Swans v Port: Round 15

[Roadrunner]

I have an exercise where I try to guess which Swans are in the votes before checking them out. I had that five, roughly in that order (I thought Grundy was best on ground).

Agreed Matt- thought he was fantastic and gave his all. Isaac was terrific but Grundy was BOG for mine.

[MattW]

Coaches votes for the game. Nice to see Mills get a mention.

9 Isaac Heeney SYD
9 Brodie Grundy SYD
6 Callum Mills SYD
3 Justin McInerney SYD
2 Nick Blakey SYD
1 Zak Butters PORT

I have an exercise where I try to guess which Swans are in the votes before checking them out. I had that five, roughly in that order (I thought Grundy was best on ground).

[Thunder Shaker]

The way he is lining up is wrong. When you line up you generally kick where you line up. So, if you line up facing the points you kick there. Not only that his drop was off. He shanked two of them because of the ball drop that was loose. In other words the ball floated like a balloon. To stop this I actually kicked a balloon around. This gave me the ability to change my kicking action mid drop. I learned that from Lockett. He said that to make his action better he tried all kinds of different balls, tennis ball, I did this too, balloon, soccer ball, basketball. All different but they allow you to be able to manage the drop of a footy, the most horrible ball to drop of any footy.

Thank you for that summary on Amartey's kicking. I'm not great at picking the problems, but I did sense that something was not right with the action. I have not seen a side-by-side comparison of Amartey's action in the match compared to his nine-goal match at the same venue last year. Such a comparison would be illuminating.

[dejavoodoo44]

Coaches votes for the game. Nice to see Mills get a mention.

9 Isaac Heeney SYD
9 Brodie Grundy SYD
6 Callum Mills SYD
3 Justin McInerney SYD
2 Nick Blakey SYD
1 Zak Butters PORT

[mcs]

Joel is either a chalk or cheese sort of player - when he is on, he looks a million dollars. When he isn't, he can not hit a barn door.

I wouldn't mind seeing them experiment with Rowy a bit. Let him off the leash a bit and see what he can do. Sheldrick has helped a lot in the middle, and finally showing at AFL level what he can do. I've always think Rowbottom has been shoe-horned a little bit too much into the defensive midfield role - if you go back and read about his draft year and what his strengths were, they weren't just limited to being a tackling machine. He was actually quite damaging with ball in hand attacking too. We aren't getting what you would hope from him at this point, but I don't think the coaches are helping him either.

It was a lovely trip to Adelaide to see us get the win for me and Mrs MCS - weather was great and it should have been a proper thumping. It wasn't - but there was a lot to like in some of our play. And those mid season wanting to send Mills to the gallows (not on here but elsewhere) got a gentle reminder of just how important he is to our footy team. Was absolutely terrific.

[Nico]

It’s a good observation. When he’s kicking with fluidity, he’s still relaxed but he’s smooth and clear in what he’s doing. It’s not dissimilar from what Chol does at Hawthorn. He looks very languid, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Last night, Joel seemed to have trimmed a couple of steps off his run up and the ball drop was almost too gentle.

Joel needs to find the balance that works for him. Routine is everything. Plugger and probably Matthew Lloyd were probably the best two I’ve seen for that. I also saw Jesse Hogan interviewed through the week and despite his stutter, he said he does exactly the same thing every time and feels in complete control.

I said in my match summary that Joel was kicking where he was running; straight at the points. This morning on the Footy Show Mathew Lloyd said just that, and showed footage from behind. Joel was running to his right and indeed kicked the ball very straight, straight through the points. It won't take much to fix that because when he has played this year he has been pretty accurate. Also I think he was kicking from too close to the man on the mark.

[imuninformedtwo]

The way he is lining up is wrong. When you line up you generally kick where you line up. So, if you line up facing the points you kick there. Not only that his drop was off. He shanked two of them because of the ball drop that was loose. In other words the ball floated like a balloon. To stop this I actually kicked a balloon around. This gave me the ability to change my kicking action mid drop. I learned that from Lockett. He said that to make his action better he tried all kinds of different balls, tennis ball, I did this too, balloon, soccer ball, basketball. All different but they allow you to be able to manage the drop of a footy, the most horrible ball to drop of any footy.

It’s a good observation. When he’s kicking with fluidity, he’s still relaxed but he’s smooth and clear in what he’s doing. It’s not dissimilar from what Chol does at Hawthorn. He looks very languid, but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Last night, Joel seemed to have trimmed a couple of steps off his run up and the ball drop was almost too gentle.

Joel needs to find the balance that works for him. Routine is everything. Plugger and probably Matthew Lloyd were probably the best two I’ve seen for that. I also saw Jesse Hogan interviewed through the week and despite his stutter, he said he does exactly the same thing every time and feels in complete control.

[wolftone57]

Great win today....let's not talk about the goalkicking though. Amartey goal kicking practice all week FFS!

Having Paps and Gulden back obviously lifted the team, lets hope this can lead to some sustained good form from the team now.

