David King is incredibly excited about Sydney’s young core following their upset win over Brisbane on Saturday night.
The Swans played with speed and excitement in the 31-point win over the Lions, with youngsters Errol Gulden and Logan McDonald kicking for six goals, while Braeden Campbell impressed in his own way.
Australian football Hall of Famer Terry Wallace said in 2020 that he felt the Swans had the best core of players 23 or under in the AFL.
Now they’ve added three top draftees to that group, a trio King puts on par with Port Adelaide’s highly touted unit.
“We’ve made a lot of Xavier Duursma, Connor Rozee and Zak Butters and the impact they’ve had on Port Adelaide – are Gulden, Campbell and McDonald better as a trio? I reckon they are,” King told SEN’s Whateley.
“The Swans have got three 10-year players walking into their door.”
If their Round 1 performance is an indication of what they will produce all season, King believes Sydney can be a top eight team this year.
“The way they used the ball on the weekend and we talked about the third quarter last night, I’ve never seen a team, against a high quality opposition, kick the ball at 83 per cent efficiency for 35 minutes,” he said.
“They took 23 marks inside 50 with kids. Some of those kicks to Isaac Heeney, there was no one else that could mark it and no space to drop the ball and these kids Sam Wicks and Gulden, they just put the ball exactly where it needed to go.
“This is better than just your average win and a shock performance by a kid.
“That middle rung of players that were just filling spots, they’re gone, they’re out. They’ve been replaced by these Academy kids that can kick the ball.
“I thought this year was a bit of a gap year and you look at the weekend and you think, that’s one win nobody expected. How many of those do you need before you can stack the 13 and play finals?
“We’re getting carried away, but on that performance they’re going to beat a dozen of the teams we saw on the weekend.
“They did that without a dominant performance from any of their senior core players and Lance Franklin to come back in.
“John Longmire is up there laughing at us because he’s been building this. They fell into Logan McDonald, and there’ll be a price to pay for the teams that overlooked him, but the other two Gulden and Campbell they knew they were coming.
“They knew this was coming and (Longmire) was sorting out the edges for the last two years, how exciting for the Swans.”
Sydney and Adelaide meet in Round 2 at the SCG in the battle of the upset victors from the weekend.
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