Sydney have upset Melbourne and the perceived natural order of this already remarkable finals series, overcoming Melbourne, the MCG and a mid-game deficit to march into a home preliminary final at the SCG.
The Swans, who – wrongly – have seldom been viewed in the same league as Geelong or Melbourne this year, played a more precise, composed and skilful brand to overtake the Demons, who now face a cut-throat semi-final against the Brisbane Lions.
Steven May of the Demons and Sydney’s Lance Franklin square up last night.Credit:AFL Photos
The difference between the sides was most pronounced, not in the contest around the ball, or in the territorial battle – which were both even. It was in Sydney’s more fluid movement of the football into their scoring territory.
Where the pressured Demons bombed and sent harried kicks forward to out-numbered forwards, the Swans learnt to lower their eyes and find targets over the course of the match.
They eventually bypassed the match’s dominant defender Steven May, whose eclipse of Lance Franklin was a significant factor in Melbourne’s mid-game lead, which was 12 points early in the third quarter following a brace of goals to Clayton Oliver, Bayley Fritsch and Tom Sparrow.
At that point, the Demons had generated momentum from the midfield and centre bounces and seemed to be on the brink of sweeping Sydney away, as they did the Bulldogs in last year’s grand final.
But the surge wasn’t sustained and the Swans’ response – a cold-blooded counter-offensive that netted six of the next seven goals – defined the match. Those six third-quarter goals were not as labor-intensive as Melbourne’s scores, or attempts to score, which were often undone by poor decisions with the ball.
Isaac Heeney gets a kick away for the Swans.Credit:Getty Images
The difference was encapsulated in two goals during that Sydney surge of the third quarter. First, Ollie Florent spotted Luke Parker in an open space between a couple of Demons and then, in time-on, Callum Mills calmly located Tom Hickey near the top of the goal square.
Thus, a Demon run-on was extinguished, and at the final break, the Swans led by two goals, but there cannot have been many in the MCC members – and the hefty 78,000 in the ground – who fancied that the red and blue would come again.
And they did not. The momentum did not reverse again, as it had in the first two thirds of the match. By the time James Harmes was reported for crashing into Will Hayward – leading to a 50-metre penalty and gimme goal from the goal square – the Dees were done.
Bayley Fritsch marks the ball over Callum Mills.Credit:AFL Photos
Sydney had trailed the Demons at quarter-time by 10 points, having lost the early territorial battle (entries were 16-10). Clayton Oliver was his energetic and productive self, Jack Viney was in the thick of it, but the dominant figure – for the whole first half, really – was May, who took several intercept marks.
Over the course of the match, May’s influence waned, as the Swans found a way around him – by accident or design, they were no longer kicking to Melbourne’s one-man wall. If Oliver was excellent and prolific throughout, his partner in the midfield, Christian Petracca, had a less productive evening, having suffered an apparent corky in the first quarter. Melbourne’s issue, though, was a collective lack of cohesion rather than the failing of any individuals.
Sydney’s Mills and Luke Parker were exceptional around the ball, well-supported by the tireless James Rowbottom, who shapes as Sydney’s Brett Kirk 2.0. Gadfly small forward Tom Papley caused his usual havoc and helped the Swans surmount the fact that Franklin was beaten badly by May.
Sam Reid, though, took some telling marks and booted two crucial goals during the decisive swing period of the third term, one from a 50m penalty in which Kosi Pickett was pinged for running into the exclusion zone, the other from a serious pack mark from third in line.
James Harmes and Jake Lloyd collide.Credit:AFL Photos
Melbourne’s familiar problem of inefficiency – which theyseemed to solve when they dismembered the Lions at the Gabba in the final round – reared its head again. The Demons went forward without the control, smarts or skill of the Swans.
This pattern of bomb entries to out-numbered forwards, or to no one in particular, became an issue in the second quarter. There was a sense that, once the Swans found their groove in that third term, the Demons had fired their best shot, as if in a duel, and missed.
Fritsch was the exception to the rule of Melbourne’s floundering forwards, mocking a pre-game fitness test on the ground to boot three sublime goals.
The Swans are one win from their first grand final in six seasons, and they will host that preliminary final on their home turf, their first at the SCG since 1996. Whoever they meet, they will neither be underdogs, nor underestimated, then.
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