#brokentackles

The SCG was home to another Sydney Swan’s dive down into defeat. Geelong reminds us Swans just too soft for AFL final’s success in 2025. Last week against Brisbane, giving credit where credit is due, the Sydney Swans were too good for the Lions by 2 points. This week, at home in their soft beds, they were whacked by a harder and tougher outfit in the Geelong Cats. Coach Dean Cox has some serious problems to address among this playing group. These kids are just not tough enough, for long enough, in a real deal contest.

Sydney Swans Buckle Under Cats Intense Pressure

Somebody teach these Swans how to tackle. The number of broken tackles I witnessed were too many to be counted on all my fingers and toes. Big bad Tyson Stengle waltzed through multiple red and white clad players to kick goals. Braeden Campbell needs a lot of strengthening work in the gym. But he is not alone in that inadequacy – he has plenty of mates in that category. Pin the bloody arm boys in the tackle, so that the Geelong player cannot get rid of the ball. There is a strong whiff of weakness emanating from the Swans and it must come from the coaches. The standards aren’t bloody good enough and the team is too soft. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLtydBX4nC0 Swans Not Up To Topline AFL Standard What is the point of having an AFL team if mediocrity and piss weak efforts are what you produce? No wonder you fell short of making the finals this season. Where are the hard men in the red and white side? You watch the Swans do some clever stuff on field until the pressure is put on by the other mob and then, it all goes to water. Fumbled efforts, missed passes, crap contest work and whoosh goes the game, as Geelong pile on the goals. A real football team is in town – better get out of the way boys. The jury is still out on whether Cox will measure up as a head AFL coach. The lack of grit shown historically in two grand final shellackings remain within this playing group. Too many players turn up their toes too often when the going gets hard. The culture is too soft and too Peter Pan. Too many kids and not enough men. AFL is a brutal sport at its core. I don’t see a real contender within this current mob.  The current culture has to change and the club needs to import some hardness into it so that they can compete. Geelong reminds us Swans just too soft for AFL. “The controversial playing surface at the SCG is under the microscope again after a number of players struggled to keep their feet during Sydney's loss to Geelong on Sunday afternoon. Geelong coach Chris Scott, who was captured assessing the turf pre-game and shaking his head at its state, labelled the playing surface "not conducive to AFL football" despite seeing his side record a comfortable 43-point win.” - (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-17/afl-r23-roos-tigers-swans-cats-dogs-eagleslive-blog/105664238) “What a crap footy season it has been! If you bleed red and white in the AFL it has been an annus horribilis. The Giant defeat to end slim final hopes left a bitter taste in my mouth. Sydney Swans halftime heroes and full time failures. Indeed, red and white tears stain my Swan’s scarf in 2025. Not even the return of Errol Gulden could turn this season around. Isaac Heeney’s Colgate smile, similarly, could not breathe enough fresh confidence into a losing campaign. Even the bloody Red Cross weren’t able to transfuse life into an injury riddled Dean Cox debut season as head coach.” - (https://www.golfdom.com.au/red-white-tears-stain-my-swans-scarf-in-2025/) Geelong reminds us Swans just too soft for AFL. Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of The Stoic Golfer; Money Matters and America Matters: Pre-apocalyptic Posts & Essays in the Shadow of Trump. ©GolfDom