SWANS V EAGLES - MATCH REPORT
Cliff Hammond 6 July 2003

In a game of two distinct halves, the Swans put in another strong team performance to hold out the Eagles by just eight points.

A crowd of 31,121, the biggest at the SCG in two years, watched Sydney bounce out of the gates to set up a 22 point first quarter lead, mainly due to a brilliant display by Michael O'Loughlin, who kicked the first three goals and set up the fourth.

Brett Kirk did another brilliant checking job, this time on Ben Cousins, and was ably supported by Jared Crouch on Ashley Sampi, Jude Bolton on Chad Fletcher, while Paul Williams went toe to toe with the dangerous Chris Judd. In the absence of West Coast's champion ruckman, Michael Gardiner, Swans' ruck duo of Jason Ball and Adam Goodes were dominant at the stoppages.

The Swans opened up a nearly five-goal advantage by half time thanks to a four-goal-to-three second term, and looked likely to maintain their superiority with a bright start to the third quarter. In desperation, Eagles coach John Worsfold began ringing the changes, and some inspired play by Daniel Kerr and Judd dragged the West Coast back into the match at three quarter time.

Sampi kicked a goal with just 10 seconds left in the third quarter and then kicked another in the opening minute of the fourth to cut the Swans' lead to 14 points. But Ryan O?Keefe replied with a settling goal for the Swans to push the lead back to 20 points.

The remainder of the final quarter was a hard grind as the Eagles slowly edged closer. Kerr kicked his fourth for the West Coast, only to see O?Loughlin respond with his sixth goal, and the Swans were elated to hear the final siren bring a narrow and hard-fought victory. Despite being outscored eight goals to five in the second half, the Swans had held on to win 13.14 to 12.12.

"I aim to go out there and just look sharp and be light on my feet and just kick straight," said O'Loughlin after the game. He said his fitness was "getting better slowly" but coach Paul Roos thought it was unlikely that 'Magic' would really reach full fitness until the start of next season.

"He prides himself on being a very good player and hopefully now he'll keep getting better and better and the next eight weeks should be very fruitful for him."

In the midfield, Paul Williams and Jude Bolton racked up 26 and 22 touches respectively, and Adam Goodes resumed his stellar season with 21 possessions and nine marks. Ryan O'Keefe started the game slowly, but was rock-solid when the chips were down in the last quarter.

"Our guys did enough of the right thing at the right times to eventually win the game, but we did some things poorly and at times there were some staggering mistakes," Roos said.

Daniel Kerr was the Eagles' best with four goals and 23 touches. "They just came out harder at the footy than us and we got caught on the back foot early," Kerr said. "It was definitely the first half where we lost this game."

Swans captain Stuart Maxfield was very positive about the narrow win.

"I think in previous years we probably rolled over and lost those games by a goal or a point," he said. "That's certainly something we've worked on, the guys seem to be able to rise to the challenge and know what to do when the game gets tight."