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SWANSBEST
31st July 2003, 07:40 AM
PATRICK SMITH
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It's a Sydney sting

July 28, 2003
ESSENDON coach Kevin Sheedy was in one of those impish moods.

It was early in the season when Sydney were starting to strut their stuff. Paul Roos, said Sheedy, was, in fact, Robert Redford.

The coach who talks in tongues left it at that. The only thing we knew for certain was Barry Hall sure as hell wasn't Paul Newman.

Now, he is happy to embellish the story. Roos is Redford, as in the movie The Sting. Sheedy reckons the Swans have conned the competition.

Roos was not the club's preferred coach until the players danced about him after the last game of last season. The players dared the Sydney boffins to appoint anyone else.

Roos is not an expensive coach. He did not go and raid other clubs for their best players. He worked with what he inherited from Rodney Eade. We were told they weren't that flash and most tipped the Swans to drown in 2003.

Now, here's the sting. The Swans are second on the ladder. Roos has reinvigorated players that the old coaching crew were happy to trade away. Jude Bolton was said to be too slow. Now, he is a player of influence. Michael O'Loughlin was glum and uninspired. Now he makes your heart leap.

Adam Goodes has been re-invented as a running ruckman. There is that kid Adam Schneider, who is so baby-faced you reckon he got stuck on the ground after the little leaguers skipped and hopped off the SCG. He's got a deadly left foot and a wonderful future.

Sheedy is not sure that Sydney, the town, knows how good Sydney, the footy team, is. Sydneysiders went silly with Plugger Lockett drilling opponents and kicking goals. This present team might be better but Sheedy's not sure the town has cottoned on.

Brisbane, the champions, have slipped to sixth, four spots below Redford's mob. Yesterday Collingwood beat up a once proud Carlton at the MCG and are now perched just outside the top four. Adelaide destroyed St Kilda at home and have slipped into the top four. They have their steely eyes on the second spot. Next week they are up against Redford. They'd better know their lines.

Essendon sit outside the top eight. They are a frustrating side, inconsistent from quarter to quarter, but they have an easy run home and Fremantle (seventh) and the Kangaroos (eighth) can hear them coming.

But it is Sydney who have tricked all of us. Sheedy might be right about Roos. The real giveaway is the club's new song. Scott Joplin's The Entertainer.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,6823435%255E12270,00.html

Sid
31st July 2003, 01:53 PM
What a surprising year its been eh...

RogueSwan
31st July 2003, 02:06 PM
Yeah, I am sure loving the ride this year. :D

SXP
31st July 2003, 02:22 PM
I don't know why is everybody so suprised about the fact that Sydneysiders don't come in droves back to the games. You need to have a hard look at the coverage they have in Sydney (or its lack of) and you'll understand it.
From the beginning of the H&A season I was going through SMH and DT to get more information about the team and was very disappointed. There's wasn't any better than here in Melbourne (most of the article were taken from other newspaper like The Age and HS anyway). With the media expore like that how can you expect that the people in Sydney would be aware how good the Swans are. Maybe things are changing now, but Sheeds should realize once and for all that things are different in Syndey where AFL has to fight for media attention with several other footy codes. Sometimes I've got an impression that the Melbourne Storm has got more media exposure in Melbourne than Swans in Sydney.
This might be now an exaggeration, but I challenge Sheeds to try to compare coverage of the Storm in Melbourne with the Swans in Sydney for the past H&A season and see the difference.

j s
31st July 2003, 08:51 PM
SXP, you are right. To compare with 96 for insyance, by this part of the season the Swans were either front or back page news (in both papers) at least a couple of times a week. This year, despite doing just as well, the news is still buried about ten pages in from the back. It says good things but only the already converted will find it!!