Poor Attitude

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Many many years ago I was a kid playing in a senior team, we were losing and the defeated feeling at the 3/4 time huddle caused me to speak up about courage and not giving in. One of the players said "give us a break, it's only a game." As a kid I shut up and the team got slaughtered in the final quarter.

What I should have done was smack him right across the face.

Sure he was quite correct, footy is only a game! But his words were more about him finding a justification for his gutlessness than a statement of self-evident facts.

The point I'm trying to make is that some truths are more indicative of a mental state than they are of the situation itself.

I've been reading in the paper where Paul Roos was once again saying how the team "lacks talent" how we're a blue collar, no frills outfit.

I hope you understand why Paul Roos' statements reminds me of that unlamented former teammate.

No I'm not comparing the two of them in anything other than their statements of the bloody obvious. It's just that Roosy's comments are beginning to sound like 1 of 3 things.

Either he's looking for some sort of media award for the stating an re-stating the obvious (and there's some serious competition for that amongst coaches).

OR

He's started making excuses / preparing the ground for a poor season (A lttle odd because he started coming up with this guff last year).

OR

Roosy's locked himself into a defensive/negative mindset.

He began his reign as coach by telling players 'that they were drafted proves they could play football' so he was going to let them do so. These day's he spends far too much time bemoaning the lack of a superstar in the midfield.

Similarly I've noticed that he's stopped subscribing to the "don't drag players for an error let them try to make amends edict" which served us so well in 2003 (LRT and McVBeigh in particular are suffering form this change.

The other problem with having players being told how "no frills" they are for over a year, is that they may start to question their ability too.

We had the same group of midfielders then as now, we lost a retirement age Cresswell not Judd, Ball and Stevens. So whats going on?

Don't give us the crap about no stars, do we have 3 or 4 All Australians in the Swans? (The average number would be 1.4 per team so we've got more than our fair share).

This is already the longest post I've ever done, and there's more to go (at least slapping people takes less time) so thanks for your patience.


I think you just need to look at a single performance indicator to see what's wrong.

Running ~ We were told pre-season how superfit they were, with improved time trials, beep monitors all that blarney yet right now the players aren't running.

In a static situation like a kick in and no-one leads so we see these ****ty 15 metre kicks into the back pocket.
Against Melbourne I watched the diffence between us and them when someone takes a mark outside the 50 arc. The Demons forwards looked like a disturbed ants nest with leads going everywhere (I counted 6 leads from 4 players running the Swans defenders ragged), faced with the same situation we managed 1 lead each from 2 players!

Similarly we simply do not shepherd, Stuart Maxfield for all his deterioration with age is the only one banging bodies. Allowing an apponent to run past and tackle your team-mate is a really sick sign of a lack of run.

In the midfield I see Swans handballing to static, well marked players who can not be calling for the ball. Part of this is because of opposition preassure but I'm beginning to wonder if uncertainty/lost confidence isn't a cause for this painfull exhibition of "hot potato!"

In short we we have supurbly fit players who aren't running for each other.

So rather than bemoaning the players lack of skills (which could also be a confidence thing anyway). Give them a break from trajectories, angles, and critical path analysis of their apponents play (the midfield sometimes seems to consist almost entirely of defensive midfielders). Overcoaching was Eade's problem, tell them to refocus on playing football for each other, it worked when Roos took over in 2002 and then again in 2003 didn't it.



Why is there no cute little "I'm exhausted" face?

[sharp9]

Great Post, Ruckman

I came here to start a similar thread. It's possible that you are right about the main problem being running (or lack of it). If we are a blue collar outfit without great skills it stands to reason that we can't or won't kick to a situation where the turnover probability is more than 50%.

I noticed that both Adelaide and Melbourne had players running past or to a contest, but heading for space. We almost never seem to do this over the past 4 weeks. The skill level required for the player who has just won the contest or clearance is not that great (a 20 metre kick to a player 5 metres clear of his opponent and running toward space...even we can manage that kick) but we don't seem to have that option...it's either a handball to a marked player or a 50 metre kick to a forward or HFF who is not even leading into some space...and tends to be outmanned 2 to 1. That requires a perfect kick AND a good contested grab. Not out of the question but very, very rare.

Hall never takes an uncontested mark from a long kick...unlike forwards from all the top teams. People say it's because the delivery is slow, but that's not true. Even with a quick kick to a lightly manned forward fifty there is never any space.

I have no idea why. Shouldn't the forwards be demanding exactly where they want the ball? I know that Pebbles often runs under the ball. Are his leads crap or is the deliverer just totally mistiming how long the ball is in the air...or is the kick not going where the kicker intended?

I don't know, but the coaches should.

I haven't seen the Weagles game, but I know that Buchanan's forward fifty kicks are less than 50% likely to hit a forward. He doesn't put it on the chest of defenders, though, which makes me think that he is not miskicking...which is good. But I wonder if the ball is landing WHERE HE INTENDED IT TO LAND which would mean that his vision is wrong...or that the lead is crap.

Anybody know? It's impossible to judge if you are not at the game.

I have only seen the Bulldogs Wizard game and my feeling was that the kicks were 80% of the time too long. Either the leads were too early (ie not giving the kicker time to analyse where to put the long ball, meaning that when he kicked it if he put it on the chest of the leading player it would only be going 20 metres) or the kicker was taking an unskilfully long time to see the lead by which time actual "successful" kick would only travel 20 metres.

But the reality was the kicker kicked it 30 or 40 metres regardless...meaning either he completely lacked the skill/vision to put the ball where the leader could mark it...or he was subconsciously sending a message the leader that he was leading at the wrong time to the wrong place.

Why can't they sort this basic crap out?

Why are our wings always crowded with defenders marking man on man when everyone else's wings have acres of space to run into?

If the wings are crowded then there MUST be space to lead into in the corridor (impossible to see from the tele) so why don't we hit targets there?

This game's bloody simple from the computer, ain't it?