In the fourth quarter of Sydney’s SCG preliminary final against Collingwood, I remained serenely calm as the Magpies ran down the Swans’ large lead. When Sydney won in a thriller, it seemed my faith had been rewarded, in that strange way football matches take on cosmological significance for fans who feel the chaos of on-field play more like the tug of fate.
Perhaps when Collingwood fell one point – or about 20 seconds – short of rolling the Swans, that should have been the warning sign that all was not cherry ripe for grand final day.
Still, how often do you get to see your team in a decider? The Swans have played seven in my lifetime, including two memorable underdog victories against West Coast (2005) and Hawthorn (2012).
But my only other MCG grand final day experience was our execrable performance against Hawthorn in 2014, when a superstar side now topped with Buddy Franklin failed to win enough football or lay enough tackles to do much of anything.
So, this year, I shelled out for a ticket and drove down the Hume. Whatever happened on Saturday, it just had to be better than 2014. Instead, I was in the box seat for a repeat. The plan was four quarters like the first three against Collingwood, and instead we served up four like the last.
I experienced the familiar feeling of vague dread in the first five minutes: lots of good spoils but very few marks. Buddy seemed to get about 80% of a mark in one of our few forays but it did not stick and we were straight back down Geelong’s end.
If I were a football brain I could more precisely diagnose what went wrong. It felt like Geelong won just about every contested possession. Head over the ball, consistent and too infrequently troubled by tackles.
Tom Hawkins was the beneficiary, snapping the first two. I lost count of their goalkickers after that.
At the SCG, the Swans have a way of bringing the clamps down. Its smaller dimensions allow a tackle-heavy, stoppage-heavy form of trench warfare that can kill an opposing side’s momentum long enough for the home team to steady and find some endeavour of their own.
Not so the MCG, whose enormous dimensions allow a dominant side to kick mark to mark forward in frictionless, seamless play.
A goal from Will Hayward (“we needed that,” I said) opened the Swans’ account but did nothing to steady them or break the flow of play. The only hitch for the Cats appeared to be accuracy, with a number of behinds keeping us in what could already have been a 60-point lead by quarter-time.
It felt like every single one of those counterfactual “it could be worse” goals materialised through the rest of the match, a relatively even second quarter washed down with six Geelong majors in the premiership quarter and five in the last term.
I can’t really say what went wrong, only describe the hollow sort of feeling a fan gets after watching their team be the hardest nuts all season only to then gently massage opponents who seem to slip their grip in play after play.
The Swans have a reputation for being one of the hardest-tackling teams, who never give up, qualities I remember from the 2005 semi-final against Geelong at the SCG when Nick Davis stole victory with four last-quarter goals.
Football teams, like the Ship of Theseus, appear able to change all their constituent parts but retain their essential character. For the dedicated fan, there are always enough memories of past glory to draw on to believe anything is possible with a burst of late goals.
With a 101 to 27 three-quarter-time deficit, we would have needed 13 goals and at least three Nick Davises. Not even I would believe that.
There was one bright spot for Sydney: Chad Warner, the hero of the prelim, refused to give up. We noticed. Thank you, Chad. For all the disappointment, it is still a relatively young side who had another good year.
As a Swans fan, there is one particular compliment I hear often from long-suffering fans of other clubs: “You’re not always the best, but you’re never bad.” And it is an impressive record: 18 seasons in the finals, including six grand finals, since 2000.
We may not have had the periods of dominance that fill the cabinets of Brisbane, Hawthorn, Richmond, and now Geelong, with silverware. But we are good every year, and that’s no easy feat or small thing.
On Saturday, I experienced the exquisite agony of being a Sydney fan. Of backing a side who can win their way further and deeper into a season only to see it has come one match too far.
So many qualities swim through the Swans DNA. But, on Saturday, it was 2014 in the bloodstream and not 2005.
