Match thread, round 2, Swans v Hawks.

[mcs]

Yes mcs the umps just are scared of the crowd. Should not be a factor but always is. Wish the crowd at the SCG would create a 'boo factory' like in W.A.

Corey will stay in I reckon and Cleary out - just don't understand why some people rate him. He hardly ever disposes of the ball well and doesn't seem to tackle well. I hate to 'put the boots' into a young bloke but we have to try someone else.

It is so different at a game in Sydney compared to a game in Melbourne. It is what it is - and the SCG can be hostile at times. But usually it takes a cascade of horrendous umpiring for it to happen (A Freo game I think it was several years back sticks in my mind - I genuinely thought the umpires wouldn't get out of there in one piece), not week in week out like the big Melbourne clubs achieve.

[crackedactor 01]

11 more free kicks and a 5 day break which resulted in10 players getting one or less possession in the last quarter.Every year its the same story. AFL ORGANISATION IS CORRUPT.

[UUaswan]

Yes mcs the umps just are scared of the crowd. Should not be a factor but always is. Wish the crowd at the SCG would create a 'boo factory' like in W.A.

Corey will stay in I reckon and Cleary out - just don't understand why some people rate him. He hardly ever disposes of the ball well and doesn't seem to tackle well. I hate to 'put the boots' into a young bloke but we have to try someone else.

Cleary is 100 miles at the contest with no sense of how to get the ball or sometimes even go for the ball.

[UUaswan]

Warner got plenty of the pill, but was poor disposal wise and butchered several chances,

Last person he laced out was Buddy for his 1000 goal, he breaks lines and gets the ball down the ground quick for fwds to be 1 on 1 and smalls to swoop

Need to read the room on the 25 players, play Ladhams as the 2nd ruck between the Centre and the Bench just for Grundy to rest.

Ned Reeves played 40% game time, same as Reidy in Opening round.
We are destroying a functional fwd line by not having talls down the line or up the ground presenting as they are cooked from rucking.

Our smalls fwds are also non existant as our talls can't get to contests or present.

21 Touches between Cleary, Rosas, Amartey and Curnow.

Leave 3 talls in the fwd line, one can go high and get on the lead

Basic fwd setup, same mistakes as last year

[Nico]

Curnow is getting the Barry Hall treatment from the grumpies. He was held or blocked nearly every time the ball went near him. The worst was when he was pushed in the chest in the goal square and a Hawthorn player in front marks. Probably the most one sided umpiring I have seen in a long time. Ginnivan dragging ball in and hatching it wasn't the only one. Nash held the ball for an eternity at times. The Brownlow votes from the game will be interesting. Another one: Watson being tackled over the line and gets a 50.

[SwanSand]

5 day break. We had no chance after playing frenetic 2 rounds.
move on.
I think Corey Warner but he has no poise with the ball. Similar to how Dylan Stephen’s was with us. Cleary the same.
we need a big body in the midfield and as the year goes by we would clearly miss having a dynamic but bigger bodied midfielder who would prevent the ball coming off the centre square easily. Rowbottom is a tackler but doesn’t get his own ball very often. Currently him and Sheldrick need to be the ones that need to improve for us to have a chance in the middle.

[lwjoyner]

I think I said in an early post before the game I woudl be happy with a loss of about 3 goals. I am happy with Errol and Issac missing and umpiring again against us. Even in Sydney we dont get a go from umps as Melb teams do at home. AFL MUST do something about it and we should complain about inconsistencies mentioned in posts,
Also Hayden has to play even off the bench to give Brodie a rest , Amerty can't ruck and it robs the fwd line if he goes into the ruck and moves around the ground to contest ball ups and throw ins. Cleary not up to it 9 , no more games)a reserves player only. i think Lloyd not quick enough for how Cox wants to play and both he and Toberts chase the ball too much and appear many times on the ff line and are not watching what thier oppenent is doing, too many times Hawks got out and had loose players everywhere,lets see what happens today in reserves but perhaps we need to try H K to replace Lloyd and MAKE Roberts keep track of his opponent. Thats Cleary and Lloyd out and McL and Kyle in. Some would say H C should come in but he like Lloyd is geting past it. Suggest also that the great Dane does not play on the best fwd again he is not tall enough,should have swapped Serong to play on Gunston. Leave Dane on the wing or HB flank

[Hotpotato]

I must be too old to understand why we repeatedly allow loose opposition players everywhere in game after game and watch the ball transition so easily into their I50.
Also, at Henley Beach High School in Adelaide, our coach Geoff Fuller always told us to play in front to have many more advantages. The Swans played from behind too much
last night, but they were no doubt knackered from the 5 day break.

[imuninformedtwo]

So, Cleary was poor last night but I found the use of him weird too.

Didn't come on in the first quarter, which is fine in theory for a high impact player but that's not Cleary. He was then used as a defensive forward, then sent to man up Newcombe in the middle when he was ripping the game away in the third quarter . . .

