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June 05, 2005
Swans Win Via attacking Football
Well the impossible happened, the Swans not only won a game of football but they did it by scoring over 100 points for the first time since Round 1. For what many were billing the "Flood-a-thon" the outcome out was pleasing for the people watching the game and thus making the use of No-Doz at half time pointless - this was one match which even the biggest Swans critic would of stayed awake for.
The Swans got off to a flying start to kick the first four goals of the match including Nick Malceski's first goal from his first kick in AFL football. Great link play from Kennelly, Goodes, Jude Bolton and even Malceski (who impressed many with his game), to feed the forwards saw the Swans jump out to a 24 point quarter time lead and fall two goals short of their total output from the week before.
The second quarter was a much more dour affair with the Swans only managing 2 goals to Carlton's 3, but the game was still end to end rather than stopage after stopage. Despite the free-flowing nature of the game the Swans more than handled the Blues and kept themselves 3 goals up at Half Time.
With Carlton seemingly back in the match you would of thought that Paul Roos would of locked down the match in the second half, however that failed to happen as the Swans and Blues traded goal for goal for most of the third quarter with the Blues never getting within 2 goals of the Swans until the dieing seconds of the quarter. After seeing O'Loughlin finally come back to life with two quick goals the Swans appeared to have a three goal lead to take into the final term as the game entered the last minute of play, but a series of mistakes and umpiring decisions resulted in twos goals to Jared Waite and David Teague which cut the Swans lead to just 5 points and seemingly on the end of the Carlton stream train that looked like it wouldn't be stopped.
What looked bad got worse for the Swans as the Blues hit the front for the first time since the first minute of the match thanks to a 50m bomb from Lance Whittnal. The Swans looked gone and the lock down football that we played in past weeks look pointless to even try. So think how surprised I was to see the Swans to step up a gear and take control of the match.
It was started with a quick reply from Goodes and the inpiring site of Craig Bolton running 150m out of defence to kick long to O'Loughlin in front of goal at the top of the square. Not only had the camel's back been broken, he failed to chase. Magic's goal put the Swans two goals up and soon more followed thanks to goals from Ablett, Hall and Buchanan to round off a quality attacking performance and a 25 point win that went some way to prove many in the Melbourne media wrong.
Watching from the stands you could tell that the Swans were playing a different style of football from Malceski getting plenty of gametime, to Hall leaving a hole behind him perfectly for the likes of Davis, O'Keefe and O'Loughlin to work in.
Sure we only played and beat Carlton and we are yet to beat a team that at this moment sits above us on the ladder, by heck we are 6 and 5 and 6th on the ladder at the half way point of the season, which I think is quite the outcome consdiering the critics we have endured along the way.
Anyway a win is a win and I'll take this one.
SYDNEY 18.8 (116)
CARLTON 14.7 (91)
Goals: B Hall 5 M O'Loughlin 4 L Ablett, R O'Keefe 2 A Buchanan, N Davis, A Goodes, D Jolly, N Malceski 1
Best Swan on Ground: Barry Hall
Posted by robbieando at June 5, 2005 08:27 PM