The cavalry is coming for the Sydney Swans, but they may be too late.
The Swans 26-point loss to West Coast at Domain Stadium on Thursday night extended a shocking opening month to the 2017 season for the side that lost the 2016 grand final.
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Sydney were gallant but West Coast were still too good as the Swans move to 0-4 for the first time since 1993.
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Eagles keep Swans winless
Sydney were gallant but West Coast were still too good as the Swans move to 0-4 for the first time since 1993.
It is the the worst start since 1993 for John Longmire's side and although the Swans have been competitive, things still look bleak with their next opponents being the GWS Giants at the SCG next Saturday.
No side has overcome a 0-4 start to play finals the same year since the top eight system was introduced in 1994. The Swans will now need to break that record if they want to extend their streak of consecutive finals appearances to eight seasons.
There is some encouragement for the future with Kurt Tippett, Isaac Heeney, Sam Naismith, Gary Rohan and Jarrad McVeigh all edging towards a return to action after injury. By then though, the season could be over.
With Tom Papley having returned on Thursday, Longmire does see some good signs ahead but knows 0-4 is not an ideal place to start from.
"Clearly I'd like a better start than 0-4, it's not a great spot to sit," Longmire said.
"But it is what it is and we need to play better and more consistently.
"Part of the reason we played Papley was because we thought he could help us win, but we wanted the game time into him as well rather than having four or five come back at once.
"Some of those guys might be available for us next week but we can still do better with the blokes we have available anyway."
One area that Longmire was happy with against the Eagles was their work in close.
The Swans gathered 25 more hard ball gets on the night, along with four more contested possessions and having nine more clearances.
That wasn't enough to make up for their skill errors with West Coast scoring 10.9 of their 13.13 scoreline solely from turnovers by Sydney.
But for Longmire saw steps in the right direction ahead the Giants clash.
"Our ground ball has been pretty solid the last couple of weeks and contested ball is made up of a whole lot of different stats," Longmire said.
"We just thought this week in particular our hardness around the scramble was pretty good.
"But our execution wasn't up to scratch and we just gifted too many goals back."
Despite playing such a young side they weren't bad; just not good enough.
They were within a couple of goals of West Coast for most of the game and the lead didn't get beyond four goals until late in the final term.
Only a terrific set shot by best afield Luke Shuey and an opportunistic crumbed goal from regular defender Jeremy McGovern saw the Eagles home after Sydney had got back to within six points early in the final term.
The Eagles used the late withdrawal of Jack Darling as an opportunity to play McGovern in attack – something Adam Simpson has wanted to do for a while and may want to do a little bit more.
Most of the game was played at a terrific tempo, reminiscent of games played between these two in 2005 and 2006.
Since 2007 though, the Swans have dominated games against these two sides, losing only one of 10 clashes between them.
But not on Thursday night, despite a terrific performance from Josh Kennedy (the Sydney variety). He just didn't have the support.
Shuey (28 touches), Elliot Yeo (28), Matt Priddis (27) and Andrew Gaff (24) provided too much run for the Swans to cover. And with the win comes a 3-1 start, with Hawthorn waiting for them at the MCG next week.
Again, the Swans struggled in attack. They are yet to reach 90 points in a game this season (making it to just 65 on Thursday night) and only five teams have claimed four premiership points this season with fewer.
Sydney had 13 inside 50 entries in the opening term against West Coast, to the Eagles five. But the two sides went in to the first break all square at 2.2 each.
Lance Franklin kicked two goals to take his career tally to 797. He will be thankful for the nine days break before they meet the Giants too, as he would have arrived back into Sydney very sore on Good Friday.
The Swans champ came off second best when he collided with Eagles captain Shannon Hurn early in the first term and clearly struggled for the rest of the game.
From afar, it looked as though he was favouring some ribs and perhaps a corked thigh.
So, the Swans have played 16 quarters of football to start this season and led at the end of just two of them.
The Eagles are having their own troubles in front of goal.
They kicked 3.7 in the second term against Richmond last week and lost by 11 points with 8.17 on the board. They kicked 3.7 again in the second term against the Swans and led by 12 points at half, time with 5.9 on the board.
They did recover to kick 8.4 to 6.2 in the second half.
In doing so, they managed to hold on to an 18-point three-quarter-time lead, despite coming off just a five-day break.
On the flip-side, they now have 10 days until they meet Hawthorn at the MCG.
Sam Mitchell will be thankful for every one of those days. The four-time Hawks premiership player suffered a lower leg injury early in the second quarter and needed assistance to get off the ground.
Mitchell was a victim of friendly fire, having his legs taken out from under him by teammate Jack Redden, who was on the ground tackling a Sydney forward.
The Hawks champ returned just after half-time, but played a lot of the second half forward of centre. He finished with 17 touches but he'll be sore.
WEST COAST 2.2 5.9 9.10 13.13 (91) SYDNEY 2.2 4.3 7.4 10.5 (65) GOALS - West Coast: Cripps 3, Gaff 2, Kennedy 2, McGovern 2, LeCras 2, Hill, Shuey.Sydney: Franklin 2, Hayward 2, Cunningham, Foote, Lloyd, Florent, Reid, Papley.BEST - West Coast: Shuey, Yeo, Gaff, Priddis, McGovern, Hurn.Sydney: Kennedy, Lloyd, Parker, Marsh, Hewitt, Hannebery.UMPIRES Dalgleish, Jeffery, Foot.CROWD 38,063 at Domain Stadium.