Tiger Tactic Allows The Swans To Get Primitive
The Age
Monday April 5, 1999
For much of the first half of the Richmond-Sydney match, played at the MCG on Saturday, Wayne Schwass roamed like a fox in a lush, open field.
Until Nick Daffy was able to land a blow to the Schwass breadbasket moments before half-time - contact that brought the Swan to his knees and, briefly, to the interchange bench - there was seemingly no external restraint on the left-footer's game.
Not an opponent, not a game plan, nothing. It was therefore regrettable for Sydney that Schwass' first half wasn't devastating. For a man with a kick normally so accurate and reliable it ought to deliver mail, a lack of accuracy robbed many of his 15 first-half possessions of their usual potency.
Still, for as long as it lasted, it was an extraordinary existence for an AFL footballer to lead in this time of man-on-man accountability. A sort of primordial football way of hunting and gathering.
This throwback freedom for Schwass stemmed, essentially, from Richmond's determination to shut down Daryn Cresswell and Sydney's somewhat courageous preparedness to allow that to happen.
It began with Jeff Gieschen choosing to sit John Rombotis on Cresswell, whom the Richmond coach later described glowingly as ``an out-and-out champion". With Paul Kelly still piecing his game back together in the Sydney forward line, Gieschen understandably figured Cresswell to be midfield enemy No.1.
``We think Cresswell is a champion player and Sydney's midfield is probably as good as any in the competition at this point in time. We felt it was important that he wasn't allowed to get too much of the ball. He was one we needed to tie up," Gieschen said.
But since this assessment is not new, and is in fact to be expected, Gieschen's counterpart Rodney Eade chose to counter by running Cresswell with Richmond's midfield gun, Matthew Knights.
In many games have the best players worked on each other directly but what was different on Saturday was Gieschen's absolute commitment to Rombotis seeing the job done. In effect, Cresswell took his own man (Knights) but drew another (Rombotis) and Schwass went free.
Gieschen, reluctant to withdraw his captain from the action, for a time ran Mark Chaffey with Schwass but that left Rowan Warfe loose in the Richmond forward line and, as Gieschen later acknowledged, it was Sydney's ability to consistently create and use its loose men down back that allowed the Swans to rattle on 6.6 to 1.4 in the second term.
``Sydney at quarter-time adjusted what they were doing and from there they started to run from defence and connect with their hand and foot skills. They really began to slice us open with their movement of the ball," the Tiger coach conceded.
As Sydney's ascendancy began to reach alarming levels in the term, Gieschen also sought to short-circuit the problem by starting Knights out of the centre square at the bounces. But Cresswell would not be denied and, in fact, had one less experienced foe to contend with at the bounce as a consequence. As Eade later commented, the set-up was working for the Swans. He wasn't going to re-assign his man.
``I was happy to run with that. That's where I thought Daryn was very disciplined and certainly played a team game because he is probably our biggest ball winner," Eade explained. ``I just asked him to stick with Knights and be prepared to sacrifice himself. I thought that showed a lot of team commitment and was then obviously able to release Wayne (Schwass)."
Eventually, this game within the game ended in the third quarter when Knights shifted to a half-forward's role and Andrew Bomford became his new opponent. Schwass was made more accountable as were the Swans in general. Primitive free-man disappeared once the Tigers concerned themselves with letting one player do one job.
``Once we addressed that at half-time and went back to a more traditional one-on-one, man-on-man contest, that's when we got going again," Gieschen admitted.
© 1999 The Age
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