Mick McGuane column: Time has arrived for Sydney’s leaders to set standard and save season with derby win over GWS Giants
The Sydney Swans season will go up in smoke if they can’t prove they’re willing to take a hit for teammates in what shapes as a combative local derby against GWS, writes Mick McGuane.
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The mere mention of the word ‘local derby’ just gets the competitive juices flowing.
Sydney’s inspirational captain Dane Rampe has declared the Swans season is on the line and that their senior players must lift.
One can only imagine how they’ll come out firing at the SCG on Saturday night. If they don’t, well it’s just about curtains for Sydney in 2019.
You can also count on a fierce response from GWS after their sub-par performance last week against Fremantle. It was the one that got away.
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I’m expecting this to be a really combative contest and both teams will be looking to dominate contested possession.
That requires urgency right across the board.
Swans players must be thinking, ‘I need to take a hit for the team’. Whether it be a ground ball or a highball, if it’s your turn to go, you must go.
That’s where you win admiration from your teammates and the direct spin-off will be that others will feed off your actions and it will engender the right type of morale and ethos.
Players will think, ‘I’m going to follow suit here because when it’s my turn to go and I don’t go, then I’m the weak link in that chain’.
No one wants to live with that when you’ve signed off on a mantra for what you’re going to stand for.
If you don’t live and breathe that creed you will know you’ve let the other 21 blokes down and that will be the Dane Rampe message.
If it’s season on the line, the senior players have got to drive the standards and the will and appetite for the contest.
It’s got to be Josh Kennedy, it’s got to be Luke Parker, it’s got to be Isaac Heeney, it’s got to be Lance Franklin, it’s got to be George Hewitt and it’s got to be Rampe.
‘I’m going to fight like hell to win that contest and that will win admiration from my teammates.’
But the reality from a Sydney standpoint is it’s going to be easier said than done. Quite simply, they’ve been belted in the contest this year.
Sydney are ranked 17th in the competition for contested footy and clearances and against GWS, territory will be a major issue for them.
They’re ranked last for inside 50 differential and if they allow the footy to live in the GWS forward 50, it tells me Stephen Coniglio, Tim Taranto, Josh Kelly and Jacob Hopper will all have big games and have dominated the midfield clash.
The Giants have been super-efficient with their inside 50s, scoring 47 per cent of the time.
Toby Greene is a star and GWS are a much better team with him back. Not only because of his presence but also because of his goalkicking craft and ability. He brings a bit of mongrel to the Giants that they otherwise haven’t got.
Opposition clubs are on edge when Greene is around that forward 50.
In my eyes, this derby swings enormously on the battle between Lance Franklin and Phil Davis, who has been named despite ankle concerns.
Davis mastered Buddy in last year’s final. He doesn’t allow Buddy to get goal side of him and when you own that back space, you put it into Buddy’s mind that he has to venture up the ground.
I reckon the Giants will be really happy if Buddy is winning the ball 70 or 80 metres from goal rather than in the scoring range.
If Davis had been ruled out, I’m not sure the Giants had another who can play that role on Buddy.
Aidan Corr has the athleticism, but is he strong enough in the contest, or good enough with mobility? Good luck with that.
Originally published as Mick McGuane column: Time has arrived for Sydney’s leaders to set standard and save season with derby win over GWS Giants
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