Has Dean Cox Inherited A Damaged Team?
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Or has he made a mess of his first few months of the season, as head coach of the Swans in 2025? Tom McCartin? A failed experiment still costing the team stability and continuity. The Sydney Swans AFL side is sliding down to the lower reaches of a long ladder. 14th place. Has Dean Cox inherited a damaged team? Did John Longmire exit a traumatised football team? Injuries to important senior players have made things worse to be sure. However if a solid system was in place, then, the thinking goes that new soldiers come in and play the roles required. This is not happening in terms of four quarter performances producing winning results.
Dean Cox Must Have Been Counting His Chickens
We can go on about the costly absence of Errol Gulden but the fact is that he aint available for at least half of the season. On Sunday, for almost half a game against the Suns, the Swans were serving up what appeared to be a match winning performance. James Rowbottom was tough and effective out of the middle and Chad Warner was great on the outside breaking into open space to deliver forward thrusts. Isaac Heeney was brilliant up forward in the first quarter especially. Sydney had winners all over the park, it seemed. Unfortunately, the same side did not emerge after halftime.
https://www.sydneyswans.com.au/news/1769233/injury-update-round-8
Head Coach Dean Cox Left Scratching His Head
The script had been flipped and the Suns left their black shorted opponents for dead. The Swans were killed out of the middle by Witts and the Sun’s midfielders in the second half. MIA for all those mentioned previously were the Swans. Compounding this were the unforced errors made by Riley Bice, Jake Lloyd, Matt Roberts and Justin McInerney, which were hard to explain and very damaging to the Swans in the second half. Will Haywood gave away multiple free kicks, which directly cost goals. These Swan’s players were poor when it mattered. Tom McCartin continues to be less than useful in defence. WTF is going on in the backline for Sydney?
Games Too Long For The Sydney Team
Are the Swans clear about how long AFL games go for? There are 4 quarters and not just 2. The umpiring crucified this game in terms of the number of free kicks paid in front of goals. This favoured the Swans in the first quarter but turned to provide the Suns with multiple goals late in the second term and into the latter half of the match. 12 unanswered goals by the Suns put Sydney’s chances to the sword. Has Dean Cox inherited a damaged team? They are like a doughnut with a big hole in the middle, where fight and guts seem to be missing. Paul Roos must be disgusted in what has become of the Blood’s spirit.
Chad Warner & Sydney
Chad Warner has re-signed with the Sydney Swans, which is great news. Hopefully, this will ignite a return to form by the exciting midfielder and the team. God knows the Swans need to start putting some match winning AFL football together in 2025. David King, the Fox Footy commentator, reckons the Swans should put Isaac Heeney forward to address the lack of results in this crucial part of the ground for Sydney. Heeney has been tagged effectively by opposing sides this year, as a midfielder, and this has reduced his impact on games. This was done against the Suns and was a success for half a game. The remaining midfielders could not get the job done for 4 quarters, they had just 2 quarters in them. Is Brody Grundy up to it? The evidence is looking shaky for the big wrestling ruckman.
Unlikely Forwards Kicking Goals
Aaron Francis made a successful cameo appearance at Full Forward for a quarter last week, kicking a few of goals and looking dangerous. Francis played forward in the first half, against the Suns, and moved back in the second half. He was pretty good all game. Nick Blakey was productive in a number of plays, but the umpires found him guilty of transgressions in the marking contest, which cost goals. Blakey went forward late in the game and kicked 3 goals in quick succession.
Swans’ Buckle & Fumble Under Pressure
When the pressure is applied upon the Swans they buckle and fumble. They lack belief in their system and fail in its application. There is an inability to play 4 quarters at the level required. Coach Dean Cox is looking down upon a shallowness and lack of grit among the playing group. Costly errors made via ball use destroyed any hope of getting back into this game when it mattered. Jake Lloyd may be a safe pair of hands but he is an ineffective ball user. McInerney was terrible and a repeat offender with ball in hand. Florent plays a couple of decent quarters and goes missing. Bice had a shocker. McCartin is probably confused and embittered a bit about where he is playing on the field. Haywood was frustrated and very poor all day.
The Swans are Champagne football or bust, at the moment. This will not measure up and is not getting the job done in 2025.
“The truth about AFL football these days is that nobody plays on each other. If you look around the ground during a game, you will see 36 players standing off from one another. Sure, the full forward and full back may be nearer to each other than most, but nobody is wearing the other, like in the old days. The modern footy game is a high possession, low contest affair that sees the ball move quickly up and down the ground. This higher scoring style of play is by design. Rule changes by those in charge of the AFL have reduced the defensive nature of the game.”
Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump.
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