One-on-one - And Score Is One-all

The Age

Monday October 2, 2006

GREG BAUM

West Coast and Sydney showed that they have finely adapted their style of retro football to suit modern times

A LOOK around the ground at almost any moment during Saturday's grand final showed a player on every player. The contrast in the colours and designs of the guernseys emphasised the effect: pairs everywhere.

Periodically in the first half, West Coast tried to place a loose man in defence, but Sydney did not leave him alone for long. No more was this grand final a place for lonely hearts than it was for faint hearts.

One-on-one was the defining feature of the match. There was no flooding, no zoning, no fancy ploys to close down space. It meant that the player with the ball rarely had the option of a kick to an unguarded teammate on the half-back line or a handpass to a sweeper in the defensive goal square.

He had to back either himself to beat his man, or back a teammate downfield to beat his. It meant that there were few cheap kicks on the day. For once, the stats sheet could be trusted.

It was new-old footy, making every play a contest. These were not contests in the old-fashioned sense of big packs gathering under high kicks, sometimes to be collapsed spectacularly by Ablett or Carey.

But the nostalgia for such football is overwrought. Ablett and Carey were memorable because they were rare. As often as not, a kick to a pack led only to a wrestle, a ball-up and another muddy muddle.

Modern contested footy, as played by West Coast and Sydney, asks each man to beat one other, on merit, on skill, on his wits. It is its own spectacle, as the grand final showed.

When the Swans needed a goal in the last quarter, they kicked to Nick Davis, one-out against Drew Banfield. Three times, Banfield did enough to deny Davis the ball. In such a breathlessly tight contest, they were crucial moments.

Of course, one-on-one demands more sophistication than meets the eye. It means teams must be drilled and able to rearrange themselves quickly and efficiently on the field as opponents make changes.

Brett Kirk is a master. Although he seems to spend most of the game with his head over the ball, he somehow sees without looking the shape of the formations around him. With a wave of his arms, he resets the Swans, rather as a cricket captain resets his field.

At a boundary throw-in late in the third quarter, a panicky look came across Ted Richards' face as he looked in vain for his man. Kirk had already swung a temporary change. But West Coast was no less sharp: momentarily, Michael Braun was left to stand Barry Hall, but speedily, the right match-up was restored.

One-on-one also calls for the coaches to keep their nerve. Both did. Paul Roos' calm is renowned anyway, and much as John Worsfold was criticised for failing fatally to cover Michael O'Loughlin with an extra man at the denouement of the qualifying final, it must now be seen as a show of absolute faith in his defender.

After all, he is now a premiership coach.

Even when Worsfold did play a loose man in defence on Saturday, it was more to block Hall's space and run than to act as a high-possession, low-accountability playmaker.

West Coast and Sydney play a kind of retro football, but finely adapted to modern times. Sydney has made this style into its identity - the Bloods.

West Coast is no less bent on death before dishonour, but has not romanticised it with a name. Possibly, it is what makes the rivalry between the two clubs the stirring phenomenon it has become.

When two sides are committed so uncompromisingly to each next contest, it is no wonder that they play such close and fierce games. It is also no wonder that they are so low-scoring.

In this run of five desperately close matches, neither side has kicked more than 12 goals in a game. But it would be a churlish fan who said their contests were anything less than gripping.

This is how great rivalries grow, not as marketing exercises, but with each epic meeting bidding up the next, until it is written on the heart at each club that the worthiest win it can have is over the other. In truly great rivalries, both teams are elevated. West Coast captain Chris Judd said as much on the podium on Saturday afternoon.

Yesterday, as the bleary-eyed Swans communed with their Melbourne fans at Albert Park, the sense was of a side that although bitterly disappointed was not crushed. Partly, this was because they had won a premiership anyway.

More than that, as Roos observed, this year's result was as much a vindication of the Swans as last year's.

Then, it could now be seen, they had beaten a great side. Now, they had so very nearly done it again.

The grand final score is also the motif for the way they play each other: one each.

CHAD FLETCHER

10 kicks

2 marks

15 handballs

3 tackles

I have lived for this since under 13s. If you could bottle the emotion it would a million bucks, it's amazing. I am stoked, I am over the moon. Personally, I don't know how I played but I've got the medal around my neck and that's all that matters.

DARREN GLASS

4 kicks

2 marks

6 handballs

6 tackles

Sydney are such a quality side, they came back strong (but) after half-time we just wanted to keep doing what we were doing, we didn't need to change anything and luckily for us we held on, we were in front at the end.

ASHLEY HANSEN

10 kicks

8 marks

1 handball

2 goals

After last year it's just so much sweeter what you go through. I reckon it (the last quarter) went for a year, to be honest . . . I'll have to sit down and watch the game again; there were patches I just can't remember.

ADAM HUNTER

11 kicks

6 marks

11 handballs

3 tackles

1 goal

I don't think we were worried. It took everything you had to come away with the win. Probably exactly the opposite (compared with last year) . . . I knew I was going to play a variety of roles today, whether that be forward and back. I think I played more forward.

BRETT JONES

9 kicks

6 marks

7 handballs

5 tackles

You've really just got to bide your time . . . all the guys in the squad know that the work we put in made us prepared. I might have still been emergency if Nico (Mark Nicoski) had not had that injury, so I just thank my lucky stars.

ROWAN JONES

3 kicks

3 marks

10 handballs

It's an unbelievable feeling, something we've worked so hard for, and I'm just really going to cherish it. It's hard to gauge when you're out there . . . but I guess for a grand final to come down to the wire like that again, same as last year . . . it's unbelievable.

© 2006 The Age

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