Loyalista,
After last week's unwarranted pessimism, it was never in doubt.
So, the top four are left, as it should be.
There's no winning it from 5-8, and the double chance yet again proves to be priceless in the supremely simple finals system that's been in employ for many years now.
To keep yr opposition scoreless in the Championship Quarter - not even a miserable behind, zip, nothing - would have to be very rare indeed in a finals match.
But then, after the coach had told you to take yr foot right off the pedal, you fail to trouble the goal umpires yrself in the final stanza.
Surely, in finals, that would have to be a unique scorebox since records were kept.
The Stats Guru has been searching high and low, far and wide, for another instance, and can't find one, so that'd have to be that then.
The Guru thought that it was salutary to note that the six losses the Swans had suffered during the regular season were as follows: Hawthorn (twice), Geelong (twice), Collingwood, Port Adelaide plus the stupid pesky draw against Fremantle.
Sharp on the abacus and prone to juggling the principles of probabilty, the Numbers Bagwan pronounced "so they're due for a win".
Especially when they come in through the back door and find themselves deep into September, and one game out of the Big One.
After copping a right bollocking last week from Longmire on the training track, the Swans got back with the program and just played the sort of game they play best; carry no passengers, take no prisoners.
In the exact opposite of the weekend previous, the Swans banged in five goals to bugger-all in the Champo, and it was game over.
There were any number of candidates for "goal of the year" during the course of the match.
Chief among them was Bolton's spectacular effort on the stroke of quarter time.
Jude somehow managed to garner the ball with one hand on the run on the left half forward flank, and finding that he had no-one, or anything else, apart from the goal square and the big sticks to kick to, he just hoofed the ball onto the boot and gave it a good hoist from 50 yards out hoping for the best.
The pill landed about 15 yards out from the posts, bounced, and then wobbled, flibbered, and jibbered in an erratic manner, all the time losing momentum, before it just rolled across the goal line and came to rest at the goal umpire's feet, who was standing over it looking at it as if it was a newly discovered nugget of gold that he'd just found.
One second later, the quarter time siren sounded
Tippett was at his fragile best, subbed out of the game early in the first quarter after doing a mischief to his leg.
So the Football Dept's hand was unexpectedly forced, as expected.
Tippett off, Jetta on.
SC Coach Horse got Jetta on the phone and explained a very old fashioned idea to him, that he obviously cottened onto.
With Tipsy the Man Mountain, gorn, coach needed an entirely different kind of full forward compared to what he had - a goal sneak.
A masterstroke from Mr Ed.
Told him that he really didn't need to run about that much, rather just anchor himself to the goal square and pick the crumbs off the back of the high-flying pack.
A speccy when Jetta did just that; picked up the ball in his right hand, pivoted through 90 degrees and then some, and kicked a super smart goal from 3 yards out with his left foot, and then just kept on running past the goal and along the boundary line so fast that his team mates couldn't keep up with him to slap him on the back.
He was happy enough as it was, by the look of the beaming discus on his face, incredulous even to himself that he'd just done that.
Brilliant!
Odd Head McVeigh had the blinder of the year, for mine, led from the front with an astonishing Captain's knock - just seemed to bob up everywhere all over the ground as if by magic and never put a foot wrong - to be Best on Ground by the length of the street.
The Great Tadgh Kennelley sounded a relieved man on the ABC radio commentary, admitting in his lilting Irish tones near the end of the match that he had "been nervous all week, I was more worried about winning against Carlton that I am now about taking out Fremantle".
No doubt he'll be in concert with most Swans fans, but they, like him, will still have to reach for the heart pills this week.
Back in the day, SC Roos used to take them over to Perth a couple of days before the match and install them in the same block of holiday flats with a small pool, somwhere out of the limelight, near Subiaco Oval.
It appears the accomodation will be the same as it ever was, and they'll pack them all into economy.
But when the full time siren sounds after The Prelim, Longmire will make it his business to make sure the Boeing will be warming up on the tarmac to take them home without delay on the red-eye special, on account of if you win away and deny the home side their first Grand Final appearance, you would very likely be run out of town in any case.
And they've gone barking mad in Freo too boot, with the local council painting the main street purple.
Still, SC Horse would have lit his pipe at Sunday morning smoko by the magic waters at the Coogee Baths, and gazed out to sea thinking that he was looking at the wrong ocean, knowing all the time that serious business needs to be done on the other side of the island.
SYDNEY: 3.3, 8.6, 13.8, 13.8 (86). Goals: Parker 3, Cunningham 2, McVeigh 2, K.Jack 2, Bolton, Kennedy, Jetta, O'Keefe.
CARLTON: 2.3, 4.8, 4.8, 8.14 (62). Goals: Waite 3, Betts 2, Gibbs, Armfield, Robinson.
At Olympic Stadium, Homebush.
Crowd: 37,980.
