By Vince Rugari
Two years ago, Sydney beat Collingwood by a point in a thrilling preliminary final at the SCG. The next week, they got wiped off the MCG by Geelong. That grand final came a bit too early for what was, back then, still a developing team. This one feels ... right. The Swans have fully developed, and now they are ready to take the next step.
This clash with Port Adelaide – their supposed bogy team – had the red and white faithful rattled, even though their team was widely considered the overwhelming favourite. They were fretting about their run of eight consecutive losses to the Power. They were still scarred by the 112-point defeat Port doled out a few weeks ago at Adelaide Oval.
Isaac Heeney of the Swans and Port’s Jase Burgoyne in action.Credit: AFL Photos / Getty Images
Such irrational emotions are part and parcel of being a football supporter, but irrational they indeed were. In the end, they had nothing to worry about. Port were played off the park. The Swans were measured, mature, magnificent.
And so their September redemption tour continues. It began when they ended their 3-0 finals hoodoo against the Giants at this very venue a fortnight ago. Now they have vanquished their 8-0 Port Adelaide demons.
Who knows? Maybe next week is the chance to put things right against Geelong.
Every question Port posed, the Swans answered in detail. And there were quite a few of them early: the Power had the better of general play in the first quarter, strategically blocking off the uncontested mark for Sydney, and a couple of undisciplined acts by Swans players suggested they’d burrowed under their skin. But for once, the Swans brought their pressure early, matched Port’s manic intensity at the contest, and eventually, things began to turn for them.
They even led at quarter-time, by nine points, which was its own good omen, since Sydney are notorious slow starters and the Power the exact opposite.
Players like Isaac Heeney and Chad Warner and Errol Gulden, who have typically struggled against Port, started seeing more of the ball, and doing damaging things with it. Even Joel Amartey, basically unsighted since his nine-goal haul against Adelaide mid-season, was on song. Each big effort or goal was met with a wall of noise from the 44,053 partisans in the stands at the SCG – and each time the Power floated the ball aimlessly into their forward 50, or turned it over in a dangerous position elsewhere on the field, the locals fed off their failures, and so there were more and more of them. They call that a ‘vicious cycle’. Once they were trapped in it, which was about halfway through the second quarter, it was game over.
The crowd was up and about early, angered by some dodgy calls by the umpires, indulging in the quarter-time melee sparked by Tom Papley’s decision to celebrate his goal after the siren directly in the face of Port’s Willie Rioli. They even booed a bemused Ken Hinkley when he popped up on the big screen – presumably a rejection of his behaviour towards Hawthorn’s Jack Ginnivan and James Sicily the week prior. (They booed Ginnivan last time he was here, too. Figure that out.)
The early incident involving Tom Papley.Credit: Channel Seven
When Warner kicked a long-range bomb just 41 seconds into the third quarter, they erupted; by the end of the term, they were all on their phones, booking flights to Melbourne.
And in the final minute before the final siren, they were all up on their feet, offering a spontaneous standing ovation, yelling: “Syyyyyydneeeeeeeeyyyy!”
Next weekend will be John Longmire’s fifth grand final as Swans coach. Only one of them, 2012, ended in victory, and that losing record is probably why many fans don’t have him in that uppermost echelon of coaches, even though he definitely belongs there. A second flag will make that undeniable.
What Longmire has done with this team – rebuilding them on the run, infusing them with the culture that was there before them, nurturing them into comfortably the AFL’s best team this year, teaching them how to deal with the many trials and tribulations they’ve encountered along the way – is nothing short of remarkable.
The next step is to put it together on the one day that matters more than any other.
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