Realfooty - Sydney 2005

[Nico]

Ryan O'Keefe, now there is a handy player rarely mentioned by the media, who has his leading foot firmly on the next step.

[caj23]

Originally posted by Nico
What gets me about Rohan Connolly is that his is so Essendon biased it's not funny. He never rates us, and like Mrs Wilson bags us at any opportunity.

Guess what? He's speaking at the Melbourne lunch this week.

There are better journos in Melbourne to invite to a Swans do. Saw his name on the flyer when I got it and decided work was a better option.

Actually Nico I think Rohan may have got his fingers burnt a couple of times with us, he is usually fairly positive and I recall a few seasons ago he even picked us to be premiers.

Caro is certainly a different story though

[Nico]

Will, maybe it is my perception that whenever I hear him he plays us down, or can't say anything positive about us.

I find him boring.

[NMWBloods]

I thought the article was quite fair and reasonable.

As for superstars, there is this comment:

Undoubtedly, Goodes at his Brownlow best and Barry Hall in all his bustling glory fit that bill, with Michael O'Loughlin and Nick Davis capable of ripping a game apart at times. But while the Swans have, in the past two seasons, defeated the tried and true powers of Port Adelaide and the Brisbane Lions, and overcome rising power St Kilda, where they may not keep pace this year is in matching the star quality of those teams yet again.

In critical games, sometimes our superstars don't all fire (hence one reason why we haven't made a GF).

Note also:

To progress further, the Swans would want to break out of the hot-cold pattern that bounced them around last year.

Which sort of points to a similar thing.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Nico
What gets me about Rohan Connolly is that his is so Essendon biased it's not funny.

Although I noticed he picked Essendon to finish 12th!

[Glenn]

Originally posted by Nico
Not referring to Chris Grant are we?

Really a group of players, but Chris Grant is certainly amongst them

[BonBon]

Originally posted by dendol
we've got one now: ROK. He's looking as pretty as they come.

Ryan is not a pretty boy! The only pretty boy in the AFL is Matthew Lloyd!

[dimelb]

So many 'ifs' in these predictions. If our top players are all switched on, if we aren't cut down with injuries, if Roos' approach is the right one (i.e. don't bust a gut for the Wiz, but come out firing when it matters) - we can beat anyone, and have done.
I was surprised to see Melbourne in front of us, but after the big three (Port, Brisbane, Saints) I think you could throw a blanket over West Coast, Geelong and us.
Interesting times ahead!

[dendol]

Originally posted by BonBon
Ryan is not a pretty boy! The only pretty boy in the AFL is Matthew Lloyd!

This pic says it all.. pretty pebbles

[Thunder Shaker]

Re: Realfooty - Sydney 2005

Originally posted by midaro
"OUR EXPERTS PREDICT" is pretty severe.

Rohan Connolly 7th
Karen Lyon 7th
Jake Niall 6th
Emma Quayle 10th
Peter Schwab 8th
Robert Walls 7th
Tim Watson 6th
Caroline Wilson 9th - She just can't help herself

I guess the obvious thing to do if we think the Swans will finish higher than that is to go to Sportsbet and put $50 on the Swans to make the finals. The Swans are paying $1.85 at the moment, which is roughly 50-50 odds.

On another note, odds on the Swans for the flag is $21, the same as Carlton.

[cressakel]

Originally posted by Reggi
The lack of 'superstars' was kind of amusing.

Given

Hall - ****ey had himas top 5
Goodes - Rising Star and Brownlow
Kirk - 3rd in Brownlow
O'Loughlin - Twice AA

Little bit disrespectfull to 4 pretty good players (Leo Barry is one of the star defenders in the comp).

But I was over it

Don't forget Paul Williams was AA in 2003, Kennelly 'will' be a superstar this season and if Schneider and Nicky D have there heads right and are injury free they will be close to the 'superstar' category.

And then of course there is Nic Fosdike......

The problem with Melbourne journo's is that they don't know enough and therefore don't rate the non-AFL teams Sydney and Brisbane until they have won two premierships or more, as when Brisbane won the flag in 2001, only a couple of so-called journo's had Brisbane backing up again in 2002. Most journo's had there love children The Bombouts as premiers in 2002.....

[Rizzo]

Interesting stat from the article was the low number of shepherds per game. Is this because of the Swans style of play?

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Rizzo
Interesting stat from the article was the low number of shepherds per game. Is this because of the Swans style of play?

I commented on this last year. I think this is a terrible stat.

Not sure why it is the case. Perhaps there are too many players who aren't natural footballers. Maybe too many guys go for the ball and don't think about what is happening.

Most likely a combination of factors, but certainly something that needs changing.

[penga]

it may also have something to do with our link and run play - ie the ball carrier will draw a tackler and hand off to a player running past, rather than waiting for that player to shepherd the player that is ahead of them. in theory, it creates a quicker transfer in play...

[NMWBloods]

There is an argument that may have contributed to the lower shepherding stat in 2003, but not so much in 2004, when we ran a much closer and less running game. Also, there is also the case that shepherding is still necessary in a running game - you can't always draw a man to create a free one.