AFL round 2 match review: Port Adelaide v. Sydney at Adelaide

The Farriss brothers of INXS might have revved up the home crowd with ‘Never Tear Us Apart’, but to the Port faithful the first quarter sounded more like a Joy Division song (Jetta / Jetta will tear us apart again). The aforementioned Lewis kicked two of the Swans’ first three and was the standout performer in a sensational quarter of footy.

The men from the Wheat State could never quite get back into the contest after the visitors took a two-goal lead into the first change. The second stanza saw the midfield open up somewhat, as both sides were able to string together chains of possessions. Paddy ‘There’s Only One Flo and One’ Ryder, Chad Wingard, and Justin Westhoff all goaled to even things up, but Dan Hannebery’s effort from fifty-two metres out while sporting a bandaged head (courtesy of Robbie Gray’s knee earlier in the quarter) summed up the night.

I biancorossi came out firing after half-time, with Kieren Jack, Jake Lloyd, and Hannebery scoring successive majors. Ryder broke up their run with a free kick and goal, but a Port turnover at centre half-back led to Jay Schulz missing a crucial set shot, and not for the first time in the match. Jarrad McVeigh kicked the final goal of the term, but the Power’s Matthew White (late of Punt Road) pulled off a brilliant play in the final two minutes which will be analysed further below.

The fourth quarter comprised more of the same. Adam Goodes had plenty of time to ponder pointless constitutional reforms from the bench, remaining in the bright green substitute’s vest until called upon to replace Gary Rohan. Lance Franklin, whose effort and impact weren’t fully reflected on the scoresheet, nabbed his third, pouncing on a tapped-down boundary throw-in with a mid-air soccered banana kick checkside (if that makes any sense).

For this blog, the most interesting individual passage of play ended with the downwards-counting clock (a Seppo-imported sacrilege!) showing 1’12” or some such figure remaining in the third quarter. Port substitute Matthew White was on the wing with no-one to whom he could kick or handball, and two Swans bearing down on him. He had enough speed to skirt the boundary line and run past one but needed to dispose of the ball lest he be tackled by the other. So he handballed past his opponent, ran around him, regathered the ball and only then was forced into touch. The result was a boundary throw-in, and the ingenious manoeuvre meant nothing in the great scheme of things. But White gained fifty metres, and perhaps showed us the possessionless style in which the football of the future might be played.

Not since Fremantle’s third quarter in their home preliminary final against Sydney in 2013 have we seen anything like the football played in the first quarter at the Adelaide Oval. Except that on this occasion, not one but two teams were playing it. Over a period of twenty-eight minutes and forty-seven seconds, the two teams combined for twenty-five inside fifties (14-11 in favour of los porteños) but only six scoring shots (the Blood-Stained Angels left the field up 3.1 to 1.1, and the first major was registered at sixteen minutes and forty-eight seconds). The defensive pressure was intense, both teams treating any movement of the ball into their backline as a personal affront, and quickly disposing of the intruder from whence it came.

The long-assumed divine right of players to cleanly mark and dispose of the T. W. Sherrin was consigned to the dustbin of history as dramatis personae as eminent as Gray, Wingard, Boak, Kennedy, Franklin, and Tippett were tackled, spoiled, and one-percented into the turf. The night before the match I watched a Spanish romantic comedy on SBS2 in which the character played by Norma Ruíz convinces a small-time actor to masquerade as her friend’s fiancé, telling him that this is all part of a new, avant-garde style called ‘ultra-theatre’. When asked “what does ultra-theatre seek?,” she utters the line “ultra-theatre seeks itself”, to which her pretentious hipster interlocutor replies “of course it does”.

This was ultra-football. It seeks spoiled mark attempts, congested corridors, low scores, and defensive pressure. But above all, it seeks itself. Of course it does.

Port Adelaide 6.8.44 – Sydney 14.8.92

Goals: Ryder 2, Monfries, Schulz, Westhoff, Wingard (P. A.); Franklin 3, Hannebery 2, Jetta 2, Towers 2, Jack, Lloyd, McVeigh, Rohan, Tippett (Syd.)

Best: Pittard, Carlile, Gray (P. A.); Kennedy, Jack, Smith (Syd.)