Brownlow medallist Gerard Healy believes Sydney’s 81-point Grand Final defeat to Geelong proves that they’re still “a fair way away” from lifting the cup with their current group.
In one of the most one-sided deciders in recent memory, the Swans were put on the back foot instantly as they let the Cats kick six goals to one in the first quarter as the game was effectively put to bed inside the first 30 minutes.
Renowned as a team that prides itself on effort and intensity, Healy thinks the Swans let themselves down on what they say they stand for when it mattered most.
“I don’t think it’s going to take long to analyse what went wrong for Sydney here,” Healy said on AFL Nation.
“They’ve had a fantastic season, but when it came to the absolute pinnacle, they just got beaten on the things they pride themselves on and they’re going to have to get better at it.”
While the Swans were almost three years on average younger than the experienced Cats outfit, Healy doesn’t think natural improvement will occur unless they use the defeat to spur themselves on to be hungrier if they get their chance again.
“They’ll go back and say, ‘Okay, we’re young, so we can learn’, and they’ll have to learn,” Healy said.
“There are some guys out there who were shells of themselves … they got badly beaten by more senior players.
“Some of it you can put down to, ‘Oh well, the ball didn’t come down there, we got swamped, the midfield did this or that’, but as a collective, they weren’t big enough, they weren’t strong enough, they didn’t run hard enough, they weren’t aggressive enough and they weren’t hungry enough when it really counted.
“They’re going to have to just take stock, stick together, keep doing what they’re doing knowing that they’re still a fair way away, even at their best.”
Sydney has now lost the last three Grand Finals they’ve competed in, going down in 2014 and 2016 as well as 2022.