Match preview: Western Bulldogs vs Sydney Swans
By Frog

Sunday June 3, 3:15pm, SCG

Forecast: A few showers, 19?

Teams:

Western Bulldogs

B: Dylan Addison, Brian Lake, Ryan Hargrave
HB:Robert Murphy, Mark Austin, Patrick Veszpremi
C: Daniel Cross, Matthew Boyd, Easton Wood
HF:Mitchell Wallis, Jordan Roughead, Adam Cooney
F: Daniel Giansiracusa, Ayce Cordy, Luke Dahlhaus
Foll:William Minson, Ryan Griffen, Thomas Liberatore

I/C:Shaun Higgins, Liam Picken, Zephaniah Skinner, Tory Dickson

Emg:Liam Jones, Clay Smith, Daniel Pearce

In: Dylan Addison, Easton Wood, Ayce Cordy
Out:Liam Jones, Justin Sherman, Daniel Pearce

Milestones:Ryan Hargrave - 200 games


SYDNEY SWANS

B:AJ, Teddy, Shawy
HB:Jarrad McVeigh, Heath Grundy, Martin Mattner
C:LJ, JPK, Smitty
HF:KJ, ROK, Hanners
F:Sam Reid, LRT, Craig Bird
Foll:Mike Pyke, B1, Ben McGlynn

I/C:Mummy, TDL, Luke Parker, Tony Armstrong

Emg:Eski, Jesse White, Tommy Walsh

In:Mummy, Tony Armstrong
Out:Eski, Tommy Walsh

Milestones:Heath Grundy - 100 games, LJ - 50 games

Last week:
We played St Kilda at Etihad Stadium. They won. We lost. By 28 points.

Last time they met:
Sydney Swans 16.18 (114) d Western Bulldogs 11.9 (75), round 18, 2011 at the SCG

The game:
AFL. Australian Football. Funny shaped oval ball that has most players mesmerised. There are some very good "ball" handlers. We seem to have none in our team judging by some comments each week from supporters (on RWO), commentators (on radio and TV) and other team supporters (they will remind you over coffee on Monday mornings).

Played on an oval ground, with goals at each end. Goals consist of four sticks. Long sticks (just in case you were imagining match sticks). Long sticks like many meters high. 2 are longer and two are shorter. The two longer ones are in the middle, the shorter ones are on either side of the longer ones.

Before the start of the game, someone in white, or green, or yellow (sometimes red, but never in that colour against the Swans) will toss a coin (because there is nothing else .... maybe not) and the captain of the visiting team will call heads or tails. The winner of the toss chooses which goal they will kick to. It must be one of the goals on the ground where they are playing.

The aim is to kick the ball between the longer sticks. That gives you six points. But only if you are kicking it through the goal at the end you are kicking to. If you kick it through the goal they are kicking to, you give away a point. If you miss kicking the ball between the big sticks and it goes through between the a big stick and one of the small sticks, you get a point. If you handball through any sticks, you get a point. Same if you hit one of the big sticks, either by handballing it into the stick or kicking it into the stick.

There are four quarters in a game. That means you get to kick to each end twice. Watch which way most of your team is running when they have the ball. More often than not, that is the way you need to go to kick points.

Naturally, the most direct way to get lots of points is straight down the middle. But that was deemed so boring that all teams now prefer to go over the sides (the wide parts of the ground). These are called the wings. Play normally goes either over the right or the left wing, depending on where you sit in the ground. If you are sitting on the wing, it's either your wing or the other wing. You get the drift. If a team is not playing over the wings, it will upset most teams because they expect you to go there.

Kick-ins happen on the side the other team kick to. If they got a point, your team gets to kick the ball back into play. Normally the kick-in player on your team will look for the tallest person in your team to kick to. Most of the time this tall player will have 11 of the other team around him because, naturally, they expect you to kick it there. But you kick it there anyway because it is your tall player. You will need to look very disappointed when your kick is intercepted by one of the other team's 11 players. Not to mention the earful you get from the 11 free team mates that were free straight down the middle (hahaha, the earful is a joke because they also expect you to kick the ball to the tall guy on your team).

If your tall guy does get the ball and he is the first one to touch the ball after you kicked it and it didn't hit the ground, then the guys in whatever colour top will whistle and say it is his ball and award a mark. That is virtually a free kick. So if you wanted to , you could kick to your team mates all the time and if they mark (catch) the ball from your kick, they get a free kick. The other team wouldn't like that much because they came to play and your team is keeping the ball all to themselves. Not fair, so sometimes we kick it to them too because we feel sorry for them.

The winner is the team that at the end of the four quarters has the most points accumulated from kicking, handballing and smashing the ball through the sticks you are kicking to. Sometimes both teams have the same score and they really wasted a nice afternoon hurting themselves and getting very tired from running such a long distance over the wings (they would be less tired if they went through the middle).

Key match-ups:

Their defenders against our forwards and the other way around.

Defenders stop forwards from getting the ball because forwards can kick between the big sticks very well when they get the ball close to the sticks. We don't have very good forwards in our team according to some supporters. Forwards try very hard to mark the ball (unless you play for Essendon who for years have had Michelle Wu as a forward).

Where the game will be won:

On the SCG. It is not normal for a game to start on the SCG and then finish somewhere else. Although with the new team in Sydney, anything is possible. Naturally, the game will only be won if either team kicks more points than the other. Otherwise it is a draw and it cannot even be won at the SCG.

Prediction:

One of the two teams will win. I don't think it will be a draw. But I will hope that my Swannies win. 1 point is enough.