Swans sweat on Gulden’s shoulder after Brisbane win

The Sydney Swans have defeated Brisbane by 44 points at the SCG after ruthlessly taking full advantage of the visitors’ weakened squad.

The Swans will face a nervous wait on the status of star midfielder Errol Gulden, who went down clutching his shoulder after being chased down and tackled by Lincoln McCarthy in the fourth quarter. Gulden was removed from the field and sat out the rest of the game wearing a sling.

Gulden missed the first half of last season with an ankle injury, leaving a major gap in the Swans’ attack.

Speaking after the game, Swans coach Dean Cox was unable to assess how serious Gulden’s shoulder injury was, only revealing the star midfielder would have scans in the next two days before an assessment is made.

“It’s a shoulder [injury] of some sort, we’re going to get that looked at in the next day or two,” Cox said.

“It’s tough to commit to anything, he’s walking around the change room, sat in our meeting. It’ll be what it will be, unfortunately.

“Hopefully, it is quick. If it is longer than normal, then so be it as well. We’ve got to make sure that we do whatever we can to get him right as quickly as we can, which might be Monday, Tuesday, it might be a little bit longer. We’ll wait for that and then work our way through it from there.”

Despite the concerning status of Gulden’s shoulder and, to a lesser extent, Heeney’s hamstring, the Swans could look back with satisfaction on a performance that included forward Joel Amartey kicking five goals against Brisbane and racing into a lead of 53 points in the third quarter that provided an ample cushion.

Amartey missed a large part of last season due to injury and Cox believes the forwards’ work on his strength and conditioning is paying dividends.

“To his [Amartey’s] credit in the off-season, there were some changes in our program we wanted to adjust to get him right, he dived into that all the way through his off-season,” Cox said.

“You talk about the program he needs to maintain, that’s not just when he’s at the football club to be able to do that, but his time away and make sure he can prepare as well as he possibly can because he’s so powerful, he needs to be able to do that. He’s been doing it so far, and we’ll make sure he continues it.”

Twenty years ago, the phrase “tiki taka” was coined to celebrate FC Barcelona’s irrepressible and rapid ball movement with Lionel Messi at its heart. At the SCG, the Swans’ Riley Bice performed his own unique tribute act in the AFL in the first half.

The Swans kicked ten goals in the first half, with Bice being involved in six of them. The defender finished the game with 27 disposals, adding another chapter to a remarkable story, given he was working on an Albury building site just two years ago.

Brisbane arrived in Sydney with 17 players unavailable through a combination of suspension and injury, including three of last year’s All-Australian selections, Harris Andrews, Hugh McCluggage and Zac Bailey.

Andrews’ absence was perhaps most keenly felt, with Brisbane undersized, undermanned and inexperienced in defence. Veteran Ryan Lester took on the Swans star forward Charlie Curnow and held him goalless, but it simply left more space for others, with Heeney and Logan McDonald finishing with two majors each.

Last Thursday, in their opening round victory against Carlton, the Swans had been sloppy in defence and out-fought in the midfield in the first half, before returning with a remarkable 12-goal third quarter to take charge of the game.

This week, the Swans started quickly and raced into a 40-point lead after kicking seven goals in the first quarter through Nick Blakey (1), Malcolm Rosas (1), Isaac Heeney (1) Errol Gulden (1) Logan McDonald (1) and Joel Amartey who kicked two majors.

In the AFL, SCG is traditionally considered a smaller oval, but against Brisbane, the Swans could not believe the space they were afforded across the midfield with Gulden taking charge of the corridor.

Amartey’s second goal left him completely alone in the goal square and after receiving the ball from Warner, the forward almost looked bemused at how easily it had happened.

At the start of the second quarter, Brisbane managed to pull the handbrake slightly on the Swans’ speedy ball movement, with Heeney and Gulden initially being clamped successfully.

While Brisbane could successfully isolate one player, it simply opened up space for others to thrive with Justin McInerney kicking his first major and Amartey getting his third goal of the night. Heeney was limited to four disposals for the quarter, but was still able to kick his second goal.

Ten minutes into the third quarter, McDonald got his second major of the night after an unselfish kick from Heeney. Brisbane started to play their best football of the night, dominating stoppages and staging a comeback of sorts.

The Lions were severely weakened, but they still maintained class in their midfield in Josh Dunkley and Lachie Neale, who finally started to win the football regularly

The work of the Brisbane midfield allowed forward Charlie Cameron to kick his second major of the night and former West Coast captain Oscar Allen was rewarded with his first goal to reduce the lead to 41 points.

In the final quarter, Brisbane continued their late fightback with goals from Kai Lohmann and Cam Rayner, but three goals from the Swans Brodie Grundy, Justin McInerney and Amartey ultimately killed any latent hope.

The reality was that the game was long over and the sight of Errol Gulden sitting on the bench in a tracksuit top nursing his shoulder tempered what should have been a night of great celebration.

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