It’d take close to a miracle for another club to usurp league-leading Sydney as the AFL’s scoring power.
And while Charlie Curnow was considered to be their big prize last October, the best attacking asset the Swans gained in the offseason might have been assistant coach Simon Goodwin, who’s “taken over” the club’s offence this year.
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After being dismissed last August as Melbourne senior coach, Goodwin joined the Swans a month later as their new director of coaching and performance.
But while the 2021 premiership mentor aids in the individual development of the club’s coaches, his prints are all over its offence, with multiple players lauding his influence in his first year at Moore Park.
After last Saturday’s hard-fought eight-point win over North Melbourne, Swans tagging specialist and previous Goodwin disciple James Jordon gave an insight into how Goodwin has assimilated, and the influence he’s having.
“He’s been awesome – obviously, I’ve had a fair bit to do with him,” Jordon told Foxfooty.com.au.
“He’s come in, and he’s sort of taken over our offence as well (as his director role), and the way we want to move the ball has been awesome this year.
“He just provides a calm head on the bench, and he’s got such a good footy brain. Obviously, being a senior premiership-winning coach for so long, just to bounce ideas off him on the bench.
“He gets a really good feel for the group and how we’re going, so he delivers a really clear message.”
It comes after Sydney’s Round 7 win over the Bulldogs, when defender Tom McCartin also credited the 49-year-old for the club’s offensive brilliance.
“We’re playing a bit quicker. I think Simon Goodwin has been a great addition for us. He runs the offence … he just instils a lot of confidence in everyone,” he told Fox Footy.
This is not to say that Goodwin is necessarily making all the difference, but there was evidence to suggest that in the latter stages of his Demons tenure, he had his side moving the ball more freely.
Despite a 7-13 record in 20 games before his sacking last year, Goodwin’s Melbourne ranked sixth for chain-to-score rate and eighth for ball movement.
Simon Goodwin has been a significant contributing factor to the success of Sydney’s offence. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
This year, supercharged Sydney, propelled by its scoring dominance, has won eight of its first nine games heading into a favourable matchup against Collingwood on Friday night.
Dean Cox’s side ranks first in the competition for scoring, points from turnover differential, points from clearance differential, inside-50 differential, and forward-half intercepts.
According to Champion Data’s archives, the Swans’ 117 points per game, +28 points from turnover differential, and +9.3 superiority in inside-50s are all bests since 1999, when tracking started.
In the win over the Kangaroos – who, like a growing chorus of AFL sides, have been pulling their hair out trying to find ways to stop the scintillating Swans – their devastating slingshot transition was on full display.
Against the Roos, Sydney scored 38 points from its defensive 50 – the club’s third-best result across Cox’s 32 games in charge. Its ball movement success rate of 33 per cent was the seventh-best over the same period, per Champion Data.
North Melbourne looked to force the Swans out of the corridor last Saturday, but they still found roundabout ways to get the ball moving the way they wanted to.
“We know how we want to move the footy — we’ve seen, over the last couple of weeks, teams have tried to take away the corridor,” Jordon said.
“We’ve been training different ways that we can move the ball — at times (against North Melbourne), we were able to use the corridor, and other times we were able to go around that.
“When you’ve got ‘Lizard’ (Nick Blakey), ‘Bicey’ (Riley Bice) and ‘Millsy’ (Callum Mills) back there starting up those chains, it’s pretty hard to stop.”
Specifically, the Swans love to handball. This is no secret, far-and-away ranking first for handball metres gained this year with 707 per game, at an average of four metres per handball.
Damien Hardwick’s Suns, at 572 metres per game, also love to go by hands – just like 2009 Essendon (544 metres per game) and 2009 Brisbane (523) – but none do it better than the Bloods.
On whether there’s such a thing as overhandballing, Jordon said: “That’s the balance; when to handball. We’ve got such good aerial players forward of the ball … it’s all about balance, and you can overhandball too much and get burnt the other way, but I think we can find the balance of when to go long and when to handball.”
And this year, if there’s one thing we’re learning, it’s that high-handball is conducive to fruitful ball movement.
Of this season’s top six handballing sides, four of them – Sydney, Gold Coast, Collingwood and GWS – also rank in the top six for ball movement success rate.
Dean Cox consults with Simon Goodwin during Sydney’s Round 9 match against North Melbourne. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
An underrated aspect of Goodwin’s addition is his role on gameday – where he takes his place on the Swans’ bench, throws on a headset, and relays messages from the coaches’ box to the players.
He’s also a composed presence – offering words of encouragement and constructive criticism – particularly in close contests such as last Saturday at Docklands.
“He’s a premiership coach, so (we) basically have two senior coaches and one on the bench,” Jordon said, in a telling indication of how Goodwin is rated.
“The last 10 minutes there (against the Roos) was getting really tight, and I was on the bench there for a little bit, and (he’s) just a calm head, providing a message that he wants to get across.
“The boys absolutely love having him at the club.”
Jordon said Goodwin has “absolutely” brought his own offensive ideologies to the Swans.
“When you’ve got a senior coach there who’s done it for so long and won a premiership, so to pick his brain (is great),” he said.
“He’s been very good at – we’ve got lots of weapons across the ground, and in our offence – putting them in places that they can impact, and it’s felt like we’ve been able to do that to start the year.”
Goodwin catches up with old mate Christian Petracca before the Swans and Suns clashed in Gather Round. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
Goodwin has been one of several bright footy minds to lighten Cox’s load this year, with Jeremy Laidler returning to the club after spending three years with the Giants, while the likes of John Longmire, Matthew Pavlich, Leon Cameron and Wayne Campbell are all at Swans HQ.
Jordon added: “We’ve brought in a number of coaches compared to last year, to bounce more ideas off, and they’ve been awesome this year.”
Ultimately, Goodwin always intended on remaining in the coaching ranks after departing the Dees, telling the Sydney Morning Herald in April that he’s “sure that urge (to be a senior coach again) will come at some stage”.
And Carlton, now with a vacancy, would surely at least sound out Goodwin, who also led Melbourne to back-to-back top-four finishes in 2022-23.
“Well, I don’t want to lose him! So, hopefully he sticks around,” Jordon said on whether Goodwin could coach his own side again one day.
“He’s been awesome for us, and we all love having him at the club.”