N Davis

[Gunn]

I went to the match against the Hawks last night and saw Nick Davis "live" playing in our colours for the first time. I watched him very closely and have used the word lives in inverted commas for a very good reason. He was breathing but showed little other evidence of "life".

Nick confirmed by previously held opinion of him. He is a receiver, pure and simple. He is lazy and he is soft. I suspect he has been able to get away with the above undesirable qualities because he is an excellent kick and often does good finishing work with the minimum of effort. He has prabably been able to carry this attitude all his playing career because he is one of those players who could be a champion if only he had an attitude change. I reckon Collingwood kept playing him and wanted to retain him on their list because they "wished and hoped" they could persuade him to change his attitude. I suspect Paul Roos may keep playing him for the same reason.

Davis has no defensive element to his game. Time and time again his direct opponent took a pass by hand or foot and ran or kicked the ball out of our forward line with Davis looking on at a distance. When the Hawthorn backs had the ball Davis failed to cover an opponent. He just stood there seemingly without a clue as to what to do.

We don't need another "receiver" or a player that kicks 4 goals one week and goes "missing" for weeks on end in the O'Loughlin mould.

I am hoping that he is simply not match fit and felt unable to exert himself too much. If so he shouldn't have been picked IMO.

I am very disappointed in Nick Davis. I was also very disappointed in many others, the apparent lack of or the following of a team plan. I could go through many others but of the new ones I will mention just one other at the moment. Ablett. Too slow of foot and action and maybe of brain. He will never make a AFL player. Someone else should get a game.

[Diego]

I agree 100%.

I studied Nick closely last night and came up with the same conclusion as to you. The amount of times his opponent was allowed to run out and find another player up field was totally ****ed.

Has no defensive skills at all.

I consider Nick Davis a finals and big game player. Seems to lack interest in regular games.

Time will tell I suppose with this one.

[Mike_B]

Originally posted by Diego
I consider Nick Davis a finals and big game player. Seems to lack interest in regular games.

May as well send him back to the Magoos for the rest of the season, coz there ain't gonna be any finals for us this year! (That's the reality for me, but having said that, if we start throwing games from now to get a priority pick, I'll be spitting chips!)

[midaro]

"if we start throwing games from now to get a priority pick, I'll be spitting chips!"

Same.
But... if we blood a lot of youngsters.. throw them in the deep end... baptism of fire... [end cliches] it won't really be 'throwing' games will it?

[swan_song]

I remember being criticised last year when I asked is Nick D the type of player we really want...When I've seen him play, he's always presented to me as a hot or cold type of player...flashy at times, but one equally liable to go a game without being noticed. He's a good kick for goal, but needs the ball delivered to him accurately and with little pressure. I was/am preared to live with that if he could give us the 40 or so goals a year to complement BBBHs 60-plus. When I saw him at the richmond trial match, I thought his work ethic had improvedand that he could contribute 2 or 3 goals a game...now I'm not so sure.

[Charlie]

I'm not ready to give up on him just yet.

Playing up forward, he's such a beautiful kick that he only needs to get the ball once or at most twice a quarter to do his job very well. I'm not sure what his accuracy percentage is over his entire career, but I'm willing to bet that it's pretty high.

He appears to be capable of turning it on at any time, and kick 6 goals. I hope he has the heart to do that for us. If he doesn't improve, he's not immune from being traded.

Charlie

[Red]

My jury is still out on Davis, but I can't believe people are getting into him so much for last night's performance!

He had 11 possesions -- 2 more than Hall, took 2 marks -- 2 more than Foskide (on zero marks), and kicked 2 goals -- 2 more than O'Loughlin (on zero goals). Yet these other three have copped little or no criticism for their efforts (or lack of).

And this is with delivery into the forward line that was so slow and indirect that 2 or more Hawk defenders had time to get back to him to spoil, on the rare occasion that it was directed anywhere near him anyway. Most of the time it went in Barry's direction -- and for the extra service he replied with one extra behind (and a possible report)!

Granted he's no speedster, but I was at the game and I saw him do lots of chasing, mainly due to kicks going nowhere or straight to Hawk defenders from guys like Matthews, Bolton and even Maxfield.

I don't know what you people's expectations of Nick is, but I expected a forward who knows where the goals are. And to kick about 2 goals a game, what is what he's delivered so far.

If all the other players mentioned in this post were doing their job as he's doing his, we'd be in a lot less trouble right now. And, ironically, he probably wouldn't be copping anywhere near as much flak.

[omnipotent]

Davis doesn't really like footy much, I told you that. He came to Sydney because he likes living there but used to hate the Swans when he was growing up, barracked for the Eagles. He has what he wants, is back here now but you can't expect him to enjoy playing in a team like ours after experiencing life in a footy city under a great coach playing alongside better players. Who would want to play in a crappy team? I also said all along that Saddington is quite ordinary, is slow, a poor kick and not a key position player. He would not attract a first draft pick, nor would anyone on our list which is just not rated. Bolton struggles against quality opponents.

