Exactly 364 days ago, Sydney met Carlton in the annual Marngrook Game at the SCG, and put them to the sword with some of the most scintillating football they played in their extraordinary start to 2024.
A year on, and the only real similarity to the Swans of that day is that this team, too, comes away with four points safely tucked away courtesy of an 16-point win – these ones more precious than most given their horror record heading in.
Even considering slippery conditions, this was an awful game, summing up perfectly how both sides have fallen off the perch compared to where they were 12 months ago, when both were among the premiership frontrunners in a year both faded out spectacularly.
The Swans won this game because the Blues, their only rivals for inside 50 impotence this year, again butchered the footy moving inside 50, in particular in the first quarter to mustered just four goals from 20 inside 50s and give up three from Sydney’s nine.
On a far more positive note, they won it because a superb final quarter that featured five goals and plenty of their trademark run proved too much for Carlton to handle – particularly given the Blues’ pressure factor, having been above 200 for each of the first three quarters, fell to 170 in the last – a stat that passes the eye test given how easily the Swans scythed their way into space moving forward.
But mostly, the Swans won this game through the sheer force of will of Isaac Heeney, who monstered the Blues’ midfield and provided spark aplenty in attack – and dragged Sydney kicking and screaming to a victory that with him at even half his best would have been impossible.
The stats alone are imposing – 38 disposals, 18 contested possessions and nine clearances to utterly dominate at the coalface, to go with ten score involvements. Really, the only blemish was the five behinds in between his two critical goals.
But it’s his presence that was most felt at the SCG. Whenever the Swans needed a lift, there was Heeney forcing the ball forward from a contest. Whenever the Swans needed to curb a Carlton run, there was Heeney with a crunching tackle.
And while his first major was thanks to an extremely lucky break via an incorrect umpiring decision, when Sydney badly needed a goal with the game slipping away from them in the second quarter, there was Heeney too.
Helped by Chad Warner, who with two goal assists, two goals and 30 disposals of his own looked close to his breathtaking best, the star pair had a hand in virtually every Sydney score, and with Nick Blakey down on his best thanks to being required to play taller in defence following Aaron Francis’ concussion, provided much of the Swans’ trademark run and carry too.
And it begs the question: did the Blues have any plan for them?
This isn’t the first time Heeney and Warner have carved the Blues up: Warner has the three Brownlow votes in each of the last two games between these two teams, while Heeney was adjudged second-best on in 2024 and will likely back up his Goodes-O’Loughlin medal with the three votes in September.
It’s a recurring problem for Carlton, in victory and defeat: Izak Rankine and Jordan Dawson dominated when Adelaide thrashed them a fortnight ago, Bailey Smith was likewise everywhere in an otherwise impressive win over Geelong, Tom Liberatore dominated for the Bulldogs, and really the only scalp was George Hewett keeping Nick Daicos very quiet in Collingwood’s victory back in April.
Hewett, by and large, went head-to-head with Heeney on Friday night, but it was far from a hard tag, and in any case Heeney’s ability to damage moving forward was far too much for him to handle without help from the Blues’ defence, help which seldom came.
As for the rest, the Blues still have a major midfield imbalance problem, with a surfeit of bona fide ball-winners, with Hewett required for the lion’s share of the gritty defensive stuff. And no amount of teaching or setting roles from Michael Voss appears to be doing the trick.
At no point was this summed up better than this stoppage goal from Warner midway through the third quarter:
Hewett has responsibility for Heeney, while Walsh, similar to his tag on Nick Daicos in a clash with Collingwood in 2024 when the Pies superstar kicked a freakish match-winning goal in the final minutes, has Warner.
But from start to finish, his positioning is all wrong: he has his back to the footy throughout, with eyes fixed only on Warner. For starters, it means if Warner does make a run at the footy, he’s powerless to do anything more than put his body in the way and try and hold him off, or risk giving up a free kick for holding the man.
Because his back’s turned, it means he can’t see when the tap from Marc Pittonet actually comes their way: fooled by Warner’s brief step to the right, the hit goes over his right shoulder and into the waiting arms of the Chad, who with time and space to snap on his left doesn’t miss.
It’s eerily similar to what I wrote about the Blues’ midfield late last year following a loss to Port Adelaide: at the time, conceding goals from forward 50 stoppages was a major chink in their armour, and it reared its head again at the SCG.
The funny thing is that Sydney weren’t that flash at them either. Case in point: this horrible miscommunication between James Rowbottom and James Jordon to all but gift Patrick Cripps a goal.
Jordon sees Rowbottom guarding Cripps at the ball-up, assumes he’s safe with him, and runs out of the contest to guard Walsh, who stands by his own out the back.
Inexplicably, Jesse Motlop has been unmanned throughout, and the sight of him dashing to the feet of the ruckmen panics Rowbottom: as Jordon, oblivious, jogs past, Rowbottom dashes forward to try and stop Motlop, only for Pittonet’s tap to clear him and find the true danger man all along – Cripps.
But the Blues’ guarding issues weren’t exclusively the domain of stoppages: take Adam Cerra here.
Nominally opposed to Warner, Cerra sees Walsh gather the ball, assumes he’ll pick up cleanly, and runs to provide an outlet option for him; but it’s unnecessary, because teammate Matt Carroll has also done the same thing, and is in a better spot to be given the footy.
The result is that the Blues pair both find themselves running away from the ball, while Warner and brother Corey converge on Walsh: one fumble, and suddenly a three on two has become a one on two, and with Warner those odds are never good.
Then again in the final quarter, at a time of greatest desperation, Heeney finds himself, inexplicably, with no one near him deep inside 50.
Why has Cerra given him so much legrope? Well, because, like Walsh, all his instincts are about winning the ball, and running and spreading from contests to receive the ball. Not sensing when an opposition star is about to get the ball, and seal the game.
The Blues were beaten by two men on Friday night.
There’s no shame in having two of the game’s best players run rampant – but it’s how easy the Blues made it for them, and star midfielders from the opposition before them, that’s of deepest concern.
Keep Heeney and Warner to two-thirds of the influence they exerted on Friday night, and Carlton win this game.
Yet so unlikely is that from the group Voss has at his disposal, and so unable to answer that issue has he been in a coaching tenure that is now midway through its fourth year with no sign of respite, that he might as well be asking them to speak Swahili.
