Pulp Sydney

Pulp Sydney

GuyWhoLikesSport

Like most weekends this time of year, I spent a lot of time on the couch watching football.

On Friday night I spent it asking whether Jai Amiss has ever actually slept given the ever-present bags under his eyes.

I spent the early part of Saturday afternoon eating crow on my “Zac Williams is barely an AFL footballer” take earlier this season as he’s done the Darcy Byrne-Jones and turned morphed from a half back to a forward pocket and done it beautifully.

On Saturday twilight I did a full 180 on Leek Aleer, one of my early notes read “Aliir’s ball use is really poor”.

My end-of-game note read “ALIIR HOLY SHIT WHAT A MARK” and “AGIN HES TAKEN TWO OF THEM”.

On Saturday night I asked repeatedly whether Dusty was still done.

He is not.

On Sunday I spent the afternoon asking myself a similar series of questions.

But one question rose above every other one that I asked and answered over the course of the weekend: how much better is Sydney than everyone else?

Even in a game where I thought they played quite poorly overall, they still won because they are so hard to play even when they’re not on with their pressure and workrate.

And even in a game where they were poor, their ball movement was so good when they finally did get some clean air that they couldn’t help but score.

Against the Bulldogs, Sydney gained their fewest metres for the season, had the fewest inside 50s, the fewest contested possessions, and their fewest shots.

But it didn’t matter.

They still won against a side that is no pushover, even despite the injuries they suffered on the night.

They are so deep and rich with goal-kicking talent through the midfield that they can easily survive, and even thrive, with a forward line full of second banana type players.

On Thursday night it was Chad Warner who kicked four, but another day Isaac Heeney might get forward and kick a couple, or Justin McInerny, or Errol Gulden, alongside all the forwards.

 

It shows in the numbers, with Sydney averaging 9.5 different goal kickers per game. That’s 1.1 more than the next closest.

Despite a lack of genuine star forwards, they’re also the most efficient team in the AFL going inside 50 averaging the most goals and scoring shots in the league and the second highest expected score.

The way they score is exceptionally balanced.

They’re the best in footy at scoring from the defensive half and off turnover, and they’re the fourth best at scoring from stoppage.

They’re like that Atlanta Hawks team were every player in the starting 5 was the Eastern Conference Player of the month.

The defence is also kind of the sum of its parts.

They don’t have a single superstar defender, or even true star defender while Tom McCartin isn’t playing.

And yet, they give up the fewest goals per game, the sixth-fewest shots, and the least goals per inside 50.

All of their superstars are in one area of the ground, but it doesn’t really matter.

I went and saw Pulp Fiction at the cinema on Monday night and watching that I was reminded of watching Sydney, the Swans are like a great ensemble.

There are the stars, sure, like Heeney, Gulden, and Warner as the crown jewel.

They’re the John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis equivalents.

But honestly, every team has some stars.

What makes Sydney is what made Pulp Fiction: the bit players.

How could you ever forget the drug dealer in Pulp who stabs Uma Thurman with the adrenaline shot, or his wife who has a stud in her tongue that helps with fellatio?

What about Marcellus Wallace? Or Winston Wolf? Or Pumpkin and Honey Bunny at the start of the movie?

Or Zed?

Or the gimp?

All of those characters appear in like two scenes, maximum, but they make the movie. They’re called upon to do something small, and they make it big in their own small way.

Sydney has the same thing.

The stars are the stars, but the fact that you can set your watch to a reliable performance from Lewis Melican at one end and Joel Amartey at the other is what sets them apart this season.

Aaron Francis might be the Quentin Tarantino character.

I will die on the hill that Jimmy with the coffee is worse than Butch’s girlfriend, but it’s a close race.

The other thing that sets Sydney apart is their ability to win in different ways.

In football you can’t be good at everything. To play the way that Sydney plays they are a pretty poor contested ball and clearance team, sitting 14th and 16th respectively.

Their last four games have come against four of the best contested ball and stoppage teams (GWS, Fremantle, Carlton and the Bulldogs).

They won contested ball in three out of four, and stoppages in two out of four (losing a third by one stoppage).

Only the Bulldogs clearly beat them in those numbers and, again, it didn’t matter.

They’re like Tom Ripley, they adapt to their environment, right up until they can drag you to their level and then they’ll kill you.

They Dickie Greenleafed GWS particularly.

But none of the above answers the question that I posed at the top: how much better is Sydney?

Pretty bloody good.

By the premiership metrics, Sydney’s mean ranking is 2.4. If those numbers hold and they win the premiership, they would be the third best premier since 2012 behind only Geelong of 2022 and Hawthorn of 2015.

Their current percentage of 150.1% would be the best percentage since the 2016 Swans.

This is very possibly an historic football team.

Of course they might drop off, and it would be remiss not to mention that the 2016 Swans of course lost to the Western Bulldogs in one of the great upsets in league history.

But this is something special that we’re watching here.

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