[Cheer Cheer]

That is a fair summation GUNN. Cant really disagree with any of that.
However what I will say in support for nick, is that he was brought into the side as a foil for hall, and if we think about it, if he kicked 40+ goals this year, I would believe that would be regarded as a successful ouput in terms of goals by the coaching staff, and at the moment he is on track for that.
What I would like to see is nick getting around 15 possesions a game at least from the half forward/midfield and being more a designated kicker into the forward line if you like, where his kicking skills will be really helpful for Hall and O'loughlin.
I really hope he can improve on his softness, laziness and defensive lapses.
Carlton has a similar player to Davis in houlihan and he had a similar style game to davis last year, but pagan really made him tougher this year, and is one of carltons best players at the moment.
Nick really can be a star people, but a few things have to change, agreed.

[liz]

I'm with Red on this one. Sure, Davis hasn't set the world on fire yet, but I wasn't really expecting much from him early in the season, if at all this year. He looks a tad slow at the moment but he had no pre-season to speak of, and probably wasn't able to train much last year either. His second goal yesterday was an illustration of his class - just reckon we need to give him a bit more time before we stick the knives in.

Also reckon we're going to have to be patient with O'Loughlin for a few weeks. His fitness base should be better than Davis' because I think he was only injured for a month or so before the season started, but he was clearly lacking a bit of touch last night. I thought he still worked pretty hard for most of the game, but he is going to struggle for a while to regain touch and endurance. Still reckon we're a better team with him in than out.

[Newbie]

He is a receiver and we all know that he is not very keen to do all the defensive stuffs in the forward line. If he could add that extra accountability to his game, he could be one of those quality players, we are looking for. However, even as he is, he still deserves a spot in the team. Our high expectation make us so cynical about him. The trouble with Davis, is not about himself but more or less the players around him. We got Stevens, Nick and Davis in the forward line who all lack accountability. Micky is under done. Even when fit, he is not that flash defensively. Hall is a Hall, an individualist. Schneider is a kid and hence we could not ask him to take charge of the forward line. So basically, we have no defensive capacity in our forward.

Take Nicks and Stevens off and put in place two other players with some defensive skills, we will have a decent forward line. That is probably why Roos wanted to play Seymour as a forward.

Btw Doyle injury hurts our forward structure badly. For stevens, He seems to play best in the FF role for which we already have Hall. We might see a trade for Stevens at the end of this year.

[Bear]

I pointed out a week or two ago that Nick's chasing out of the backline was very poor, however, I still feel that he will be a great asset overall.

He has has groin surgery and hence no pre-season - this could account for his lack of fierce chasing (but not the one handed attempt to mark which was a shocker).

Forwards should be given quality delivery to give them the edge over their opponent. Across the board, our delivery into the forward line is poor with passes usually falling short or going too high for an easy spoil. If we can improve this both Hall and Davis will kick many more goals and we will all be happy.

[Angelic Upstart]

At least we didn't trade away any draft picks to get Davis. Swans management was smart not to give in to Collingwood pressure to trade a draft pick for him. And that suggests that the Swans brains trust never regarded him as a key player. He wanted to return to Sydney and play for us - fine, he can play for us, but we weren't going to give up valuable draft picks for him.

Maybe our expectations are too high of him. And maybe he would be better used as an impact player if his workrate isn't high.

And he did score a pretty fine goal against the Hawks - he was by no means the worst on the field.

[motorace_182]

Get off his back. He has just come back from osteitus pubis (spell check needed) and is rightfully nervous to go hard at the footy. He is doing more than others. What about Bazzas lack of overhead marking? Matthews was disgraceful, AGAIN. Schauble was even worse, he his under scrutiny from a few for sure after a pityful game like that from myself in particular. One solution to our backline problem can be summed up in three simple letters L.R.T

[Jeffers1984]

Originally posted by Angelic Upstart
At least we didn't trade away any draft picks to get Davis. Swans management was smart not to give in to Collingwood pressure to trade a draft pick for him. And that suggests that the Swans brains trust never regarded him as a key player. He wanted to return to Sydney and play for us - fine, he can play for us, but we weren't going to give up valuable draft picks for him.

Maybe our expectations are too high of him. And maybe he would be better used as an impact player if his workrate isn't high.

And he did score a pretty fine goal against the Hawks - he was by no means the worst on the field.

We Traded Pick 23 (Bo Nixon) to get Davis which was still a great deal for us. IMO he's still not match fit but if he can stay injury free this year, he'll have a huge 2004. But for now if he can kick 2 a game i'll be happy with his work.