The Sydney Swans have finished their inaugural season with a heavy loss at the hands of an experienced Geelong outfit in Geelong on Saturday evening, going down by 75 points.
Geelong slammed through four straight goals to open the game, and it looked as if the result was fast barrelling towards a rout within just 10 minutes, but to Sydney's credit, they stayed in the contest responding with two goals through Ally Morphett and Bec Privitelli.
Morphett was a strong presence in attack for the Swans, but the ball just didn't get down there nearly enough, although there were some nice passages of play.
Geelong, eyeing off a top four finish, barely put a foot wrong and their game was driven from the midfield, with dangerous duo of Prespakis and McDonald recording 21 and 19 disposals respectively to the main break.
Unfortunately for the Swans after their bright start after quarter time Geelong flexed their muscles to dominate across the ground.
Swans tall Bella Smith was composed under enormous pressure at full-back, while Cynthia Hamilton played a near-lone hand in the midfield (19 disposals and five clearances).
Post match coach Scott Gowans credited the Cats and said the match was another lesson for his young and developing side who continued to stick to their KPIs but also tried some different things in the final round match.
"Geelong played an awesome game of football, their spread and the amount of possession they were able to attain was superb," Gowans said.
"One of our themes for today was that we wanted to take the game on, we were determined to stick to the philosophy that we are trying to follow.
"We really did throw the magnets around today and if you are going to put your hand up and say this is a development year, which we always said it was, you can't let the scoreboard dictate what you are going to do and that's what we did.
"We had a couple of things we wanted to try. We wanted to give Cynthia Hamilton a go on the ball, that was a positive. We wanted to get Sofia Hurley on the wing because I think that's where she will end up further down the track, we tried a few players with selection as well."
Despite the Swans not registering a win in their first season, much can be taken away as the continual progress of the young side was evident throughout the ten weeks. The team only formed 17 weeks ago and will no doubt benefit from a full pre-season heading into Season 2023.
GEELONG 5.0 9.6 13.9 15.12 (102)
SYDNEY 2.2 2.2 2.3 4.3 (27)
GOALS
Geelong: Scheer 4, Parry 2, Darby 2, Scott 2, Kearns, Webster, Morrison, Gardiner, A. McDonald
Sydney: Privitelli, Morphett, Dargan, Lochland
BEST
Geelong: A. McDonald, Prespakis, Scheer, Bowen, Moloney
Sydney: C. Hamilton, Smith, Morphett, Heads
INJURIES
Geelong: Prespakis (ankle)
Sydney: Nil
Reports: Nil
