The Sydney Swans have put their supporters through a vast range of emotions within the past month.
asserted
Swans → put → month
On Friday night, they served up a new one: heartbreak.
asserted
they → serve → one
It turns out you don’t need to be at Optus Stadium to experience Wharfie Time.
asserted
you → turn → Time
It doesn’t have to be a Fremantle home game for the purple haze to suddenly descend and dull the senses.
asserted
haze → have → senses
It can happen anywhere, to anyone.
asserted
It → happen → anyone
Fears that the Swans had “played their grand final” a fortnight ago were totally unfounded.
asserted
Swans → play → final
From the outset of this classic preliminary final on Friday night, the Swans were rabid, aggressive, relentless, playing like their lives depended on it.
asserted
lives → play → it
If their first effort didn’t stick, there was a second, third, fourth, fifth to follow.
asserted
effort → stick → ?
They knew where they wanted to go and wanted to get there in a hurry.
asserted
they → know → hurry
Whatever concoction sustained them in that qualifying final against the Brisbane Lions, there was more of it left … until, at some point in the final quarter, the punchbowl was empty.
asserted
punchbowl → sustain → quarter
Everyone knew they were the better side considering Sydney’s long list of absentees, but the Swans played like the better side, and that’s all that matters in September.
asserted
that → know → September
Yet they had left the door ever so slightly ajar for the Dockers, hitting the post four times and letting a number of other key opportunities slip.
asserted
number → leave → opportunities
Hayden Young’s goal for Fremantle on the three-quarter-time siren reduced Sydney’s margin to a manageable 21 points and restored in themselves a modicum of belief.
So who pushed the Wharfie Time button?
asserted
who → reduce → button
You can take your pick, but it may well have been Patrick Voss, aka the ‘Prancing Pony’, who had hitherto been playing like a donkey.
uncertain
who → take → donkey
His only possession for the entire first half was a set shot after the half-time siren which did not even make the distance.
asserted
which → make → distance
But then he produced a fend to remember; a nuclear don’t argue on Dane Rampe in the pocket in front of the Brewongle Stand at the SCG, before slotting a checkside kick through the big sticks and running away in glorious celebration.
asserted
nuclear → produce → celebration
That was goal number three of what proved to be a match-winning, unanswered six-goal burst, reducing the margin to just nine points while also delivering a killer symbolic blow to the Swans, given the victim was Rampe, their inspirational defender and stand-in captain.
asserted
victim → prove → Rampe
If he chooses not to play on in 2027, that could be one of his final acts in a Sydney guernsey.
uncertain
that → choose → guernsey
The Swans tried to hold on throughout the 10-minute arm wrestle that followed Voss’ goal, but they were cooked, and they knew it.
asserted
they → try → it
Goals from Shai Bolton, Mason Cox and Isaiah Dudley finished them off, and the pain was etched all over the faces and bodies of Sydney’s players when the final siren eventually sounded and put them all out of their misery.
asserted
siren → finish → misery
So the ride ends here.
asserted
ride → end → ?
After a month defined by the scandal at the Pullman Hotel and the on- and off-field fallout, the Swans can be immensely proud of the way their remaining players have gallantly defended the club’s colours and culture, as well as disappointed that it couldn’t take them all the way.
asserted
it → define → them
What happens next for the ‘Pullman Five’ remains to be seen, and in any case will be largely determined by Victoria Police.
asserted
happens → happen → Police
But during their absence, they’ve found something else: proof that whatever the Swans are supposed to stand for is bigger than any individuals, and sturdy enough to survive the damage they caused.
asserted
they → find → damage
Now they can try and build again.
asserted
they → try → ?
The Aporia
