Footy Forensics: Swans v Dockers

Can the Swans back up their talk and walk the walk at the SCG with a dominant win or will Fyfe drag the plucky Dockers over the line in a nail-biter? 

After their loss to North Melbourne here two weeks ago Sydney leadership were openly scathing of their home form with the likes of Dean Rampe calling it embarrassing and drawing a line in the sand on their effort levels at the SCG for the rest of 2018. 

That kind of talk could be dismissed from many teams but if the Swans are saying it, it must be respected. Expect a premium four-quarter effort by Sydney here particularly in defence. 

The Stats Insider models have the Swans winning this comfortably by 33 points 96-63 with a total of 159 points. 

With Lance Franklin and Dan Hannebery both returning for the Swans and their very public desire to put in 110% effort at home, it is hard to argue against the Swans winning well here. 

Dockers get two crucial cogs back in Walters and Wilson though and they do have those mobile key defenders who may be able to curtail Buddy (as much as Buddy can be curtailed that is). 

At $1.22 the Swans look the slightly sharp value play here. 

Of the 10,000 simulations run for this game the Stats insider models have Sydney winning a whopping 82% of games which makes the $4.54 about the Dockers H2H too short for my liking. 

Sydney will be massively advantaged today by the fact that the Dockers have just the one key forward in McCarthy. Rampe and Grundy are in good form and I expect big games from there here. Just not sure how many points the Dockers have in them tonight. 

For a team that can't win at home, this is a monster spread to have to cover and on the face of it the +35.5pts for Fremantle looks great value. But with Buddy back, Ronke/Hayward in goal kicking form combined with a Swans defence I expect to be very miserly I can start to see why the bookies have set it so high. 

Having said that Franklin has been out for three weeks and may need this game to brush off the cobwebs. No two ways about it this market is right on the mark for mine. If Freo's defence stands up it is hard to see them not holding that +35.5pt Line. 

One of the few games this weekend where I'm avoiding the Line market. I can see both and when that happens you just have to walk away.

Despite Stats Insider seeing the Totals market as (literally) a coin flip I am prepared to take the Under here with a decent amount of confidence. 

With Sydney's defence expected to be solid, Franklin needing one game (yet getting plenty of delivery) and Freo's defence being pretty solid as well I can see this being a really low-scoring match.

Aligning fairly solidly with Stats Insider models here. Think the Swans will win very comfortably so punters who can take a smaller spread to maybe boost those H2H odds that's a solid play. 

Swans by 20+ in a pretty low-scoring affair.