There's the bit that's on Cleary, and that's quicker decision-making. There were times he paused and second-guessed himself, which chewed up his space. But I'm not sure the way he was used helped him either..

[mcs]

So, Cleary was poor last night but I found the use of him weird too.

Didn't come on in the first quarter, which is fine in theory for a high impact player but that's not Cleary. He was then used as a defensive forward, then sent to man up Newcombe in the middle when he was ripping the game away in the third quarter . . .

There's the bit that's on Cleary, and that's quicker decision-making. There were times he paused and second-guessed himself, which chewed up his space. But I'm not sure the way he was used helped him either..

Corey and Cleary have opposite problems. Corey rushes decision making at AFL level and actually has more time than he thinks he does, while Cleary fits the more normal category of thinking he has more time than he actually does.

It was an odd use of Cleary, but coaches are still fiddling with how best to utilise the 5th player on the bench, so he sadly got caught up in that.

[UUaswan]

I think I said in an early post before the game I woudl be happy with a loss of about 3 goals. I am happy with Errol and Issac missing and umpiring again against us. Even in Sydney we dont get a go from umps as Melb teams do at home. AFL MUST do something about it and we should complain about inconsistencies mentioned in posts,
Also Hayden has to play even off the bench to give Brodie a rest , Amerty can't ruck and it robs the fwd line if he goes into the ruck and moves around the ground to contest ball ups and throw ins. Cleary not up to it 9 , no more games)a reserves player only. i think Lloyd not quick enough for how Cox wants to play and both he and Toberts chase the ball too much and appear many times on the ff line and are not watching what thier oppenent is doing, too many times Hawks got out and had loose players everywhere,lets see what happens today in reserves but perhaps we need to try H K to replace Lloyd and MAKE Roberts keep track of his opponent. Thats Cleary and Lloyd out and McL and Kyle in. Some would say H C should come in but he like Lloyd is geting past it. Suggest also that the great Dane does not play on the best fwd again he is not tall enough,should have swapped Serong to play on Gunston. Leave Dane on the wing or HB flank

Why talk about how Serong destroyed all the key fwds last year then play a 36yr old on a key fwd and Serong on the wing

We are Tom McCartining him. Tom can play up the ground but clearly his position is as a key defender

[UUaswan]

So, Cleary was poor last night but I found the use of him weird too.

Didn't come on in the first quarter, which is fine in theory for a high impact player but that's not Cleary. He was then used as a defensive forward, then sent to man up Newcombe in the middle when he was ripping the game away in the third quarter . . .

There's the bit that's on Cleary, and that's quicker decision-making. There were times he paused and second-guessed himself, which chewed up his space. But I'm not sure the way he was used helped him either..

He plays the same role as Corey, he isnt a defensive minded mid.
I am not wiser as to whether or not he is upto it, but as you said, the role he played is baffling

[UUaswan]

Corey and Cleary have opposite problems. Corey rushes decision making at AFL level and actually has more time than he thinks he does, while Cleary fits the more normal category of thinking he has more time than he actually does.

It was an odd use of Cleary, but coaches are still fiddling with how best to utilise the 5th player on the bench, so he sadly got caught up in that.

The 25th player is a 2nd Ruck end of story.

We destroy our fwd line by robbing it for a ruck and give it 3 months and we will be talking about how cooked Grundy is due to his high workload, like we did in 2024

[Jimitron5000]

A few things that stood out for me:
We need to find a way to stop teams taking uncontested marks. A lot of our recent losses have come from teams that chip it around and keep the ball.
Our field kicking was very ordinary. Curnow/Amartey stood no chance with some of the garbage that was being kicked to them.
Ladhams should play (or McLean, but I think that messes up the forward structure) to give Grundy a break. He will be worn out very quickly if he doesn't get a cut out from a competent second ruck.
Our contested ball needs work. I think Sheldrick is coming along nicely. Let's give Cleary some more time in the middle as well, but too often Hawthorn were able to win the contested ball, get it on the outside and then control the play with their short kicking game.
Umpires. They were bad, but they didn't cost us the game. How Ginnivan got away with the non-holding the ball toward the end will always be a mystery.

[imuninformedtwo]

Corey and Cleary have opposite problems. Corey rushes decision making at AFL level and actually has more time than he thinks he does, while Cleary fits the more normal category of thinking he has more time than he actually does.

It was an odd use of Cleary, but coaches are still fiddling with how best to utilise the 5th player on the bench, so he sadly got caught up in that.

I think Corey is what he is. I don't want to disparage him, as he's clearly dedicated to get everything he can out of himself. He's a prolific trainer - one of the best at the club, apparently. He's an elite runner, team-oriented, and as you say, often finds himself in a position to affect the game, as he did in the first half last night. But his decision-making and kicking skills haven't substantially improved in five years, and I'm not sure they will.

He reminds me a bit of James Bell. Will always excel and dominate at VFL, but lacks that extra bit of class needed at AFL. A perennial 25-28 player on any decent AFL list.