In Opening Round, Sydney had 634 metres gained by hand against Carlton. In Round 1, they had exactly the same amount of metres gained by hand against the reigning two time premiers, Brisbane.
That number was 200 metres higher than GWS, who led the league in handball metres last year, averaged last year. They won the games by a combined 107 points.
In both games, the Swans had about 6,700 total metres gained and spent more than 55% of the game in their front half with an even front versus back half scoring profile. They were solid in their fundamentals, but with that handball game they were revolutionary in their approach.
With Nick Blakey, Chad Warner, Justin McInerney, and Errol Gulden in particular, the Swans hunted corridor like their lives depended on it. They bit off tough kicks to guys in aggressive positions and that group of ran essentially in lines to receive handballs and either deliver inside 50 or kick goals themselves.
Those two games were statements of intent. They told the league “this is what we’re doing, and it’s up to you to try and stop it.” It was like Christopher Nolan making Memento and telling Hollywood and the movie watching public “I’m going to do time stuff from now until the end of time and you’ll enjoy it”.
However, unlike Nolan who has leant even further into his time stuff in recent years to exceedingly good results finally getting to tell the ultimate non-linear story with The Odyssey, the Swans have been stopped.
The handball revolution has seemed to go the way of the Hungarian revolution of 1956.
Four of the Swans six worst handball metres gained games have come in the last four weeks, with the Swans 2-2 over that period with the losses coming against the two established top six sides they’ve played Fremantle and Adelaide.
While the Saints were at a talent deficit, their plan was exemplary. The Saints pressured the ball carrier and crucially stepped off their man and up to the first handball receiver, essentially requiring Sydney to be obscenely clean and perfectly on time to get any overlap run.
As is their want, however, Sydney kept trying and the Saints were able to punish them. Halfway through the third quarter, the Saints had kicked 10 of their 11 goals off Sydney turnover. They ultimately ended the game with 11 total off turnover, Sydney’s third worst outing for the year at defending turnover.
The Saints also cleverly played away from Sydney’s generally very good front half game. By forcing long Sydney kicks down the lines, Jack Silvagni and Cal Wilkie were able to have their way with Sydney’s talls who aren’t particularly good in the contest. Whenever they got the ball back, the Saints essentially never kicked it back to where the ball came from, consistently redirecting the game and forcing Sydney to defend the whole ground and negating their usual pressure.
The idea of the Swans getting beaten by St Kilda the same way that they were beaten by Fremantle and Adelaide had me wondering if the Swans were in the midst of a Tenet issue, where doing the same thing was making them weird and leading to diminishing returns.
But then the Swans worked through it, as you would expect.
Obviously the Saints had injury issues, notably to Silvagni, but the Swans made key adjustments. Firstly, they deployed Nick Blakey closer to goal than they had previously in the game, making the Saints’ mids and backs defend him rather than their forwards. He found some success moving closer to goal, like when he hit the leading Logan McDonald with 3:30 to go in third quarter after receiving the ball alone at extended centre half forward.
They also started handballing longer and to the second man. As the Saints tired, that maneuvre started to work as they found a little more space to work with.
The number one thing they did, though, when the game was still in the balance at the end of the third and start of the final term, is started grinding the game down. They camped in their front half early in the final term and kicked their goals through pure grind. The Cootee goal that made it 80-77 with 11:35 to go in the final term was an example of that grind. The goal was ugly compared to Sydney’s preferred coast to coast goals, but they just kept on tapping the ball on and surging it forward in a manner that’s unpredictable compared to their usual type.
It was very un-Sydney in a way, and the Saints, who by this point were tiring and the walking wounded, just couldn’t keep up.
From there, it was a procession.
It was important that the Swans showed they could work their way through it when the Mario Kart rainbow strip in the corridor they love so much is shut off and ultimately win the game pretty comfortably. It was also a good reminder that having the level of stars that Sydney do is a pretty handy way to win games, particularly given the second halves that Warner, Blakey, Gulden, and Heeney played.
But what does grinding away a win against St Kilda mean, realistically? Especially after you spent two and a half quarters trying to play the way that teams have successfully stopped you from playing in the last month?
It means they get credit for adapting in-game, but they lose credit for not trying to edit their style of play even slightly pre-game. And that’s the part that worries me longer term.
With Justin McInerney likely coming back before finals, they’ve got enough top-end talent to compete with anybody. Beyond that, Brisbane conceding 25 goals to Carlton on Saturday night is a reminder that everyone’s vulnerable right now.
But talent bailing you out of a self-inflicted problem against inferior opposition in August is different to asking talent to do the same thing against similar level opposition in September.
If they walk into a final still trying to do exactly what they’ve tried to do in every game this season, and they run into Fremantle or Hawthorn who can choke that handball game the way St Kilda nearly did, I fear another finals demolition could be in the offing.
There’s an art to working through it, and Sydney showed they can master it. Sometimes I wish they didn’t have to.