Hands Down

[Steve]

5 is 5 times the number there should be.

Never handball to a ruckman - perhaps ruckmen these days aren't necessarily the dinosaurs most were in the past, but I think their improvement is in proportion with the overall improvement in skill level (and 'attackingness' of defenders etc etc).

I don't know what it is about Ball but he just seems to attract the ball from team-mates - either they have a lot of confidence in him or he just demands the ball when others (ie. ruckmen) wouldn't.

In most cases it's just uneccesary and slows down our ball movement too much.

[dendol]

if he happens to be the only guy without a player marking him, then whats wrong with handballing to him? IIRC, he was involved in a goal that started from half back. I think it was McVeigh or Schneider who then ran past to receive a handball from Ball, and then it was bombed forward which resulted in a goal to Goodes.

[the Jezza]

lizz,
are you sure you are not from Melb or included in the Swans inner sanctum?
A very insightful posting.
By far the most well observed and thought out view.
I am impressed.
Keep up the good work ,see you at Manuka.

[NMWBloods]

I think Ball can potentially receive a lot of handballs because he places himself in the centre as a link between the running half back and one of the midfielders. I have seen him do that on occasion and be the release for Barry or Kennelly, and then handball onto a running midfielder.

He has had a lot of handball receives in games when we have done well. On other occasions though, players panic handball and he is the one that gets it for whatever reasons.

Looking through Ball's handball receives stats, I don't think there is a lot of causality between the number and our success.

[chammond]

I think Ball's performance was the big plus to come out of the Geelong game. He's not back to his best yet, but the signs are very positive. He's demanding the ball around the ground, getting plenty of possessions, and marking strongly, and he's going in much harder in the ruck duels.

His kicking isn't quite right yet, but that will come soon.

I reckon that he and Goodes could really expose the Roos in the ruck this weekend . . . neither Porter nor McKernan perform well under real pressure.

[liz]

Originally posted by chammond
I think Ball's performance was the big plus to come out of the Geelong game.

Agree with you there Cliff. He started last season and 2001 quite slowly but worked his way into form after a few games and it looks like he is doing the same again this year.

One thing that impressed me on Saturday was his work at ground level. For such a tall guy he is pretty adept at picking the ball cleanly off the deck and keeping it moving forward.

[dawson]

Lizz,

your reply was beautifully crafted and a pleasure to read
Better than 95% of the stuff that you read in the media.

I agree with what you said (who am I to argue with it) - but what I would say is this - that the Swans need to have a Plan B.

Handballing has served us well but when you find that you come up against a brick wall, the team has to be flexible and work out a plan to crack the other team's plan.

In a way - it is chess with the coaches using the players as pieces. The great coaches are those who when their team seems to be coming unstuck are able to reshuffle it (such as Lethal and Martin Pike in Round 1 against us) and come out with a winning formula.
You try and orchestrate the match-ups as best as you can and force the other side to be reactive as opposed to pro-active.

What was most frustrating was that against Geelong, we seemed to be just banging our head against the wall until it broke. Against a lesser side such as Geelong that was ok because they came to a complete standstill but against better teams we need to have back up plans and tactics if Plan A doesn't work.

[liz]

Dawson, to some extent I agree that the Swans need a Plan B and that is one of the challenges ahead of Roos. They have shown they can play in different ways - vis a vis the match against the Lions but I guess that was on their terms, rather than as a reaction to what the Lions were doing.

Having said that, a lot of the failure of the game plan on Saturday was down to poor execution as much as anything else. Part of this can be attributed to the smart tactics of the Cats but if it was easy as that teams would have worked us out midway through last season. Even when players weren't under pressure their execution of the skills was very ordinary at times, with handpasses and short kicks landing on the toes of their team mates.

On the tactical side, one of the masterpieces of Thompson was to remove Leo Barry from the play. I'm struggling to understand why Roos didn't react by just instructing Barry to stay in his position, rather than follow Haynes. Couldn't he just have moved another player- say Saddo - onto Haynes? And then if the Cats reacted by moving Haynes back to where Leo was then stationed, switch match-ups again? I know a lot of thought goes into the best match-ups pre-game, but without belittling the Cats too much, with all their injuries to key players they weren't the most challenging team to match up against. Surely Roos could have outthought Thompson on this one?

[dawson]

Agreed - but when you say it, it seems so much more eloquent