Should this be our starting forward line?

[Nico]

Originally posted by filthpig
I agree our forward line depth is fairly impressive, but i think the extra height in saddington down back helps alot if he is playing well.

Problem is the same blokes were there last year, and we struggled to post decent scores on many an occasion. Perhaps we overrate our forward depth. Sure the delivery to our forwards was pretty ordinary, but they have to find a fair bit.

A fit O'loughlin would be nice, but he is struggling in pre-season to be fit for R1, so how can we possibly rely on him. Reality hurts, but that is what we are faced with.

Ditto for Saddo.

[Wazza]

Howdy

Its hard to know how the Swans are thinking but I'll have a stab.

HF O'keefe

CHF Hall

HF Rotating MF i.e Williams Buccanan, Bolton, Fosdike etc rotating through MF/HF and bench

FP Schnieder/Davis with short spells in the MF/ Bench.

FF Jolly/Doyle possibly Goodes/LRT rotating as well but I wouldnt be suprised if Jolly or Doyle spen long periods at FF.

FP O'loughlin/Sadington MO for first 15 - 20 mins then Saddo to manage MO through the season.

We should know more of how the Swans are thinking after this weekend.

Cheers

Waz

[stellation]

re: Davis

I think he is wasted at FP, even if resting as part of a midfield rotation. He should be playing at HFF if not playing in the midfield.

[robbieando]

Originally posted by stellation
re: Davis

I think he is wasted at FP, even if resting as part of a midfield rotation. He should be playing at HFF if not playing in the midfield.

Agreed, even taking into account his fitness levels, he has the ability to play up on the 50m line and bag 2 to 3 goals a match from that position (either with a long bomb from the 50 and beyond or from a mark drop back to the 30m area)

[liz]

Originally posted by Nico
Problem is the same blokes were there last year, and we struggled to post decent scores on many an occasion. Perhaps we overrate our forward depth. Sure the delivery to our forwards was pretty ordinary, but they have to find a fair bit.

I think our low scoring rate can be attributable to the fact that our midfield does not contribute nearly enough goals. I haven't crunched the numbers, but I suspect that our forward line contributed a higher proportion of our total goals than most other clubs would have experienced.

For all the plaudits surrounding the Saints midfield, they suffered the same way - though the delivery to their forwards was much better than ours got last year. The game against us was a classic example of how shutting down their number one and number three targets (Gehrig and Milne respectively) and - to a lesser extent their number two (Riewoldt) - meant that even while they were on top in the midfield they were not able to get the score on the board.

Brisbane, on the other hand, had a great attack but also a great goal scoring midfield. Yes - I know someone is about to point out to me that we've been pretty good at shutting them down over the last couple of years, but that's been achieved more by completely blanketing them in the middle of the ground and has been aided by their relative inaccuracy in front of goal for an otherwise such talented team.

Our midfield problem in terms of goal kicking has been building for a couple of years. Kelly and Cresswell (especially in the twilight of his career) were good for 20+ goals each. Williams is still the most potent force but he played a much deeper role in 2004 than in previous years, and it told on the scoreboard.

Look at the 2005 contribution from our other senior midfielders:

Bolton 12 goals
Kirk 10 goals
Maxfield 8 goals
Fosdike 3 goals
Crouch 8 goals
Mathews 6 goals

That's not enough. We need a couple of them to be kicking 20 + goals a season (full season permitting) and the rest to be aiming for double figures. If we get that, plus Hall on 60+, O'Loughlin 40+ and 25-30 or so from each of O'Keefe, Davis and Schneider (or Buchanan) that we might look like we're in with a chance of winning the thing.

As a comparison, look at the goal contributions of other 2nd/3rd tier midfielders of comparable experience:

Cameron Bruce 33
Brent Harvey 30
Matthew Robbins 29
Brad Green 24
Justin Murphy 23
Shannon Grant 23
Matthew Lappin 23 (from a HBF!)
Peter Bell 22
Scott Camporeale 21
Graham Johncock 21
Brad Johnson 19
Brodie Holland 18
Tyson Edwards 18
Nathan Eagleton 17
Scott Burns 17
Shaun Burgoyne 17

etc etc

I know some of these players spend time forward of the centre, while not on the ball. But so do the likes of Bolton, Fosdike and Crouch.

I know this has been a bit of a long ramble - so I'll provide a conclusion!

