The Opposition Factor

Respected AFL journalist, Mike Sheehan, recently interviewed Sydney Swans coach, Paul Roos, for his show on Fox Sports called ‘Open Mike’.

They covered many topics from his career as a player with Fitzroy to his decision to retire as head coach and hand over the reigns to assistant coach, John Longmire. One topic in particular caught my attention, it was the perception that the Swans have a negative and ‘ugly’ game plan.

I have some good friends that get carried away with this notion and even go as far as to say that they “hate” the Swans due to their style of play. I take offense to this allegation as it is baseless.

The Swans were a very successful team during the Paul Roos era of 2003 -2007. As a successful team there is always an opposition wanting to beat you week after week. Teams now are well prepared in working out how to negate the game plan of the opposition.

Roos points out that “people fail to see that there’s an opposition”. Watch them at training, “If it’s 18 on zero we’ll bring it down the corridor every time”. They don’t practice ‘ugly’ football. Of course they have played some shocking games of football, Mike Sheehan used an example against St Kilda. But it is no different to any other team. They have all used negative tactics and have produced ‘ugly’ football.

So why are the Swans singled out? Who knows? Who cares? People who bag my team should instead look at their own team and pump them up instead of hating the Swans.