From the reserves six point win:

Lloyd 38 possessions, eight marks and a goal, Florent 26 disposals, six tackles and five clearances and Caidyn Cleary had 30 touches and a team-high nine tackles.

I hope the club asks Tony to come and give Joel some tips on goal kicking. He could change his leg to match the ball drop if it was off. Adjust, or stop the drop.

So gald to see the reserves getting a win. Watched the last bit of that after I got home from shopping. Good to have some people back.

[wolftone57]

Sydney's scores against Port this year.

Round 6: 10.17 (77), Port 13.7 (85).
Round 15: 9.17 (71), Port 7.10 (52).

Amartey scored 0.6 and two out on the full from eight shots. He's doing okay to get so many shots, but his finishing was not great. Is there a problem with his kicking action?

The way he is lining up is wrong. When you line up you generally kick where you line up. So, if you line up facing the points you kick there. Not only that his drop was off. He shanked two of them because of the ball drop that was loose. In other words the ball floated like a balloon. To stop this I actually kicked a balloon around. This gave me the ability to change my kicking action mid drop. I learned that from Lockett. He said that to make his action better he tried all kinds of different balls, tennis ball, I did this too, balloon, soccer ball, basketball. All different but they allow you to be able to manage the drop of a footy, the most horrible ball to drop of any footy.

[wolftone57]

I thought Grundy was exceptional. Everyone played well but he and Isaac won us the game.

Grundy, Isaac and Gus were all great in the mids. Rowie too but tackles don't get you a B&F vote. McCartin gave Georgiadis a bath, 7 disposals 1.3. Roberts was great when he was playing the mid role. Good on a wing but not great. Mills was super Ted. I loved his game he was directing traffic all around the ground. A special mention to Wil, stood up when most didn't. Only player not to kick a point. I also would like to say that Aaron Francis put his body on the line, nearly took mark of the year and was not paid, and brought the ball to ground, again and again. Those acts will not get much credit.

Run Down of players;

Amartey; Had a great game except he could,t find the middle of the two big white ones. Now Joel, you have to kick the ball in between the two big white ones. Not the little white one and the big white one. Try again

Bice; Good option as sub. I thought one of the comeback kids would be subbed out. But they went for Francis instead. Probably a mistake as it turns out. Port got a run on in the last and Gulden and Papley were cooked. Bice was good.

Blakey; Was very good. His running set up so many forward entries. But he got lost in the defensive mire quite a few times too. This is not his fault it is the coaches fault for not playing him up the ground.

Campbell; A really good game. Some of his defensoive efforts were so strong and rugged. His tackling pressure and run down pressure were super. He was very good at anticipating whre the Port players would run.

Cunningham; Harry was, well, Harry. He was high Pressure Harry. Good luck getting out of his grasp if he gets hold of you

Francis; May not have had too many disposals but he did the hard things well. He competed and brought the ball to ground.

Grundy; Was superb. I can't believe he ran away from Butters. Pushed off him and ran away. WOW. He did the hard things, the easy things all well. His rucking was super and he flogged their two rucks, he then became an extra mid. People tend to forget, when he was AA he was the most mobile ruck in the AFL.

Gulden; A good return. He disposal was the thing. He went missing in the second, 2 disposals. But came back again in the third. He hit up so meany leads, at one stage he didn't have a handball.

Hayward; Due to his accuracy, he was the forward of the night. He was super competitive too.

Heeney; What can I say. An absolute champion. Best player in the AFL. Don't give a a @@@@ about Daicos. Daicos does not take hangers or mark the ball like this guy. He is the most complete footballer in the AFL.

Jordan; Did some good things and kept their mids quiet until the last quarter. Ran out of puff I think. Certainly cleaned up in the clinches.

McCartin; Tommy was good. Super good. His marking and spoiling were super. He kept Georgiadis to 1.3 and negated their forwards with the other known outlaws who stole ball again and again. Harry, Melly, Wicksie, Ramps, Mills & Blakey. They work so well together and this guy is the pin that keeps the threads together.

Mellican; Another fine game from this guy. He just gets the job done, no fuss, no ado. Goes about his business efficiently. He was on the resting rucks and burned them.

Mills; What A SUPER GAME! He is well and truly the leader the club says he is. Heens keeps talking about his ability to see the game and identify the problems or options. He did exactly that. He led by example and directed the game. He pointed out options when players were taking too long. He quickly identified space and turned that into a marking opportunity fir his forwards and mids. A truly top captain's game

Papley; A good return. Gave us all a fright when he got that corkie. But could have kicked better vfor goal, same as Joel just not as much opportunity. Goal kicking practice for these forwards I think.

Rampe; Getting to the end I think. Defended well. But his disposal is like LLoyd's, wait forever and then bomb long. It's as though he doesn't have the confidence to pass the ball. He waits an eternity to kick it. If I was an umpire I would have been saying play on several times when he had the ball. A much loved character and bloke but time waits for no man and it is catching up with Sir Dane.

Roberts; Was really good. I liked his role better than at HB. The wing and Mids suits him better. He used his brawn to muscle opponents out of the play then handballed or kicked to advantage. Liked his game.

