where we' re at...

[footyhead]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TheHood
[B]When we play footy without expectation, we play really good footy.

Unfortunatley this has been the problem with the swans for as long as I have been following them. When we start to get ahead of ourselves we **** up.
Under Eade the players had lost all confidance. This year Roos has reestablished confidance and enjoyinging playing footy back in the team. This improves team dynamics, and even skill levels, because we all perform better when we are not under pressure and when we are enjoying our selves.
So from that point of veiw it's been a good year. But those basics being in place there is still a lot more work to do. Now we just need to learn a little killer instinct and how to really beleive in ourselves so we can improve next year and go all the way by the latest 2006 !!!

[sharp9]

You touch on the other issue without naming it...simply put, we have not turned up to Every game in which we have been favourites recently...

Roos in Canberra...bloody terrible, looked like the whole midfield had food poisoning and the backline had leather allergy

St. Kilda had the jump on us
Bulldogs had a big jump on us
Melbourne had the jump on us
Freo and Carlton had patches that were so purple they were bursting with shades of magenta and yellow.

The really good sides still break even during the other sides good spells. I would be surprised if we have had one game where we've won 4 quarters.

Obviously there is a pattern in that we have so regularly been playing catch-up football. The spirit and tenacity and talent with which we (usually) catch up just indicates that there is some sort of mental problem. The losses to the Roos and Hawks (more the manner of the losses....not turning up/totally outplayed/screwed by the umps/still only losing by 3 kicks) says that we are prone to very bad cases of The Complacencies.

Pencil us down for another beating in Rd 22 unless something changes quick smart.

Brisbane and Collingwood (on the other hand) should watch out!

[liz]

Originally posted by sharp9
You touch on the other issue without naming it...simply put, we have not turned up to Every game in which we have been favourites recently...

Roos in Canberra...bloody terrible, looked like the whole midfield had food poisoning and the backline had leather allergy

St. Kilda had the jump on us
Bulldogs had a big jump on us
Melbourne had the jump on us
Freo and Carlton had patches that were so purple they were bursting with shades of magenta and yellow.

The really good sides still break even during the other sides good spells. I would be surprised if we have had one game where we've won 4 quarters.

Obviously there is a pattern in that we have so regularly been playing catch-up football. The spirit and tenacity and talent with which we (usually) catch up just indicates that there is some sort of mental problem. The losses to the Roos and Hawks (more the manner of the losses....not turning up/totally outplayed/screwed by the umps/still only losing by 3 kicks) says that we are prone to very bad cases of The Complacencies.

Pencil us down for another beating in Rd 22 unless something changes quick smart.

Brisbane and Collingwood (on the other hand) should watch out!

Yes and no. We have usually been slow starters, agreed, but although teams like Freo, Carlton, St Kilda, even the Colliwobbles, have had periods of the games where they have been better than us, they weren't anywhere near as good during those periods as we were when we were dominating. That's why we won the games. Even though the ladder shows a huge gap between Port / Adelaide, and Bulldogs / Blues, the differences within teams and squads aren't that huge mostly, and the odd match-up can make a lot of difference. We can't expect to have purple patches in games ourselves when we pile on goals quickly without accepting its going to happen against us during the course of games as well.

A lot of it comes down to making the most of opportunities while you are ahead, and restricting the opposition from scoring goals on the break, against the run of play. For example, although we were still well below our best, I thought we were the better, more proactive team in the second half against the Hawks. However, we let them score too many cheap goals during that period, while they stopped us doing the same while they were dominating play in the first half.

[footyhead]

I agree with this Lizz, and our ability to out play others when we are "on" shows what we may expect when we learn to minimize the dominance of other teams when they are "on".
We need to learn to improve in this aerea to be a true premeirship threat.