By Vince Rugari
If ever there was a goal that summed up a team, it was the one Sydney conceded at the start of their eight-point defeat to Port Adelaide. The passage of play involved Tom McCartin and Hayden McLean contesting the same ball on the members’ side wing at the SCG. McLean marked it and booted it forward to … nobody.
Port easily recovered the ball, Lachie Jones shrugged off the attention of three Sydney defenders, and they whipped the ball through the middle of the ground, largely unchallenged, via a series of handballs. Jason Horne-Francis found Willie Rioli, who found Mitch Georgiades, who found Sam Powell-Pepper on his own in the square. Goal. All uncontested marks. Too easy.
Yes, they’re missing a bunch of top-liners through injury, and most of their first-choice forward line, and it’s impacting how they set up … but they should be much better than this.
The Swans responded through a miraculous Isaac Heeney snap – their only true moment of joy across the first half – but the visitors piled on the next five, a run that effectively decided the match.
For the 36,679 who chose to spend their Easter Sunday at the footy, it was painful viewing: routine skill errors, poor decision-making, missed tackles and a general lack of hunger. The numbers looked OK at half-time – they had a +24 edge in contested possessions, which became +46 at the end – but they were badly failing the eye test.
When they did have the run of play, they couldn’t make it count. Not for the first time this year, execution was a problem. The Swans left plenty of goals out there; the final scoreline of 13.7 (85) to 10.17 (77) says as much, as does McLean’s personal return of 2.4.
Will Hayward takes a spectacular mark for the Swans at the SCG on Sunday.Credit: Getty Images
He wasn’t alone. Twice in a row late in the second quarter, Nick Blakey was streaking through to the 50-metre arc, ready to sweep the ball home with his left. Both times, the crowd voiced their expectation – only for him to hit the post with his first attempt and put it wide with his second, leaving Dean Cox apoplectic on the bench.
“Some missed opportunities all the way through the game, really. I said to the players, did we deserve to win? Probably not,” Cox said post-match.
“I think that’s one of the lowest efficiency games we’ve had. We created opportunities, but the ability to finish off your work, as long as we’ve all been around, is the most important thing in footy.”
Every time the Swans mounted a challenge, Port seemed to have the answers. Before they had a chance to even ask another question in the third quarter, Willem Drew belted one through the middle after just 11 seconds. That didn’t bode well, but the Swans went on to score consecutive goals for the first time all day through James Rowbottom, Will Hayward and McLean – only for Port to reply with perfectly efficient counter-attacking moves finished off by Darcy Byrne-Jones and Rioli.
The Swans are wallowing in 13th spot after six rounds this season.Credit: Getty Images
For all the ground that it felt like the Swans had made up, the Power’s lead actually grew by one point – and then six more, when Powell-Pepper added another goal just 30 seconds into the final term, by which point Sydney’s goose was cooked.
Or so it seemed. The late injection of substitute Aaron Francis as a spearhead forward gave the Swans one last push, and it briefly frightened the Power. He kicked three unanswered goals, all from set shots, to bring the crowd alive – but when the ball bounced off his hands as he attempted to take a fourth mark inside 50, he spilled Sydney’s hopes of an unlikely comeback, too.
And yet. Somehow, it was still alive right to the end, but it probably shouldn’t have been; a dropped mark by McLean in the goal square with less than two minutes to go let Port off the hook, as did their final-quarter score of 5.8. In the end, the Power hung on grimly, and the Swans were left to kick themselves. They now have a 2-4 record this season.
Port coach Ken Hinkley said: “Our pressure won the game for us. As much as we felt a bit of heat in that last quarter, I think the pressure in the whole four quarters won us the game.”
For Port, the only negatives were the third-quarter exit of Ollie Wines with a heart scare – and an incident involving former Swan Aliir Aliir and a member of the crowd, who appeared to throw a cardboard banner at him as he approached the fence at the Randwick end after taking a mark.
Police and SCG staff were still investigating the incident, but the offender is likely to be hit with a venue ban. The Swans said in a statement that they were working to find out if he was a member, and re-iterated the club’s zero-tolerance stance towards any form of abuse.
Both coaches were unclear on the details when they spoke post-match, but Hinkley summed up their perspective: “Let’s respect our footballers, that’s the most important thing. Let them do what they do. [If] you come to watch them, just admire them for what they are, I would have thought, and enjoy the game. If you can’t do that, please don’t come.”
On Wines, who was diagnosed with a heart condition in 2022, Hinkley said he took himself off after noticing an irregularity.
“It sounds really bad when you talk about someone’s heart, but the reality is he’s got a good handle on it, our medical team have got an incredibly good handle on it, so we feel safe enough around what’s going on,” he said. “Past performances would suggest he’ll be fine. He’s okay now. He’s just a little frustrated, if I’m being honest, about what happened.”
