Round 7 — Brisbane v Sydney: But that’s OK

The GABBA

4 May, 2019

 

People have been saying for years that the Sydney streak would end. Season after season, and slow start after slow start. Sitting at 1-3 heading into Round 5 in 2014, the vultures were circling. The Sydney Swans, as a premiership threat, were dying. We proved them wrong and made the Grand Final (the result wasn’t amazing but still, we made it at least).

 

In 2017, 0-6, coming off a loss to Carlton at the MCG and little reason for hope … surely now the Swans were gone? A few months later, Sydney played in a pulsating game against Adelaide and won, cementing themselves as the only team to make finals after starting with six straight losses.
In late 2018, Sydney lost to Gold Coast at home after failing to fire a shot in the final three quarters. Finally they were goners. Nope, they still made the finals.

 

This year, the critics are writing us off again. This time, though … they might be right. We look slow, we look unable to score heavily, and we fall away for patches of games in which we concede a tidal wave of goals, making a comeback near impossible (though we make it interesting more often than not). We look like we might miss finals for the first time since 2009. And you know what? That’s all right. Missing finals for, what, only the second or third time since the middle of the 1990’s? Yeah, I’m OK with that.

 

Today we play the Lions, arguably the surprise packets of the competition. They have been having an awesome year so far. It continues for them early in this match, kicking the first within a minute to Hugh McCluggage. Charlie Cameron adds another not long after due to some clever forwards play. Another comes through Cutler. His name is apt as the Lions are cutting us into little pieces. Brisbane play so well. We do not. We don’t play horribly. But our skills let us down. The Lions are so unbelievably quick. They score five goals for the quarter, we have one.

 

Second term. Sydney surge. All of a sudden, it is a different game. We are the ones on top. We run, we hunt, we chase. We score, we carve, we dominate. Six goals in the second quarter. The Lions don’t score until ten minutes into the term. They kick two goals themselves. Their 28-point lead has dwindled to two. The never-say die spirit of the Swans is showing in full force tonight.

 

Third stanza. The heavens open up. The scene at the Gabba is that of India during the monsoon season. Brisbane score the first two during the biblical downpour. Papley keeps us in it with two remarkable goals, both good chances to feature in 2019 highlight reels on YouTube. It’s close, it’s tight, and it’s slippery. Turnovers kill both teams. Hipwood kicks a ripper with ten seconds remaining to extend Brisbane’s lead to 15 points at the siren. We have a game on our hands.

 

Final quarter. It’s a Mexican standoff for the first fifteen minutes or so. Goalless minutes bleed and flow into each other. It’s tense. Sydney kick a point, Brisbane kick a point. Rinse and repeat.

 

Then we break. Brisbane (with a little bit of help from the umpires) get a run on. We fight and fight, but ultimately, like so many games this year, it’s another honourable loss. Our first defeat against the Lions in ten years, in the end, is by 22 points.

 

Like so many games this year, we are undone by a horrible twenty-minute stretch. Like a couple of other losses this year, that stretch comes in the first quarter. Still, the signs are good. That second term was awesome.

 

We aren’t dead yet, but we are the walking wounded. We might not make finals this year, but that’s OK. Win, lose, or draw, I love my Swans.