‘Disaster written all over it’: Big problem with bold Swans move amid cautionary tale

Sydney’s decision to shift Tom McCartin forward has come under scrutiny after the club kicked off the Dean Cox era on a sour note in Friday night’s loss to Hawthorn.

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Cox conceded McCartin’s positional switch into attack is “going to take some time” after the defender-turned-forward booted just one goal from seven disposals against the Hawks in rainy conditions at the SCG.

North Melbourne legend David King believes the Swans had “a really poor week” of planning that “sits with the match committee and senior coach,” declaring they didn’t adequately replace McCartin, arguably Sydney’s best defender, behind the ball.

“I think they’ve had a stinker,” King continued on Fox Footy’s The First Crack.

“I’m not worried about McCartin working as a forward, he’s a good player and he’ll get his goals. He’s not going to kick 50 goals for the year and they’re not asking him to.

“But they took that piece out from fullback and didn’t replace it with a like type. So what happened through the course of the night was Nick Blakey was dragged to fullback. Nick Blakey is a priority in this team.

“You don’t have Errol Gulden you need run and expressiveness from the halfbacks that get you going. He lit up for about 15 minutes and was everything for them.

“But he was at fullback, he had three score involvements for the night. All he did was kick the ball in from points.

“I just think that was an absolute (night)mare from the coaches box on a Wednesday. You can’t make mistakes on a Wednesday coming into games like this. Move McCartin if you think you have someone else who can play the role, but they didn’t replace him.”

Looking ahead, King held concerns with how a Swans defence with Lewis Melican, Dane Rampe and Blakey playing as the keys would handle taller forward lines, should McCartin stay forward.

“What do they do against Eric Hipwood and Logan Morris and Sam Day might come in to really stretch them? What do they do the week after against Josh Treacy, Jye Amisss and Luke Jackson when he’s down there?,” the dual premiership Kangaroo posed.

“Is this it, is this the model? That’s got disaster written all over it.”

The stats tell the story of how much Sydney’s back six missed McCartin.

The Swans’ six intercept marks in Opening Round were the least they’ve had since Round 9, 2022, whereas Hawthorn took 22 intercept marks led by boom recruit Tom Barras and skipper James Sicily.

Dual All-Australian Leigh Montagna cautioned Sydney of the risks of moving such an important magnet out of defence, questioning if they had enough intercepting ability without McCartin back there.

“This is the big talking point to come out of the game … are you going to take your best defender to just be a system forward? Or can you bring in a Hayden McLean who can lead up at the footy, compete, take a contested mark and second ruck?,” the Saints great said on The First Crack.

“I don’t think it will work and they’ve got to be very conscious of it. We saw it with Harrison Petty last year, trying to take a gun defenders and make them a system forward. It didn’t really work.

“All of a sudden it meant Lewis Melican was their number one defender, they had Nick Blakey and Dean Rampe. These guys are diligent defenders, but they didn’t have an intercept mark down there.

“Because they were diligent and trying to do the right thing as defenders and spoil the ball, it brought pressure on themselves and kept the ball alive in their defensive half and created a lot of opportunities for the Hawks to score.

“We saw the difference at the other end of the ground with what Hawthorn did with Barrass and Sicily and how quickly they could turn defence into offensive by taking the intercept mark.”