Australian Football

Match Report

As the old saying goes, a week is a long time, and that fact is perhaps never more truly demonstrated than during the finals. Friday night's match at the MCG provided one of the starkest examples of recent times, with Geelong, made to look second-rate for much of the second half against Richmond only a week earlier, thrashing the Sydney Swans in a stunning reversal of form. 

The Swans had themselves looked like world-beaters only six days before, annihilating Essendon at the SCG, but despite having had the best recent form-line of any side in the league, they came unstuck against a very hungry Geelong outfit. Ultimately Sydney's slow start to the 2017 season eventually caught up with them. Although they recovered magnificently from a 0-6 start to reach the finals, they fell short of a top-four berth and the accompanying double chance, meaning that one 'off' game would spell the end of their campaign. That game came on Friday night, and the Cats made them pay dearly.

Geelong had been at long odds to defeat the Swans amongst most pundits, and the late withdrawal of Tom Lonergan served only to lengthen them further. Lonergan has long been the Cats' 'go to' man for Sydney games, as he has done many a fine job of quelling the influence of the Swans' star forward Lance Franklin, and in the eyes of many, his late omission from the side because of illness was a virtual guarantee of a Sydney win.

But Geelong, and specifically their coach Chris Scott, had other ideas. In a masterstroke move, Scott rejigged his line-up to devastating effect. He had planned to play Harry Taylor up forward but moved him onto Franklin in lieu of Lonergan, and sent Patrick Dangerfield into attack to play as a virtually permanent key forward. Dangerfield had played that role in a match against Hawthorn some weeks earlier after sustaining an injury and had done so magnificently kicking six goals, but few believed such a 'trick' would work again. They were wrong, with Dangerfield making his presence felt immediately and his four first-half goals went a long way towards setting up the Cats' big win.

The first goal of the match went Sydney's way, with Tom Papley weaving nicely through some heavy traffic to deliver to Sam Reid who kicked truly after taking a mark. But the next few minutes belonged to Dangerfield, and he had two goals on the board by the eight-minute mark, one after a strong mark, the next as the result of a free kick paid against Dane Rampe, who was having a lot of trouble containing the Brownlow Medallist.

Sydney levelled the scores midway through the term with a fortuitous kick off the ground from Kieran Jack that went through the big sticks but Geelong reclaimed the advantage not long after when Sam Menegola marked and converted at the 19-minute mark. The goals dried up from there, the Swans adding two behinds to Geelong's one prior to the quarter-time siren, and the Cats led 3.1 to 2.2 at the first break.

It was in the second quarter that Geelong set up the match. After a miss from Dangerfield at the two-minute mark, Mitch Duncan kicked the first major of the second quarter with the help of a lucky 50-metre penalty after Franklin had technically crossed the mark, and then a strong mark from Rhys Stanley, who had replaced Lonergan in the selected side, saw him kick another to give the Cats a three-goal lead.

Dangerfield followed up with his third soon after and then further goals to Duncan and Zac Smith, the latter courtesy of another strong mark, saw Geelong jump out to a 37-point lead. Jared McVeigh, playing his 300th AFL match, halted the Cats' run temporarily with a mark and goal but with a minute left before half time, Dangerfield marked and kicked his fourth goal, and Geelong took a commanding 36-point lead into the long break.

Sydney began the second half desperately needing the first goal but it was to go the other way, with Geelong's Dan Menzel - recalled for this match after having been dropped for the first final - marking and converting to extend the Cats' lead to 42 points. The Swans finally managed to get the game on their terms soon after that, and they controlled much of the play over the next eight minutes but could not make a significant scoreboard impact, the net result of their efforts only four behinds.

The Cats exacerbated Sydney's woes when Steven Motlop kicked accurately on the run at the 10-minute mark, more than undoing the Swans' work up forward. The next 10 minutes saw neither side score even a behind as defences ruled, and when the deadlock finally broke it was Geelong again who scored with Menzel marking and kicking his second. The Cats' lead at that stage was 50 points, and the game was virtually done and dusted, with the margin still 49 points at three-quarter time. 

Any lingering doubt about the result was removed at the three-minute mark of the final term when Cat Mark Blicavs received a free kick after a marking infringement and converted to extend Geelong's lead to 55 points. From there it was a matter of playing out time. Callum Mills responded for Sydney soon after but the match saw only one further goal scored, with Tom Hawkins kicking his first - a beautiful set shot from the boundary line - to frank a comprehensive 59-point win.

For the winners, Dangerfield played a huge part in the win with his four first-half goals, and he had 26 possessions to go with those. Mitch Duncan (14 marks, 36 touches) and Sam Menegola (26 disposals, eight tackles) were also very influential. Sydney's best included the milestone man McVeigh (19 touches and a goal), Kieran Jack (23 possessions, six tackles) and Dan Hannebery (27 disposals, six tackles).

The Swans will be left to rue their tardy start to the season, but they appear well placed to launch another premiership assault in 2018. Coach John Longmire appears to have facilitated a regeneration of players without a drop down the ladder, with six players on Friday night - Nic Newman, Sam Naismith, Papley, Mills, George Hewett and Dean Towers not yet having reached the 50-game mark. Taking a more critical view, Gary Rohan had a very quiet night on Friday, collecting only seven touches, and is seen in some quarters to be developing a reputation for not standing up in finals at the MCG. He had only five touches (albeit kicking a goal) in last year's Grand Final loss to the Bulldogs.

Geelong meanwhile can also rightly claim to have regenerated without taking a tumble on the table. The Cats in fact have eight players who have not yet played 50 games and they are a game away from another Grand Final appearance. They will start underdogs in their match against Adelaide on Friday night at the Adelaide Oval, but must be considered some chance of causing an upset if they can reproduce an effort akin to that of last Friday against the Swans.

GOALS
Geelong: Dangerfield 4; Menzel, Menegola, Duncan 2; Stanley, Smith, Motlop, Hawkins, Blicavs
Sydney: Jack, McVeigh, Mills, Papley, Reid

BEST - AFL.COM.AU
Geelong: Dangerfield, Henderson, Menegola, Duncan, Motlop, Blicavs, Taylor
Sydney: Hannebery, Grundy, Lloyd, Jack, McVeigh

BEST - THE SATURDAY AGAE
Geelong: Dangerfield, Duncan, Menegola, Taylor, Henderson, Motlop, Smith
Sydney: McVeigh, Jack, Hannebery

INJURIES
Geelong: Lonergan (food poisoning) replaced in selected side by Rhys Stanley, Tom Stewart (hamstring)
Sydney: Nil

UMPIRES: Rosebury, Nicholls, Meredith

TELEVISION BROADCAST: Seven Network

COMMENTATORS: Bruce McAvaney, Brian Taylor, Wayne Carey, Cameron Ling, Matthew Richardson