematch on Friday night. Picture: Getty Images

THERE’S a long-held belief that any team can beat any other in the opening four rounds of the season.

Team trends that will be accurately reflected by statistics later in the season can be made to look a mockery in the first month.

Some teams will have trained all summer to tweak to their game plans and styles only to discover they are incapable of implementing them. Others will evolve and learn on the run, so how they play in Round 14 could be very different to Round 4.

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The Western Bulldogs’ scoring against Collingwood last Friday night is a case in point.

Notwithstanding that perhaps their greatest goal of 2016 was in the preliminary final against the Giants — when Jason Johannisen won possession in the back pocket and sliced his way through several opponents and landed the ball in the capable hands of Marcus Bontempelli, who calmly ran into an open goal from inside 50 — the Doggies didn’t kick very many goals at all last season when coming out of their back half. They averaged about two out of the 12 they kicked each week.

Marcus Bontempelli in action during last year’s Grand Final. Picture: Mark Stewart

Yet against Collingwood last weekend they kicked six goals following chains of possession that started inside their defensive 50m.

That is not what we have become accustomed to seeing. The Dogs are a rabid pressure team that wins the ball in the middle, exits the midfield congestion quickly by hand and lets the forwards to do the rest. And if those forwards fluff an opportunity, the pressure they apply inevitably gives them another shot when the opposition coughs up the ball.

Collingwood’s midfield took the game to the premier and, in all honesty, probably had the better of the Dogs. No Jordan Roughead in the ruck and a new rule preventing Bontempelli from being third man up meant the Doggies midfielders were given a different view of the world.

But they are a fantastic team and fantastic teams find a way to win. They did it by carrying the ball from one end of the ground to the other.

But if you think Sydney is going to allow the Dogs to kick six goals starting from their back half on Friday night, you have rocks in your head. Even without Dean Rampe, the Swans’ defensive systems are too good for that.

Rampe is a huge loss — they will miss his vision and his last line sweeping — but he can be covered.

Unlike the Grand Final, this time the Doggies will have to combat a 100 per cent fit Lance “Buddy” Franklin and they will be without their general, Dale Morris.

But the one aspect of this game that I cannot get away from is the personnel.

The match committees of both clubs would have had to consider two big questions last night: Can you select players tempered in the fires of battle with the experience that only a Grand Final can teach; and, Are those who haven’t performed in a Grand Final (for example, Stewart Crameri) an automatic selection anyway?

Lance Franklin after last year’s Grand Final. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The Bulldogs will put on the field 21 out of 22 players who meet those criteria.

To my reckoning, Sydney had only 16 of 22 last weekend. With Rampe injured, the number falls to 15 this week.

But can the Swans’ defensive system and a fit Buddy take care of the Doggies pressure machine in the middle? That same pressure team won 23 more contested possessions than the Swannies in the Grand Final, but couldn’t knock over the Magpies midfield last week and had to rely on game craft.

But when you start talking game craft, Josh Kennedy, Dan Hannebery, Luke Parker, Kieren Jack and Jarrad McVeigh will politely hold the door open and say: “Step into the office.”

The Grand Final margin was 22 points. Friday night it should be less than half that. Perhaps because the Doggies have 21 seasoned soldiers to outlast the Swans’ 15, I’m leaning to the Doggies. Just.

Originally published as AFL great Dermott Brereton says the Grand Final rematch will come down to personnel