Sydney has plenty of issues after being smashed by GWS in the finals
IF finals expose weaknesses, Sydney has some serious issues after the weekend’s loss to GWS. They have a problem with Buddy, don’t kick enough goals and some of their stars may be on the way out.
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IF finals expose weaknesses, Sydney have 30 glaring reasons for concern.
A team featuring Lance Franklin should not struggle to score points as much as the Swans have this season.
The 30 points scored in the 49-point loss to cross-town rivals GWS in last Saturday’s elimination final was the lowest score at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
If it wasn’t for Tom Papley and Luke Parker’s junk-time goals, the Swans would have had the lowest finals score in more than 100 years.
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It’s simplistic to look at just one match but the signs have been there all year.
The Swans haven’t been able to get past the 80-point mark in more than half their matches. Their 82.8 points-per-game average is 13th of the 18 teams in the AFL.
That is with Franklin, the greatest full-forward in a generation.
Coach John Longmire knows his team are too reliant on Franklin, who turns 32 in January, to kick a winning score and admitted as much on Saturday night.
“We’ve got some real youth there,” Longmire said of the Swans’ forward line. “And we’ve got a reliance on Lance.
“We don’t want that to happen and we want to change it. We lost our ruckman. Our fullback and centre half-forward played six games this year. Sam Reid would have made a difference but we also need to use the ball more getting into the front half.”
Tom McCartin is the Swans’ great hope. He is the youngest player in the AFL and played 15 games in the most difficult position on the ground — centre half-forward.
He is still 18 and if Sam Reid doesn’t recover from his injury problems, McCartin will be asked to do even more.
Improvement will come if Reid, Sam Naismith, Callum Mills and Lewis Melican are fit for next year but injuries are a part of AFL life and they will come again to other players.
The Giants finished seventh on the ladder but exposed enormous holes in Sydney’s supposed strength, contested football.
Callan Ward, Stephen Coniglio, Jacob Hopper, Tim Tarranto, Dylan Shiel and co. beat Josh Kennedy, Luke Parker, Dan Hannebery, George Hewett and Kieren Jack by almost 40 in contested possession on Saturday in slippery conditions which were supposed to favour the red and white.
Their defence is ageing with Jarrad McVeigh (33), Heath Grundy (32) and Nick Smith (30) all set to play key roles next year.
Smith is still uncontracted, as is Nic Newman and their most improved player of the last two years Jake Lloyd who could be headed to the Gold Coast.
Hannebery is in contract but he is another who has been linked to another club in Melbourne.
Their long serving and enormously talented CEO Andrew Ireland retires at the end of this season.
It all adds up to a time of potential turmoil in a club which has been arguably the AFL’s most stable for 20 years.
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Originally published as Sydney has plenty of issues after being smashed by GWS in the finals
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