First Hawks' talls and now Richmond's

[TheHood]

Did anyone think this game bore a striking resemblence to the Fed game last year against the Hawks?

I mean it was Holland and Everitt that came back for the SCG clash, both of those blokes who should have been underdone STARRED and we got done badly.

Yesterday, Richo and Stafford get back and should have been underdone and well we all saw the carnage yesterday.

We really needed Schaubes yesterday!

[ScottH]

If we get Schauble and MOL back in the same game, maybe we they could star and we win?????

[Alec]

Teams are killing us in the clearances, and I think our talls are definitely struggling at the moment.

We're seeing a lot of spilled ball around the contests leading into pack tackles and bounce-ups. Then more often than not (so far) we're failing to win the following clearance.

I've been reserving judgement for a couple of weeks, but I think it's time Doyle changed his tactics in the Ruck contests. He's clearly not a tap ruckman (yet). He has almost no leap and really relies on a height advantage. His body-on-body work is a 50-50 proposition at best - less when he's up against a player of ability like Ottens.

We're relying on him to play some serious game time as a number one ruckman, and so far this year teams have been jumping us while he's been at the helm.

Nothing to blow our brains out about yet, though.

I'd like to see the big fella just bash it forward. Especially on days like Sunday! It could give him and our struggling midfield a bit of confidence to see the ball going in the right direction. And I'll back our forwards to win the ball if they see it tumbling their way.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Alec
Teams are killing us in the clearances, and I think our talls are definitely struggling at the moment.

Amazingly enough we won clearances yesterday - 46-43 and 10-7 in the centre.

Williams was good with 8 (5 CB), Crouch 5, Ball, Kirk and J Bolton (4 each).

While on stats about getting in and doing stuff, Maxfield had 8 tackles yesterday, behind only Crouch with 11.

[Newbie]

Statistics dont usually tell the full story, unfortunately. My impression is our clearances are often not very clean and not quick enough to make a difference in the forward line. On the other hand, the oppositions often enjoy a quick and clean break from the clearance and it makes a huge difference to their forwards.

[NMWBloods]

No they don't, you are right. It's something I've noted a couple of times before. Our clearances are hurried and poorly executed, and the follow-up disposal often doesn't advantage us. Our opposition's clearances are often under less pressure and free-up a player to find time and space to put the ball forward much more effectively.

This is one serious problem I have with J Bolton this year - not only are his clearances down, but they are not particularly clean. He spends a lot of time diving on the ball and dragging it in - that won't win many games.

[Alec]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
Amazingly enough we won clearances yesterday - 46-43 and 10-7 in the centre.

(................)

that is the sound of me being gobsmacked. Certainly didn't feel like we had first use did it? Then again, we actually did have a lead for almost the entire match.

Oh well...we didn't capitalize on much of that, and we certainly did get slaughtered by Essendon and Melbourne in this area.

I reckon our midfielders could do more to help each other around the rucks. We have the "throw the body on the ball" thing down pat, but this sort of a stuff is very reactionary.

Watching Bris and St Kilda at the moment, there seems to be a lot more space around these contest situations than we've been generating. It seems they are working harder on planned blocking moves, too.

This could all be the result of our run of wet games, however.

Ratten has joined Melbourne as a specialist midfield coach, and I think we all saw his impact at Telstra. Do we have a similar position at the Swans at the moment?

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Alec
(................)

that is the sound of me being gobsmacked. Certainly didn't feel like we had first use did it? Then again, we actually did have a lead for almost the entire match.

The official stats actually had clearances 46-41 Richmond's way, but still, not a huge difference.

I reckon our midfielders could do more to help each other around the rucks. We have the "throw the body on the ball" thing down pat, but this sort of a stuff is very reactionary.

This seems to be the method some of our players, particularly J Bolton at the moment, often use to try to get the ball out. Not a particularly good method of generating effective clearances.

[liz]

My impression from the stand was that we clearly won the centre bounce clearances in the first half. From there you can't always see exactly how they are happening and how clean they are, but I was specifically watching for how many times the ball left the centre square in the hands of a Swan. The problem was that the next possession was usually wasted.

In the second half it turned into such a slogfest (and there were so few goals kicked until the final 10 mins when the team had capitulated) that I gave up watching for these clearances.

[Xie Shan]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
[B]The official stats actually had clearances 46-41 Richmond's way, but still, not a huge difference.


This seems to be the method some of our players, particularly J Bolton at the moment, often use to try to get the ball out. Not a particularly good method of generating effective clearances.

Watching the game yesterday this "throw your body on the ball" method really stopped the flow of the game in the last quarter, with ball-up after ball-up mostly in Richmond's F50. Swans seemed very good at this in the Eade era, but it just isn't smart when you're behind and trying to win a game!

Gotta find a way to create space in there somehow, or we'll be seeing a lot more of this! But in writing that I think I may have found one cause for optimism - even when they're playing crap, when they do find space as in the last quarter against Essendon, they are just about unstoppable! But are they good enough to do this regularly...............