‘No one will beat us’: Why James Rowbottom believes Swans could be unstoppable in 2024

After the best performance of his career, James Rowbottom believes there’s even more improvement to come from the ladder-leading Swans.

James Rowbottom. Picture: Getty Images

While Errol Gulden may have claimed best-on-ground honours in the Sydney Derby, James Rowbottom produced his best match in a Swans guernsey against the Giants on Saturday.

He finished the match with career-best figures for disposals (32), kicks (19) and clearances (11) in a performance that reminded the competition that John Longmire’s side has more than one way to tear you apart.

But it’s a testament to Rowbottom’s selfless mindset that amid all his individual records, his defensive duties were still front of mind.

“I was actually trying to limit Tom Green’s work,” Rowbottom said. “He’s a quality player himself and he kind of led me to the ball I guess.

“That’s just what I focus on, I don’t focus on the outcomes at all. He was off the chain towards the end of the first and the message came down for me to go to him. So that was my role for the rest of the game.

“He got a couple of touches late, but I thought I could tick that one off.”

Despite a career-best game, Rowbottom was more focused on his defensive work. Picture: Jason McCawley/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

Green was one of his side’s best on the night, but it was a credit to Rowbottom that he completed at less than 70 per cent efficiency for the game.

The 23-year-old Swan was near flawless in the opening half and was crucial in Sydney’s best moments. When they kicked seven goals straight in the second term to take the game away from their opponents, he was at the heart of half of them.

He rightly earned strong praise from his coach who suggested Rowbottom should receive more credit as one of the best pressure players in the competition.

“(He created the goals) not through anything other than his effort,” Longmire said. “That takes skill to be able to see it and do it well and consistently.

“That should be recognised with him. He’s really good at his craft, he knows what to do and he knows what his game is. His contest-to-contest surge footy was fantastic.

“He’s been very important for us. He puts enormous pressure around the ball … he was always at the next contest.”

The underrated midfielder finished with a game-high 10 score involvements against the Giants. Picture: Phil Hillyard

The 27-point victory was another indication of just how clinical the Swans have been this year. Despite the constant rain hammering down on the players throughout the match, Sydney’s ability to adapt and find different ways to get the ball forward was a significant feature of their win.

Rowbottom says the team were instructed to get the ball inside 50 as regularly as they could, and their unanswered 10-goal stretch showed how damaging their varied game plans can be.

As hard as the Giants tried to play their orange tsunami style, the Swans’ ability to hit them on turnovers was far too strong.

“If you try and do too much with the ball, especially in the wet, it can come back to bite you and scores from turnover can stack up against you,” he said.

“But I think just doing the basics well and one handball, kick and surge forward, turning the defenders around, it’s something we focused on early in the wet and is something we can tick off.

“We think that if we can set up the ground good enough … we can turn it back over and we’re a very good chance to score again. That’s a big part of our scoring method at the moment and if we can keep that up it will go a long way for us.”

Rowbottom believes that if the Swans can find more consistency, they could be unstoppable. Picture: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images

The Swans are three games clear on the rest of the competition but they still don’t believe they’re playing their best footy. However, Rowbottom has an ominous warning that their best is still to come.

“Our improvement at the moment is putting together four quarters,” he said. “It’s been our starts of late and today it was the end of the game. They kicked a couple late which is disappointing.

“It was our lapse of concentration and going away from our processes. As cliche as it sounds … we think if we can do our basics for long enough, no one will beat us.

“Horse (Longmire) is massive on making our game plan as bulletproof as possible. We don’t need to do anything special. It’s about locking in on our defence, our roles and our patterns and that will take us as far as we need to go.”

Originally published as ‘No one will beat us’: Why James Rowbottom believes Swans could be unstoppable in 2024