The Sydney Swans and St Kilda Saints are both fighting for the right to play finals when they meet on Saturday night of Round 18 at the SCG.
Sydney, despite an 0-6 start to the season, have risen to sixth and will have higher ambitions yet after winning nine of their last ten games. If you ignore their rubbish start to the year they’ve arguably played the most brilliant and consistent footy of any side in the league in 2017. The race for fourth place is still very much wide open, and of course we learned last year that you don’t even have to finish that high to be a premiership chance. Last week they took their most important scalp yet, knocking off their cross-town rivals GWS by 13 points.
As for St Kilda, they’ve been on and off throughout the season and whether or not they play finals is likely to depend on which one they finish this last six weeks as. Port Adelaide, West Coast, Melbourne, North Melbourne and Richmond await them after this match against Sydney – it’s an extremely rough finish to the year. Last week they got absolutely shattered by Essendon, to the tune of 61 points, breaking a run of five straight wins before that.
Only one change for Sydney this week – Callum Sinclair is in to replace Sam Reid, who misses through a groin injury.
St Kilda have made some harder calls. Daniel McKenzie, Tom Hickey, Ben Long and Josh Battle have all been dropped, while Sam Gilbert misses through injury. Billy Longer, Luke Dunstan, Blake Acres and Jimmy Webster are back into the side, while the Saints will also debut rookie Rowan Marshall.
Here’s some ugly stats for Saints fans – Sydney have won the last seven in a row between these sides, and across the last five, the average margin has been more than 69 points. $2.50 for Sydney to win by 40+ looks like pretty good value. A possible slaughter coming up at the SCG?
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