AFL 2021: Sydney Swans upset Brisbane Lions in Round 1

A trio of debutants helped Sydney stage a Round 1 ambush at the Gabba and it was a less than dreamy start for Joe Daniher.

Greg Davis

3 min read

March 21, 2021 - 7:31PM

NCA NewsWire

Dane Rampe and Lincoln McCarthy compete in the wet.

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Disappointed Brisbane coach Chris Fagan says the Lions were “fumbly”, “indecisive” and defended “poorly” in the 31-point thumping from a surging Sydney in a Round 1 romp at the Gabba on Saturday night.

The final score flattered the slow and sloppy Lions who kicked three late junk time goals against an underdog Swans side that blew the game wide open with nine goals in the third term to establish a matchwinning 41-point lead.

Sydney was too quick, too skilful and applied too much defensive pressure on the Lions who were short-priced favourites on their home deck in the season-opener.

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But with debutants Logan McDonald and Errol Gulden playing important roles with three goals apiece and Callum Mills starring as best-on-ground, the Swans were simply too good, too often for one 2021’s premiership fancies

And Fagan did not sugar-coat his displeasure after Brisbane fought back from a 25-point deficit in the second term to be level with the Swans at halftime.

“There’s a lot of things that went wrong tonight … I think we can play a lot better than that. I hope to fix them quickly. We wouldn’t want to play like that again,’’ he said.

“Tonight came as a little bit of a surprise. The players will be disappointed in themselves. It’s not the start we were after.

“It’s not the end of the world but it’s not ideal. We’ve been waiting so long to play, we don’t want to dish that up.

“We didn’t defend well tonight… we were really poor in that regard. Our reaction time to defend when they won the ball wasn’t good enough.

“Not a good night for us but a great night for Sydney. They played particularly well.’’

Sydney first-gamer Errol Gulden of the Swans celebrates one of his three goals.

The stat of Sydney taking 23 marks inside 50 compared to Brisbane’s five stood out for Fagan while the trend of Brisbane starting well and taking the foot off the pedal was a concern.

“Our composure going back inside 50 ... I don’t know whether our guys thought Joe (Daniher) and Eric (Hipwood) were up there and they were tall and they will kick it on their heads,’’ he said.

“We had 57 entries and could only take five marks so that is something we need to work on.

Our start was bright, our end to the second quarter was bright and we toughed it out in the last quarter, but the damage was done by then.”

Sydney coach John Longmire was delighted with his debutants and the way they contributed to an impressive season-opening victory.

“We played them thinking they could help us win and it’s great we’ve added some more youth to our team … and most importantly they’ve come in to do a job and compete and all of them did that. They were fantastic,’’ Longmire said.

DANIHER DRAMA

There’s never a dull moment when Joe Daniher is playing.

His first quarter in Brisbane colours included being placed on report after a centre wing tangle with Dane Rampe and a mongrel kick that somehow twisted its way through the posts for his first premiership goal for the Lions.

He finished with 2.2 in a frustrating night.

Joe Daniher takes a strong mark.

BABY BLOODS

The Swans drafted very, very cleverly with the debutant trio of Braeden Campbell, Logan McDonald and Errol Gulden all showing they are up to the level.

McDonald kicked Sydney’s first goal of the night to stop the early rot and added two more while Gulden was highly influential in the Swans’ second quarter burst with two goals and two scoring assists before finishing with three goals.

Campbell had some very nice touches in the first term.

RICH PICKINGS

Half-backs were always going to benefit from the controversial rule changes for the 2021 season. And Brisbane’s Daniel Rich will not be one of the people complaining.

The superboot had 10 touches by quarter-time and 13 by halftime before finishing with 23 disposals.

The number was high but the impact was low. While everything has been done to speed-up the game, the umpires imposed themselves on the contest a number of times, stopping players from playing on from free kicks and bringing them around behind the mark, slowing the game appreciably and unnecessarily.