Sydney Swans (left to right) Errol Gulden, Chad Warner and Isaac Heeney are all smiles before the game against Essendon. PHOTO: AFL MEDIA.
We’ve talked for a few years now about Sydney’s band of prodigiously talented kids. So long in fact that they’re no longer kids.
They’re still a comparatively youthful group, though. And what’s becoming increasingly obvious as the Swans make the early running this AFL season at 3-0, is that Sydney is in a very sweet spot when it comes not just to talent, but to list balance.
And that could hold them in great stead for several years beyond whatever ends up happening in 2024.
The rankings for teams’ average list ages and average games experience are usually very closely aligned, often identical. This year, for example, Collingwood is the oldest as well as most experienced list in the AFL. Geelong is ranked second and second, Melbourne and Brisbane third and fourth respectively in both categories.
But it’s significant in 2024 that Sydney, while still only eighth in terms of average age, is now the fifth most experienced playing group in the AFL. That’s a discrepancy most clubs would love.
The Swans have 14 players of more than 100 games experience. But eight of them are still comfortably in their 20s. Five of last year’s best and fairest top six – Errol Gulden, Nick Blakey, James Rowbottom, Chad Warner and Ollie Florent – are still 25 or younger.
And beyond ages and game tallies, what the victories over Melbourne, Collingwood and Essendon so far this season have underlined is also just how much depth and flexibility, particularly around the ball, coach John Longmire has at his disposal.
Those pre-season misgivings about how the Swans might fare midfield without the injured Luke Parker, Callum Mills and recruit Taylor Adams seem naïve now. How on earth is Longmire going to squeeze everyone in when they’re all available?
It’s a ridiculous collection of talent, with one hugely important bonus, the amount of Sydney on-ballers who can play both as legitimate mids and forwards, and whom when it’s the latter, can either hit the scoreboard themselves or assist those who can.
Isaac Heeney, probably the player of the season to date, is the most obvious example. But three of Sydney’s top four centre bounce clearance winners to date – Heeney, Warner and Hayden McLean – are also in the Swans’ leading half-dozen goalkickers, of whom two are talls, two medium-sizers and two more smalls.
Sydney took a very healthy 19 marks inside the forward 50 on Saturday night against Essendon. The tall McLean took four of them, but the smaller Will Hayward and Tom Papley also shared another seven, proof that the Swans are as confident hitting up more mobile targets closer to the 50-metre line as the regular key forwards.
Longmire has spoken at length about how Lance Franklin’s last couple of seasons were as much about teaching the likes of McLean, Logan McDonald and Joel Amartey forward craft as his own contribution.
But the sheer depth of scoreboard options means the Swans will rarely have to worry too much even should the three young talls all simultaneously have an “off” day.
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There’s a beautiful blend of ages, types and roles in Longmire’s team, which has come together over several seasons. Which, in glorious hindsight, makes the relative critical disdain for their chances this season only a few weeks ago harder to fathom.
The Swans were grand finalists just 18 months or so ago. Yes, they were smashed by Geelong, and yes, they finished only eighth last year. But that was against a backdrop of a shocking run with injuries to key players. And after having recovered from a position of 5-8 to lose an elimination final by a kick.
Nonetheless, that was enough to scare the vast bulk of tipsters (and bookies for that matter) off Sydney as a premiership prospect this year.
Sydney was a very conservative sixth favourite for the premiership at $9.80 days before the first game of the season. Now the Swans are behind only Greater Western Sydney in betting at $5.50. And given how sharp they look, even that, frankly, might be a little generous.
Of 40 sets of pre-season predictions in both major Melbourne newspapers and the AFL website, just two tipsters nominated Sydney for a grand final berth. Only 10 of 40 even had them in the top four. And 11 didn’t even have the Swans in the final eight.
And no, this isn’t a boasting exercise, either. Because while I had a hunch about Sydney, I wasn’t game enough to tip them higher than third.
I wonder how many of those 40, given the chance, would right now have the Swans at least playing off on grand final day. I certainly would. Because I reckon their wins over Melbourne, Collingwood and Essendon have been clearly the most significant of this season thus far.
The scariest part for their rivals right now isn’t even that, either. It’s that so well has this playing group been moulded that the victories might keep coming well beyond even the next six months.
This article first appeared at ESPN.
