Sydney Swans vs Gold Coast Suns: Who won the AFL round 6 clash?
Sydney Swans defeated the Gold Coast Suns in a 53-point victory, 110 (17.8) - 57 (8.9), securing a top-four spot for the team.
The match was Brodie Grundy’s 200th game for the Swans and he cemented the milestone with a memorable 7-goal third term. With this win, the Swans have now moved to third place on the ladder. Now 5-1, Sydney are well above the Suns, who occupy the 8th spot on the ladder with a 3-3 record.
Prior to this game, the Swans were swamped with criticism of their inconsistency, and the success they’ve enjoyed this season was brushed down to luck. With this Sunday’s victory, all such concerns have been silenced.
The Suns gave the Swans a good contest in the second term but the game was largely dominated by Sydney, who held control in all areas.
Sydney clearly put the bye to good use and returned with the stronger elements of their game. Tom Papley commented post-match saying, “We had a good break. It probably came at a good time for us, we needed to work on some things and we did that.”
The Swans also had one of their better games defensively, putting out great forward half turnovers. Papley described the process behind this to Fox Footy.
“Our focus was defense, front half turnovers and pressure. I think our pressure was at 1.92 the whole game - they were our KPIs and we probably ticked them off today. We know our attack is going to be there, we just need to get that defense right.”
The improvement to their pressure is undeniable. Shortly before this match, in round 3, the Swans ranked 14th in the AFL pressure rating, which went up slightly to 12th after they faced West Coast in round 4. Now they seem to be back to their form early on in the season when they were ranked 3rd in pressure rating.
The Swans now join Collingwood as premiership favorites.
Grundy stops to smell the roses
Grundy was easily the star of this match. The former Magpie and Demon was at his best for his 200th game with the Swans. His performance was a callback to his days at Collingwood where he built a reputation for being a highly athletic extra midfielder.
Grundy applied intense defensive pressure with highlight tackling which he described to Fox Footy as “something I pride myself on.”
To make things better, he appears to be having a great time doing so, applying pressure in the game and putting none on himself.
“I remember in my 100th game I didn’t really stop and smell the roses,” he said. Well, he certainly did so in this game.