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I was a bit dubious on his prospects but apparently from as soon as they got back to training it was clear to the club he'd done a mountain of work to lift his running power and he went on to have a huge preseason. I also think him playing on a wing suits his kicking skills, that had degraded a bit under the pressure of playing down back. I guess it's easy to forget that coming into his draft year, a lot of recruiters had him inside their top 10. He faded for various reasons that season, and has some limits, but hopefully he and the coaching staff have cracked a bit of the code to getting the best out of him. It's early days, but fingers crossed.
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I am mighty impressed with our defensive efforts and shutting space for opposition. We always had good attack and now we can do both Defense and offense makes it harder and in offence we are doing it both ways - handballs and kicking (which we were always good at).
Also I think we have become good at taking contested marks.
one of our Achilles heel is still against the centre bounce dominant teams - and the next 2 weeks should give us an indication how well we are doing in that category. Ruck would be the other one that we may have to think about hard as we are heavily reliant on Grundy who is doing a great job and is pretty much the extra midfielder for us.Comment
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Coaches votes were:
Heeney 10
McInerney 7
Grundy 6
Mills 3
McCartin 3
Paps 1
No real surprises there.Comment
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While I talked up McInerney earlier in the thread, my second choice in the voting would have been McCartin. I thought his intercept marking was excellent and perhaps he was the person most responsible for the Suns taking no contested marks. He also seems to be moving the ball a bit more effectively. Of course, absolutely no surprise in Heeney getting maximum votes.Comment
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Super win. Really impressed by the pressure we applied for the whole game.
Set-shot misses could have been costly. Aside from his kicking I thought Curnow's competitiveness was good.
Really enjoyed seeing a game from a suburban oval. Took me back a few years!Comment
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I think where else has improved is he is now more decisive when he has the ball. Previously he was reluctant to move the ball on. Mark, stop, prop, look sideways then usually kick a short pass backwards. almost like he was scared of making a mistake. Now he is getting in and under and getting the shorts dirty and he is much quicker with his hands. I reckon his instructions are when he gets the ball on the wing he kicks long because we always have players running forward.Comment
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Charlie Curnow has been in the game for nine years. Paid well. He should be kicking more goals, particularly when standing in front of the sticks. Saturday's outcome was sub-standard. The past month has been underwhelming given his talent. Time for the coaches to sit down and have a little chat. Something is not right. And excuses like the blustery conditions are acceptable for a couple of shots, not all of them. I was at the ground. Gold Coast kicked straighter.
To me, Amartey has had more chances than a pole dancer at a bucks do. His marking has improved but it is his kicking that is letting the team down. Is it a head thing/confidence/preparation for the kick? Whatever, he has to get better, fast. Should we get the forwards kicking straighter, a top four finish is there for the taking...like the pole dancer."Play like you can’t lose."Comment
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Poor kicking aside, we got opportunities from the big 3 but not accuracy 1.9.
3 permanent tall Fwds, Look at Freo, you can't stop them all. Hard to grade any of them when the fwd system isnt available to them all game.
We need to bring in a ruck to do that and even better than Freo is we have goalkicking Mids like Heeney that are unstoppable if a defence already has 3 talls to worry about.Comment
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So why i like the pressure Cox is drilled into the team, he still resides over a fwd line and ruck setup that is baffling.
Amartey and Logan aren't rucksComment
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Curnow's form was in the spotlight by Kane Cornes on AS last night. His criticism being we gave away 3 x1st rounders for Curnow to be a power forward & not a role player.
Kane then compared Curnow's stats so far this season with other less credential key forwards which were more favourable.
Kane conceded it's only a small early season sample, but thinks Curnow is currently lacking confidence in hitting up & jumping at the ball hard, which he has displayed in previous seasons. This could be for a variety of reasons, but he needs to start improving.Comment
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Curnow's hands certainly don't seem 'sticky' at the moment, but I think he has been doing a good job last couple of weeks making sure the ball gets to ground if he doesn't mark it. But the less said about the kicking for goal at the moment, the better.
I don't agree with those that suggest we have to get power forward outcomes from him week in week out because of what we gave up for him. We want high levels of performance - sure, and we need him consistently kicking for goal a lot better than he has been. But I suspect he is just low on confidence and still finding his feet at a non-dysfunctional football club, and he might be a bit up and down for a while until he finds his true groove."You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."Comment
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People forget that he has played most of his career on a windless ground and maybe still adjusting to out in the open. He had at least 3 goal assists, 2 to Papley whom he tapped down to, who was front and centre. The other was the desperate kick when on the ground that went to Rosas who goaled. Lets not forget Cornes said Hayward was the most underrated player in the comp 2 years ago.Comment
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Unfortunately Cornes only tells half the story which is standard practice for him. Yes we did give up 3 first round picks, but did get back a number of second round picks that enabled us to draft Harry Kyle, Max King and Chamberlain who were all highly rated academy prospects this year, and also pick up Phillipou and Coogee.
There is not much coming through in the academy next year, and with the Tassie concessions coming in, drafting young talent is going to be difficult, particularly if we finish top 4 this year.
Everything is a calculated risk, but there appears to be some exciting talent coming through in the VFL team this yearComment
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I suspect the trade off for now is more running power and by default, less time on ground for our elite mids, which will add up over the course of the season. I saw Hardwick made a comment that was what he was trying to achieve too.
The question is how Grundy is going to deal with it. He seems to be enjoying it and flourishing for now. There’ll likely be a point at which we give him some relief. I’d be more inclined to do it and see how it works against lesser teams, after round 7.Comment
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