There's not too much wrong with the number of options, variety, skill etc of our forward line but we need another 50 or so goals from the midfield to deserve to be ranked amongst the real contenders.

[robbieando]

Originally posted by liz
There's not too much wrong with the number of options, variety, skill etc of our forward line but we need another 50 or so goals from the midfield to deserve to be ranked amongst the real contenders.

Agreed. Our midfield will hold us back until they chip in with their fair share of goals. Hard to do when we have so many defensive type in the midfield, but hopefully with the possible influx of talent from the young kids we'll see an improve in not our delivery but the offensive nature of the group.

[NMWBloods]

Liz is right - our midfield is one of the lowest in the comp for I50s and our forward line is one of the best for converting I50s into goals.

[swansrule100]

Originally posted by stellation
A good offensive Forward line, but who would do the chasing to stop rebound out of defence and lock it into the forward 50?

White Goodman?

[liz]

I've done a little rough analysis to support my argument.

There's a bit of judgement involved in who to classify as a forward and who a midfielder, but roughly I've identified the top 4 "forwards" from each club - ie those who rarely play far from the forward arc - and looked at what proportion of their team's total goals for the season they contributed. Injuries will distort this to some degree but you can get a general idea.

There were a couple of clubs where I struggled to identify more than 3 true forwards - eg Carlton. After Fevola, Whitnall and Fisher, who do they have? Their 3rd highest goal kicker was Lappin, who played almost exclusively on a HBF.

I've looked at about 12 teams.

St Kilda come out "on top" with their best 4 forwards contributing 66% of their goals.

Sydney were at 58%, the next highest.

Geelong, rather surprisingly given that they are a team thought not to really have much of a forward line, came in at 54%. This is slightly distorted by the fact that I included both Chapman and Ablett as forwards, whereas both spend a fair amount of time in midfield.

Essendon and Freo were both around 50%, though with a very different distribution. Essendon, unsurprisingly, rely heavily on Lloyd while Freo spread it around a bit.

Port pitched in at 47%

Brisbane, Carlton, Kangaroos and Collingwood all come in at around 40%, with Adelaide (another team for whom I struggled to identify many forwards, and included Carey who retired half way through the season) way back at 29%.

[ROK Lobster]

Just out of interest, say we compare Sydney and Port, 58% and 47%, how many goals each is that? I imagine that they are about the same. My guess is that just as there is nothing (IMO) much between Hall and Tredrea in terms of value to a team, there would not be much difference between the forward structures of the two in terms of goals kicked. I would hazzard a guess that Sydney's forwards kick a larger percentage of the teams goals because the mdfield kicks comparatively few. Did anyone kick 3 or more in a game last year out of the midfield? I remeber thinking that Williams and Maxfiled kicked less goals last year than previously (which is understandable). Neither Bolton or Kirk are 'goal-kickers' (of course they do kick them, and some important ones, but not 2 or 3 a game on a regular basis). Does Sydney rely too much on the forwards to kick goals?

[liz]

Originally posted by ROK Lobster
. Does Sydney rely too much on the forwards to kick goals?

That was the point I was trying to demonstrate.

[ROK Lobster]

Good. I sort of thought it was but I wasn't sure.

[ScottH]

It seems to have been a trend for the swans for a few years now, that they look for options rather than have a go themsleves form outside 50. (or 40 @ the SCG). It is frustrating to watch someone streaming downfield only to pause and look for options that aren't always there.

I think they have to back themselves a bit more.

[barry]

I think our midfield dont kick many goals because we play a defensive midfield style.

Hopefully a byproduct of not having an really big ruckman to get first tap, which has been addressed with Doyle and Jolly (assuming both play important roles this year).

[Nico]

Originally posted by ScottH
It seems to have been a trend for the swans for a few years now, that they look for options rather than have a go themsleves form outside 50. (or 40 @ the SCG). It is frustrating to watch someone streaming downfield only to pause and look for options that aren't always there.

I think they have to back themselves a bit more.

Those players listed by Liz, apart form Maxfield, have one common weakness in their game - they don't get much distance with their kicks, therefore they will rarely snag one from more than 40 metres. While we have that core of midfielders I don't know how Roos is going to conjure up much of a different game plan.

Liz, I take your point about the 58% issue, but my point was that we really struggled to kick big scores to put games beyond doubt, and that also, probably the forward contributions were from too few, with the odd spasmodic cameos from a few others.

58% compared with 47%, could in my mind have been 58% of a much lower base than Port's.