Third placed Sydney host St. Kilda who sit lowly in sixteenth spot on the ladder.
Sydney’s old nemesis Collingwood, were back to their old tricks last week and registered a strong 29 point win over Sydney.
Aside from their win over Richmond in round 18, it was only the first time in the past seven rounds that Sydney had come up against a team inside the eight and with their remaining games to be against Geelong and Hawthorn, last week’s game would have served as a wake up call as to what is going to be required heading into September.
St. Kilda fell to their fifth straight loss last week with a 46 point defeat at the hands of Hawthorn.
It’s been a woeful season for the Saints who have only posted three wins, more than only Melbourne and GWS.
Whilst is hard, near impossible to envisage anything other than a Swans win here, the points start handed to Saint Kilda of 59.5, once compared to the recent history between the two sides, does seem a little generous.
The Swans, who have won four of their past five against St. Kilda, have never done so by more than 29 points and it was only 16 points that separated the two sides back in round 5 of this year.
Sydney will win and as mentioned above, last week’s loss will have sharpened them up considerably but fancy the Saints with a 10 goal start, might be able to hold Sydney under the line.
Odds comparison by AFL Odds:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Sydney Swans | 1.02 | 1.02 | 1.01 | 1.02 | 1.02 | 1.02 |
|
St Kilda Saints
|
14.00 | 14.00 | 16.00 | 14.00 | 14.00 | 14.00 |
Teams:
Sydney Swans:
B: D.Rampe H.Grundy N.Smith
HB: R.Shaw T.Richards A.Everitt
C: J.McVeigh R.O’Keefe N.Malceski
HF: D.Hannebery J.White L.Parker
F: M.Pyke K.Tippett J.Bolton
FOLL: S.Mumford J.Kennedy K.Jack
I/C (from): C.Bird H.Cunningham B.Jack J.Lamb B.McGlynn T.Mitchell G.Rohan
In: Jed Lamb, Gary Rohan, Harry Cunningham
Out: Nil
St Kilda Saints: 
B: J.Newnes J.Blake S.Dempster
HB: J.Geary D.Roberton F.Ray
C: A.Schneider N.Dal Santo L.Montagna
HF: D.Armitage N.Riewoldt C.Jones
F: T.Curren T.Lee S.Milne
FOLL: B.McEvoy J.Saunders J.Steven
I/C (from): T.Hickey S.Ross S.Gilbert J.Webster B.Murdoch C.Shenton D.Minchington
IN: Tom Hickey, Cameron Shenton, Sebastian Ross, Sam Gilbert, Stephen Milne
OUT: James Gwilt (rested), Lenny Hayes (soreness)
