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The "awful" numbers behind Sydney's surface-level season
Jaiden Sciberras • July 3rd, 2026 9:36 am
The Sydney Swans may be positioned well after 16 rounds, but the data suggests they are far from the complete package.
Mounting 12 wins from 15 this season, Dean Cox’s men appear a real premiership threat on the surface, attacking with real vim through their elite pace and forward handball game.
That said, Champion Data has found a real blip in their game that played a major role in their disappointing 43-point loss to Brisbane last weekend, and threatens to be the difference come September.
“What other mode are they going to have outside of this forward, aggressive game?” Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne said on SEN Sportsday.
“As a neutral, you love it, because it’s great footy to watch. Is it going to stack up against the best?
“So far this year, they’ve had the sixth easiest draw in the competition, and they’ve capitalised on it. They haven’t played Fremantle yet, they haven’t played Adelaide, who are defensively rock solid.
“They lost to Geelong pretty comfortably. They lost to Hawthorn pretty comfortably – they did have a couple out against Hawthorn. Brisbane, I think it’s fair to say, did them pretty comfortably on the weekend.
“You’re just looking for what’s actually happening defensively. Since Round 8, it is awful defensively.
“We are not talking the last two weeks and just putting that on watch, we are talking now an eight-game sample size, where you are 15th in the comp for points against.
“We were talking around Round 6 or Round 7, playing this aggressive way but being able to hold up defensively. That was a huge tick – they were the hardest team in the competition to punish a turnover against in the first seven weeks.
“They had the balance right. If you look between the arcs, so between the 50 metre lines, roughly about half of your overall score comes in between that zone, whether that’s from stoppage or from intercept. Roughly half of it.
“In terms of your ability to be able to defend that area of the ground, Geelong is number one, Fremantle is two, Hawthorn is three. The most dangerous and heaviest scoring area on the ground.
“Sydney is 15th. Richmond, Essendon and North are in that category. We talk about putting things on watch; this is now firmly, firmly on watch.
“You’ve done well, you’re 12-3, things are okay from a win-loss perspective. But from a profile perspective, there is a bit in there that needs to be unpacked.”
While the Swans may be one of the game’s best ball movement teams, their ability to defend off turnover has gone from hero to zero.
Hoyne believes this is a result of a run-and-gun style of play that simply hasn’t held up on the defensive end.
“It’s their transition game,” he continued.
“They play in really bizarre profile games. What I mean by that is, in this eight-round period, I can’t remember a team who is number one for generating inside 50’s, but number 18 for conceding inside 50’s.
“The ball just absolutely pings. Up and back, up and back, up and back. They concede 80 points off turnover to Brisbane, which is a shocking number, a disaster.
“But they still score almost 70 points themselves off turnover as well. It is full on, ball movement, up, back, up, back, up, back.”
Sydney face the Western Bulldogs at the SCG on Friday night in a bid to rebound from last week’s disastrous loss.
