Dean Cox delivered a scathing assessment of Sydney’s performance in his post-match press conference and said everyone at the club needed to look at themselves in the mirror – himself included.
“It was unacceptable and embarrassing,” he said.
“I didn’t expect that, on such a massive night for the footy club, when you have a 20-year [premiership] reunion, for a team that played desperate, uncompromising, ruthless football. And that was that far from it. We need to strip it back and get to work, real quick. Everyone.
“We are going to fight our way through this. Everyone that’s involved at the footy club. And there’s going to be no easy way through it. I said to them, ‘Expect some tough sessions’. That’ll happen.”
Though some of Sydney’s statistics didn’t appear too bad – somehow they were +11 in contested ball and +13 in clearances – Cox bemoaned the impact that the Crows were able to make and his side’s inability to curb the damage.
Adelaide’s Wayne Milera told the ABC post-match that they could sense that the Swans were “a bit of a rabble, just hearing them on the ground.”
Cox conceded Sydney’s problems had to be predominantly mental.
“We’ve been inconsistent. We’ve said that sort of all the way through the year. Inconsistent weeks, games. Fluctuated far too far from what we know works or what we want to do to hopefully get it to work. That’s my responsibility,” he said.
“Part of it comes to confidence when you are inconsistent – but the number one thing that brings consistency is you spend time on your game. So you know exactly when you finish the week and you start, I’m confident in my ability because I’ve done the work. That’s the only way you build confidence. So we need to make sure that we’re doing as much as we possibly can, so come game day the players are confident to execute. And that’s something that, you know, I’ve certainly got to drive harder, and I’m going to.”
Asked if the Swans have been doing enough at training to reach that standard, Cox said: “Yeah, maybe not. I think that’s where you’ve got to reflect on everything within the program, and it starts with me. So I’ll do that and then I expect everyone to do that also.”