Scintillating Swans: The Ultimate Season
Round 4 – Roller Coaster Ride.
Richmond v Sydney – Round 13, 2017
Researchers have concluded that the attraction of roller coasters is the enjoyment of the innate sensation of fear itself, much like watching a horror movie. Physical signs of fear such as a pounding heart, faster breathing and an energy boost caused by the release of glucose are collectively, the ‘fight or flight response’. It has been proven that a roller coaster ride is likely to trigger this response thanks to researchers who measured the heart rate of riders on the double-corkscrew Coca Cola Roller in 1980's Glasgow.
Lining up against a rising Richmond in modern day Melbourne might be very different from what the Scottish shipbuilders were experiencing on that double corkscrew, but the physical response of our collective after losing the first six matches of the 2017 season must have been similar. Leading in to this match, we had been steadily regaining lost ground with four wins from our next five matches. Obituaries for the season were written weeks ago as no team had ever made the finals after losing their opening six games. No grand finalist from the previous season had ever made such a losing start.
Sydney Swans premiership star and defensive pillar, Nick Smith recalls that season with mixed emotions. “I remember this season obviously for the horrendous start. Every game became like a final and we couldn’t afford to lose for about fifteen weeks. Because we saw every game like that, it highlighted how important each win was.” he said. At one stage during the previous meeting between these two teams, our Swans were leading by twenty-one goals to one, so you could be forgiven for picturing a straightforward win to continue the renaissance. However, the Tigers, sitting in fourth place, had enjoyed a meteoric rise.
Following a first quarter that mirrored our start to the season, five minutes into the second quarter Richmond led 6.3 to 0.4 before Buddy Franklin finally nailed the Swans' first goal. According to the Harvard Medical School, when someone experiences a stressful event, the area of the brain that contributes to emotional processing, sends a distress signal to the area of the brain that functions like a command center, communicating with the rest of the body through the nervous system so that the person has the energy to fight or flee. Twenty-two players wearing red and white that day chose now to fight.
Smith believes that the effort shown that day contributed to the belief built through a turbulent season. “This was really important. Being six goals down and coming back to win this, I guess for the young players (Heeney, Mills, Lloyd, Papley, Hayward, Hewett) and for everyone else, we hadn’t missed the finals since ’09, we were 0-6 and being able to turn it around and keep fighting and find a way, was a really good lesson for everyone.” he recalled.
All of the 58,721 (a record home-and-away crowd between the clubs) staunch supporters at the MCG that day endured a rocky ride as momentum changed colours at half time. Still four goals down at the main break, our Bloods, with the season on the line, searched within. Steady heads were needed and through senior players such as Smith, who had been picking up and usually beating the competition’s most dangerous small forwards for years now, we were safe.
After the break, the tide began to turn and as coach John Longmire stated after the match, some usually reliable midfielders who had been unusually subdued – Kennedy, Hannebery and Parker- suddenly found smooth sailing. Lance was battling Rance in somewhat of a heavyweight duel and it was enthralling viewing. A confrontation in the third quarter was particularly entertaining as Rance theatrically leached backwards after a Franklin shove. The South Melbourne of the Swans section were soaring and the crowd commenced a change in climate.
“I always really enjoyed playing down in Melbourne,” Smith adds. “And when you look at our record, particularly at Marvel Stadium I guess, it has always been really strong and I think we’re lucky in terms of having South Melbourne as our original club, so when we actually do play away in Melbourne, it doesn’t feel that way because of the incredible support we get.” On this day, as the comeback became apparent, the Bloods became more boisterous.
The final quarter saw a Swan surge as we piled on five goals to one. Experience told in the end as Josh Kennedy unleashed a long bomb and Kieren Jack executed an exquisite balk and left-foot banana on the run to give us the lead for the first time since the opening seconds of the game. Smith fondly remembers two in particular. “I remember Kizza’s banana from the pocket was a great goal and also Reidy’s goal late was really important.” When Gary Rohan’s snap clinched the match and a nine-point win with only seconds remaining, the red and white were in raptures. In fact, eight of the last nine goals were ours.
In The Age, Rohan Connolly wrote, ‘as a perennial power of the past two decades, Sydney have had plenty of wins which have reaped bigger rewards than Saturday's thrilling comeback effort against Richmond at the MCG. But in the context of a single season, the Swans haven't had a lot which have been more important.’ He went on, ‘This wasn't just a win, it was a victory which symbolically said more than any other rare high point Sydney have had so far this season. And where that takes the Swans now will be interesting indeed to watch.’
Following this pivotal win, our Swans won ten out of the next eleven matches to rocket in to the AFL Finals Series of 2017 – emphatically defeating Essendon, before crashing to the Cats. Smith reflects, “I feel like by the time we even made the finals, we’d played a final every week for twelve weeks.” This unusual situation would take its toll in the end and the roller coaster ride of a season would finally come to a halt.
