How can this happen?

[midaro]

19 pts up.
18.33 final quarter,

[midaro]

2nd time in 2 weeks I've felt a let down after a win.

[ugg]

How were you disappointed last week? Came home strongly against the Saints. This week however I have to agree with you. Holding the ball decisions continue to confound me, it really is unfathomable to change interpretations week to week. The one against Saddington was a shocker. Two other things I noted:

- Someone tell Saddington to punch the ball, instead of trying to mark it from behind.
- Kennelly's kick ins in recent weeks have been very error prone. His form since the break has been relative poor.

[desredandwhite]

Sounds fine to me. I thought we'd win by about 5-6 goals, not the huge thumping a lot of people were predicting. After their loss last week, plus the game being at OO, it was never going to be as bad for Carlton as the last match.

In the first half, Carlton were terrible, and the change in attitude after halftime obviously caught our lot napping in the 3rd quarter. Got back into some bad habits, and needed to lift, which IMHO we did to some extent. The Blues did a lot of good things in the 2nd half, most of their goals came from good honest contested marks (they got something like 8-10 contested marks that quarter after hardly any earlier).. Camporeale, Koutoufides, Fevola all stopped being traffic cones, and that DOES make a difference.

There's a few more weeks to go till the finals, and I honestly don't mind if we work out a few kinks in the system, learn a few lessons before then.

Disappointing, yes. End of the world? Hardly

[liz]

I agree with Des. The Swans will learn a whole lot more about where they still need to improve after a second half like that than a continuation of the non-pressure footy they faced in the first half.

At least in the first half they made the most of their dominance and kicked well at goal. And the final quarter wasn't too bad against a team that actually played very well.

We had a few players who played well below their ability today, unusual for the Swans, but at least we came away with four points from an away game.

[Dpw]

A win is a win is a win. Swans dominated first half played with little desire second half regulation win for a team with top 4 aspirations.

[Gunn]

I am just back from the game. Very ordinary after half time. We were beaten in the mid field and at the stoppages. Carlton made a change in their tactics after half time. Instead of concentrating so much on tagging our players they actually went after the ball. Our players found themselves chasing rather than being chased.

I commented before the game that they looked to be a much bigger team than us. After half time they made it a rule to always kick it high to that spot about 30-40 metres out in front of goals. Their taller forwards made our shorter backs look deficient. If our backs managed to spoil they had their small players looking for the crumbs. That tactic will not have gone unoticed by opposition coaches. Of course if we had of got more of the ball in the stoppages our backline deficiency would not have been so noticeable.

[motorace_182]

Has Saddington forgotten how to punch since he was injured?
Looked very ordinary in the second half, the delivery was poor and we forgot how to run and play off each other

[floppinab]

Don't be too hard on Saddo, I like the fact that he is prepared to back himself and judge whether to mark or punch rather than just blindly punch every time. He only made one blue in this match and that's the first mistake I can remember from him for a while.

[Reggi]

Originally posted by ugg
- Someone tell Saddington to punch the ball, instead of trying to mark it from behind.

Heh heh - Can say he was frequently reminded of this at the aftermatch.

They definately wanted more of the footy in the second half. Showed that we need to develop some ground level midfielders. They got on top their.

It was a poor 2nd half - but this will happen

[Ganjaman]

Sydney may well have had a few lapses in the past few weeks letting the opposition back in the game, but is'nt it nice to still be able to win these games even if they are'nt playing at their best.

To continue winning and not be at our peak is a good thing. We dont wanna peak too early. Save that for the coming weeks. Let everyone think we are'nt much of a threat, cause if we can improve we will be.

[BAM_BAM]

Originally posted by Ganjaman
Sydney may well have had a few lapses in the past few weeks letting the opposition back in the game, but is'nt it nice to still be able to win these games even if they are'nt playing at their best.

exactly. These games over the past couple of years would have been the ones we let go and lost. To find ourselves lamenting at the end of the season "if only we'd won....."

[Angelic Upstart]

Interesting to read Roos' post-match comments on the official site - he's not too fussed about the second half fade out. He says that the team came out so strongly in the first half that they might have been tired in the second half.

Not sure if this is just the public face he's putting on, and what gets said behind the scenes is completely different. I know there are no easy-beats in the competition, but still it must be a worry that we could get so little ball in the second half against one of the bottom-placed teams.

[NMWBloods]

I thought that was one of our worst wins for the season. We dominated in the first half, but that was against a completely insipid and embarrassing performance by side who were barely playing to VFL standards.

In the second half when they put us under pressure we wilted and were pretty pathetic. No excuses at all for about 25 minutes from late 3rd qtr to early 4th qtr when we were the team that looked like it was second bottom!!

Hopefully the guys learn a lot from this game - like you can become overconfident and arrogant, you can underestimate your opponent, and they need to play better football when the opposition applies pressure.

[Diego]

My thoughts exactly. I was not jumping for joy after this win.

Some of our poor disposals and bad decisions came back to haunt us in the second half.