Following their bye in Round 12, Sydney remain over a game clear at the top of the AFL ladder, claiming 10 wins from 11 in 2024.
The Swans have been dominant, sitting at just over 150 per cent (28.7 per cent above next best Fremantle) with an average margin of +34 points per game.
Despite the Swans’ dominance, one damning stat presented by Champion Data’s Daniel Hoyne suggests that the league’s best could become even better.
He has highlighted the numbers surrounding Errol Gulden as a centre-bounce attendee.
“If I’m the Swans, keep this on watch; get Errol Gulden out of the centre bounces,” Hoyne told SEN’s Sportsday.
Thus far, Gulden has attended 34.5 per cent of Sydney’s centre bounces (105 total), ranking him fourth amongst midfielders at the club behind the usual trio of Isaac Heeney (74.3 per cent), James Rowbottom (66.1 per cent) and Chad Warner (59.9 per cent).
From those 105 attendances, Gulden has extracted the ball out of the centre just nine times.
“When he’s in the centre bounces, they are -28 clearances, that is the worst return of any player in the competition,” Hoyne said.
“Replace him with someone else that be more impactful, potentially Tom Papley.”
From Tom Papley’s 56 attendances, he has totalled just six clearances, while Taylor Adams’ 53 has resulted in seven.
The Swans currently rank in the bottom four for total clearances with just 35.2 per game, slotting the premiership favourites below the likes of North Melbourne (35.4) and West Coast (35.6).
Despite this stat, they surprisingly sit in second for total clearances against, with an average of +1.8 clearances per game over their opponent.
At the centre bounce, Sydney sit in 14th with just under 11 centre clearances a game, averaging a centre clearance loss of -1.8 per game.
It doesn’t take much to identify that the Swans are not at all reliant on their clearance game. They currently rank as the competition’s best in the scoring sector, averaging the highest goals per game with over 15, leading the competition in scores from their defensive half with over 40 points per game and dominating scores from turnover with 62 per game.
It is certainly worth keeping an eye out for Gulden’s role as the Swans host Geelong at the SCG on Sunday afternoon.