Rowbottom; Had another ho hum game. He has had less than 20 disposals or less in the last 6 games. Port 14, Tigers 15, Crows 20, Dees 12, Baggers 19, Bombers 21, GWS 14, Suns 20, Port 23, Pies 22, North 20, Dockers 22, Lions 11, Hawks 16. These figures show a mixed season. He is still a tackling machine but sometimes his output is not good enough for a mid. I love this bloke but he has two flaws he has to fix. The random kick in haste our of a pack or in the backs. The panic kick. Or the kick from a stoppage with no plan. Just kick the @@@@ out of the thing in hope a forward might just get onto it. The second is in most matches this year he has not gotten enough disposals to warrant him being in the mids. This is worrying as he is a heart and soul player. I want him to succeed. But look at what Gus has been able to do recently and he is going past Rowie at a rate of knots. I think he might be carrying some bruises. Maybe time to give him a rest and let him recover.

Sheldrick; Boy was he good in the clinches. He doesn't get 30 disposals but he does ectract so others can get 30. He gets the ball out no matter what, no manner what. Tap ons, shove it out, handball, kick, knock ons. He might be small but he is a brute in there. A good game.

Warner; Not one of his best but had Willem Drew up his kyber most of the night. Frew has done the job on nearly every top mid this season. Still managed to get 17, the average on Drew is 13.

Wicks; Took on Rioli and did it well. Rioli kicked 1.1 with 7 disposals, most of which he got up the ground. Great negating game from Wicksy.

[UUaswan]

Agree Mills was great, best game in a long time, I think it helped Roberts as he was a bit surer by foot.

Grundy and his follow up work were outstanding

Heeney was Heeney, Blakey seemed to be able to get up the ground a bit more.

Hayward is a different player when he plays along 2 talls

Francis was the only tall, outside if Grundy that attacked the packs for marks, would like to see him go fwd more with kicks and only go back if a switch is on not just an open man.

Bice is the perfect Sub, who did he come on for ?

Wicks was clean, still can't believe his turn around

Outside of Amartey and JMAc kicking, the 1 that frustrated me was Campbell. Guy is more than capable but has games were he is the cleanest if hands and then games where he fumbles. With his speed, if he is clean he is dangerous. Also missed alot of tackles

[Sandridge]

Fantastic for both teams to win yesterday! Combined score for our 2 teams was 21.37.

Wonder what we'll be practicing this week?

GO BLOODS!

[lwjoyner]

Amerty bad kicking to me. Doesn't anyone remwber his kicking in a final for sandringham (i trhik it was) missed from ten m sq. Never been a great kick for goal and he either improves or gets dropped.

[imuninformedtwo]

I thought Mills was our best. He played from the back of the centre square and read the ball so well coming his way. A lot of his possessions were coming through the centre. I can't recall him making a mistake and the backline goes much better with him back there.

The thing that I have noticed the last 2 games is that we have been so much harder at the footy, and we are getting a lot more players to the contest. We gave Port very little space in their forward line when the ball hit the ground. We now 2 have hard nuts around the footy with Rowbottom and Sheldrick. Although Sheldrick's kicking is rubbish at times he now gets first possessions at centre bounces and gets the ball into our forward line. At last we have someone who reads the ball off the rucks.

A good example of getting more players to the contest was late in the 2nd quarter, deep in PA forward line, and we got 8 players back to stop a goal and smothered the Port forwards.

Apart from the goal kicking our discipline was way up again this week.

Amartey at least got on the lead and gave us a focal point. He had 8 marks and if he does that every week look out. He can't possibly kick that badly again.

A good all round performance with no passengers.

It’s a good observation on Gus’ ability to read the taps. I also think we’ve got a better balance to our game around the ball.

I've got no doubt our contested and clearance work is something Cox has been keen to improve since taking over. You still need it to be sustainable in big games, as much as turnover footy is king these days. Due to the turnover in our team and number of young players early in the season, we often got it wrong and overindexed on players getting sucked too far and too tight into the contest. The last two weeks we’ve gone at the ball, but had both release players and defensive set ups better organised.

[Nico]

I thought Mills was our best. He played from the back of the centre square and read the ball so well coming his way. A lot of his possessions were coming through the centre. I can't recall him making a mistake and the backline goes much better with him back there.

The thing that I have noticed the last 2 games is that we have been so much harder at the footy, and we are getting a lot more players to the contest. We gave Port very little space in their forward line when the ball hit the ground. We now 2 have hard nuts around the footy with Rowbottom and Sheldrick. Although Sheldrick's kicking is rubbish at times he now gets first possessions at centre bounces and gets the ball into our forward line. At last we have someone who reads the ball off the rucks.

A good example of getting more players to the contest was late in the 2nd quarter, deep in PA forward line, and we got 8 players back to stop a goal and smothered the Port forwards.

Apart from the goal kicking our discipline was way up again this week.

Amartey at least got on the lead and gave us a focal point. He had 8 marks and if he does that every week look out. He can't possibly kick that badly again.

A good all round performance with no passengers.