Source : the age
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Joel Hambling built his AFL career on his reputation as a defender but Dean Cox has pushed him forward this season due to the injured players missing from the side.
Hambling looks like he is warming to the role winning the bouncing footy after his opponent slipped over and snapping truly from open play.
Swans 13, Blues 13 with nine mins to go in Q1.
Marc Pittonet, Jaxon Binns, Patrick Cripps and Michael Voss, Senior Coach of the Blues watch on as indigenous dancers perform.Credit: Getty Images
Harry McKay has found his range marking on the lead from a pass by Corey Durdin before going back and nailing his kick for goal.
The Blues will lift every time their big forward converts.
Blues 12, Swans 7 with 12 mins to go in Q1.
The Swans and Blues have both failed to consistently turn their good work into goals and we’ve seen that in action already tonight as Joel Amartey sprayed a kick from goal from 45m out as did Harry McKay from a similar distance.
Thankfully for Sydney, Chad Warner won the footy near the edge of the 50m arc and he wound up and kicked truly with his long ball bouncing into the square and through the goals.
Swans 7, Blues 6 with 13 mins to go in Q1.
Patrick Cripps of the Blues warms up.Credit: Getty Images
The Blues desperately need goals and skipper Patrick Cripps has got them on the board.
Jesse Motlop lead to the front of the goals and dropped a chest mark but it fell to the feet of Cripps who turned and fired it home for a goal.
Blues 6, Swans 0 with 17 mins to go in Q1.
Fox Footy has reported that many fans are stuck outside the ground because of the scanners were down earound the SCG earlier this evening which meant many fans couldn’t enter the stadium on time.
They are now working and fans are streaming in.
The stands look far more emptier than usual although there is a lot of factors against a big crowd tonight including that fact it has rained all day and that there are competing NRL and Super Rugby games in town tonight.
The SCG looks heavy under foot, play is now underway.
Joel Amartey of the Swans warms up.Credit: Getty Images
G’day footy fans from a very damp SCG. It’s been raining most of the day here in Sydney and I’m pretty sure there’ll be more to come throughout the evening, which is going to be a big one for both of these teams – in particular the Swans.
The locals here have been blessed over the years to have played finals on so many occasions but it will be tough for that to happen again in 2025 without some wins, especially against rivals in a similar part of the ladder like Carlton.
Good news: Callum Mills, by all reports, brained it in his comeback in the VFL earlier today, racking up 18 touches and a goal in a half of football, so he might be in the mix to return at AFL level next weekend on that evidence.
Bad news: they obviously don’t have him tonight.
Surprising news: Dean Cox has named Ollie Florent as the sub tonight, which is a bit of a statement. For Carlton, it’ll be Jordan Boyd.
The footy for Sir Doug Nicholls Round.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
Robert Walls was warmly remembered pre-game with a moment of silence before the Sir Doug Nicholls Round dances and welcome to country were performed.
The didgeridoo performance was a highlight for mine – word is that the Swans will have the didgeridoo playing each time they kick a goal tonight so Swans fans will hope it will be the soundtrack of the evening.
We are now under 10 minutes until game time.
Sydney chairman Andrew Pridham has called on the game not to forget Adam Goodes’ story, as the Swans marked the 10-year anniversary of the champion’s war dance that sparked the “unimaginable public bullying” which hounded him out of the sport.
Pridham, who was at the helm in Goodes’ sorrowful final year as a player in 2015, used his pre-game address at the Swans’ Marn Grook match on Friday night, celebrating First Nations people, to urge the AFL to do more to restore the number of Indigenous players in the league. He also questioned if the league’s Next Generation Academies were achieving their intended purpose.
Adam Goodes’ Indigenous war dance 10 years ago has been immortalised by the Sydney Swans in a statue.Credit: Sydney Swans Football Club; Supplied
The AFL is celebrating Indigenous culture through the first of its two Sir Doug Nicholls rounds at a time when the governing body’s handling of racial issues is again in question after the Willie Rioli saga.
Goodes helped the Swans unveil their Marn Grook guernsey with a social media post this week but has rejected repeated requests from the AFL to take part in its functions, including an offer in 2021 to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, after the league failed to condemn the booing he received from rival fans in 2015.
