In the lead-up to the Swans round 8 home match against Melbourne, which will celebrate the Club’s 30 years in Sydney, sydneyswans.com.au is collating the 30 Defining Moments of the Swans in Sydney in chronological order.
The 30 Defining Moments have been selected by Sydney Swans Chairman, Richard Colless, Deputy Chairman, Andrew McMaster, and Swans Hall of Fame inductee and former Club captain, coach, and director, Rick Quade.
#21 - Nick Davis’ four last quarter goals, 2005
A disappointing loss to the West Coast Eagles in round six of the 2005 season saw the Swans start the season with a poor 2-4 win-loss record and placed a game and percentage outside the top eight.
The Swans went on to win 13 of the next 16 games to finish the home-and-away season third on the ladder behind Adelaide and West Coast.
The Swans travelled west to face the Eagles in the first week of the finals and after leading by 14 points at the final change, they eventually went down by four points and had to face Geelong the following Friday night in a do-or-die home semi-final.
In front of 39,079 people, the Swans were flat out of the blocks following the trip back from Perth, and trailed Geelong by three goals at the half-time break - after only being able to muster two goals in the half - on a wet and muddy SCG.
When the Cats led by 23 points in the early stages of the last quarter, the result looked a foregone conclusion, especially considering the Swans had still only kicked three goals to that point of the game. A straight-sets exit from the finals loomed.
Enter Nick Davis and an individual quarter for the ages.
Davis kicked the Swans first three goals of the final term to drag his side off the canvas. There were two amazing right-foot snaps either side of a calm set-shot finish after beating two Geelong opponents in a marking contest. The Swans now sensed the chance of claiming the unlikeliest of finals victories.
With the Swans trailing by three points in the dying stages of the game, Davis neatly roved a well-placed ruck tap from ruckman Jason Ball 15 metres out from the Swans goal and threw it on his left boot. The snap sailed through for a goal that put the Swans ahead by three points, the first time the home side had led since the six-minute mark of the opening quarter.
“I see it, but I don’t believe it!” cried Channel Ten commentator Anthony Hudson. “He has single-handedly sent them into the preliminary final.”
A famous three-point victory was confirmed when the siren sounded just seconds after the restart of play. Rapturous celebrations swept across the SCG in scenes that hadn’t been seen since the 1996 preliminary final.
“We’ll talk about this game for a long, long time,” exclaimed Garry Lyon in the 3AW radio broadcast.
In what coach Paul Roos described as the best quarter of finals football ever played by anyone, Davis’ four last quarter goals propelled the team into a preliminary final meeting with St Kilda at the MCG the following Friday night.
“It was a very special night,” Davis said about the semi-final.
“It was a scrappy night and we were trying our best, things weren’t going our way, but in the end I was able to kick four goals and we got over the line.”
In March this year, Davis’ performance in the last quarter of the semi-final was added as an item on the Swans Heritage List.
