I was at the Eagles during the great rivalry period with the Swans from 2004 to the end of 2006, so on the other side of the fence when Sydney won the 2005 premiership by four points, and when West Coast won the 2006 premiership by a point.
Clubs evolve and change and West Coast has had a lot of changes since I was there, but I do have some history with them.
People always want to talk about that rivalry, but these days, not only are both teams quite different, but football is different as well.
There is a lot more zoning, and there is a lot less one-on-one play. During the great rivalry period, both Sydney and West Coast were strictly one-on-one teams and it was real man-on-man combat and a test of skill and endurance and courage. They were great games because of that, but footy has changed a lot since then.
But the rivalry still remains because both clubs have such an intense competitive nature, and will go into this Saturday’s game considering themselves a good chance of winning.
This is my third season at the Swans, as the specialist stoppage coach. There is an average of around 80 to 90 stoppages during a game, by that we mean centre bounces, ball-ups and throw-ins, so each time it’s a 50-50 ball that has to be won. Our objective is to try to get the ball going our way, and inside our forward 50m from stoppages. There are a lot of different set ups and tactics you use to try to do that, depending on where the stoppage is on the ground and who you’re playing.
For me, the most important statistic is how many inside 50s you are generating from your stoppages. You want the midfield players to create the opportunities and then hopefully your scores come from those.
We have a really different midfield group this year with two new ruckmen in Shane Mumford and Mark Seaby, and midfield recruits Ben McGlynn, Josh Kennedy and Lewis Jetta, and it’s really exciting because of the blend of youth and experience.
When our midfield groups sits down to review the game they’ve just played and talk about the upcoming challenge, you’ve got three premiership players in there with Brett Kirk, Ryan O’Keefe and Jude Bolton, you’ve got Jarrad McVeigh who’s played in a grand final and now Mark Seaby who is a premiership player (with West Coast) as well, in amongst Dan Hannebery, Mumford, Jetta, McGlynn and Kennedy.
So there is a wealth of experience to complement the youth we’ve got and we’re lucky in that way.
If you compare us to some of the other teams in the competition, particularly the younger teams such as Richmond and Melbourne, we haven’t got a group made up mostly of young guys all trying to find their way in a pretty tough environment.
This week against West Coast will be an interesting test for our group. The Eagles have an amazing ruckman in Nic Naitanui, who is such an athlete.
I think he’s surprised everyone, even at West Coast, with his ability to get off the ground and jump and tap the ball with such control, but then to land on his feet and get back involved in the contest. He is unique and he is going to be a challenge for us this weekend.
Maybe we’ll just strap (Swans midfielder) Kieren Jack to his back and keep him grounded! But we’ll have plans in place to try to reduce his effectiveness but it is hard to completely shut down a guy like that because he has so much freedom with the ruck role. And of course their senior ruckman Dean Cox is finding form and we know how good he is and how important he is to the Eagles.
In the rivalry period West Coast had the brilliant midfielders Chris Judd and Ben Cousins and Daniel Kerr and while Kerr is still there, he’s injured.
For us, they are more unpredictable now. They have Matt Priddis who is a very good player, Andrew Embley who is playing well, and a number of other good players such as Matt Rosa, Chris Masten and the Selwood brothers.
While they don’t carry the reputations of players such as Judd and Cousins, they are still talented players so we have to play well this week, but it is certainly a different challenge. In some respects we have to do more homework so we know all the Eagles midfield players inside out come the first bounce at the SCG on Saturday afternoon.
