Swans v Saints Match Thread

[cruiser]

Not long home now after the game. Very frustrating. How many inside 50s did we have in the last 15 minutes? Time and time ago we attacked but only managed 2 goals. We should have won but just couldnt mark the ball in our forward line. So many of our goals came during play rather than from set shots. St Kilda's defence did a great job.

Leo Barry's just not playing near the same level as last year - Gehrig killed him. Schneider continues to do well as does Goodes - apart from one particularly shocking kick that resulted in a costly turnover and goal to the Saints when it should have been the other way round. Kirk seemed to be everywhere - a tireless performance.

31,146 was an excellent crowd for such a wet (but not too cold) night. Says much for Sydney supporters that so many would turn up tonight when they could have watched it on TV.

[cruiser]

Originally posted by anniswan
The 2 deliberate OOB that went our way were a joke. I'll take the frees but didn't agree with them.

Saints were getting away with it for most of the night until the last quarter when those two were so obvious, the umps had to ping them. Umps continue to ignore paying frees to Hall that they seem happy to pay to players like Gehrig, But I wont blame the umps for the loss. Sydney's handling of a wet ball was not good.

[Mike_B]

Originally posted by cruiser
Not long home now after the game. Very frustrating. How many inside 50s did we have in the last 15 minutes? Time and time ago we attacked but only managed 2 goals. We should have won but just couldnt mark the ball in our forward line. So many of our goals came during play rather than from set shots. St Kilda's defence did a great job.

Yep, it did, but we didn't help ourselves at all, with no real method to how we moved the ball forward.

One incident that irked me was when Kirk marked from a Saints kick-in but then went back and waited a good 20 seconds or so before going back as long as he could - in those 20 seconds, a group of players had drifted back inside 50 to block up space making it that little bit more unlikely that we would actually be able to make anything of it.

It's pretty simple when its wet - move it forward as quickly as you can.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by Snowy
No wins against quality opposition this year.

Seeing you obviously define quality opposition as 'a top 3 side' (we're 4th, and we've beaten the Dogs who were 5th at the start of the round), that's because we haven't played any quality opposition yet this year!

The argument is self-justifying: St Kilda would be 5-6, and Melbourne currently 5-5, if we'd beaten each of them. From which it would be easy to say 'with those kind of W/L records, they're not quality opposition'.

[gossipcom]

Leo's not a fav of mine so of course criticism will come out of my mouth.

Originally posted by Snowy
Leo was lucky not to concede more free kicks ; he's not the answer at full back. I counted a minimum of three St.Kilda goals he was responsible for.

The best had to be the handball straight into the hands of the Saints player who goaled.

I left with a minute to go, I winced throughout the whole damn game.

A lot of our players didn't play well tonight.

NOG and Dempster got injured - well they definitely came to the bench a number of times clutching hammies and whatnot.

Hopefully Roos puts them through the grinder for the match against the Pies in two weeks - if we play like we did tonight or any of the last few weeks we'll get absolutely creamed.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by Snowy
Leo was lucky not to concede more free kicks ; he's not the answer at full back. I counted a minimum of three St.Kilda goals he was responsible for. Decision-making was appalling on the night even if the atrocious conditions didn't help. As I said last week, Richards is useless and always has been Dons laughing all the way to the bank about getting #19 for him, ditto Cats and Chambers.

Originally posted by Hammo
MOL is becoming a passenger for long periods in games, Amon and Leo Barry were among the worst offenders tonight. Dempster appeared lost all night.

Have no idea why people are so down on Leo. When he was isolated (and that's the problem), he had to wrestle with a gorilla in a test of strength. Unless you just lie on the ground and say 'unless the umpire gives me a free kick, I'll let you have the goal, Mr Gorilla', you have to run the risk of giving away free kicks. He won the majority of those tests of strength, which is saying something. Far from his best game, but he's still clearly one of the elite full backs in the comp. Putting Richards or LRT on Gehrig would quite simply have been insanity; CBolt was the only alternative. While he's a fine player I don't think he has Leo's physical strength, and I don't blame Roos for continuing to give Leo the job.

BBBH would have put in a performance far more similar to Gehrig's if every contest he was involved in was a simple one-on-one tussle. The failure of Roos/success of Thomas in allowing/creating one-on-one contests for Gehrig was the real story of the night.

When Leo has the ball, he is consistently one of the most positive, aggressive backmen in the comp. At least half of the run that we get from our backline is directly or indirectly attributable to him. So he ****ed up on occasion tonight; across his whole career (including this year), his accurate disposal:clanger ratio would be on the good side of the vast bulk of defenders you've ever seen. And his runs and disposals hurt the opposition; he doesn't just negatively 'avoid clangers' by chipping the ball to a static situation or banging it long in hope. If that's what you're after, then you want one B. Mathews at full back.

I've been driving the Dempster bandwagon for some time, but he was very ordinary tonight. Feel free to point to another game that shows I'm wrong, but I'm confident this was his first sup-par performance in a Swans jersey (at least at league level). When you're on the fringes of selection, you can't afford a bad one, but don't worry: he'll be back.

The fact that MOL will drift in and out of the game is a given. He was excellent at doing what he does, I thought. His ability to cleanly collect the piece of soap at speed, and exceptional skills, created at least 2 goals, and he presented and provided an option when god knows BBBH wasn't a decent one.

[Philthy]

I was out yesterday evening and got home at the end of the third quarter. I was timeshifting the game with a view to watching it from the start (of course). Having inadvertently got a score I opted to just watch the final quarter and get an early night. From everything I've read I seem to have made the right choice!

While it's always exciting to come from behind and nail it in the last quarter, sometimes that's not the best strategy - last night proves that point. Somebody needs to explain to the boys that we're just as happy with a win from establishing an early lead and holding onto it...!

[stellation]

Originally posted by Mike_B
Yep, it did, but we didn't help ourselves at all, with no real method to how we moved the ball forward.

One incident that irked me was when Kirk marked from a Saints kick-in but then went back and waited a good 20 seconds or so before going back as long as he could - in those 20 seconds, a group of players had drifted back inside 50 to block up space making it that little bit more unlikely that we would actually be able to make anything of it.

It's pretty simple when its wet - move it forward as quickly as you can.

Yep, what made it worse was that he had Davis and one other (Fosdike?) standing on their own inside 50 waving their hands because the Swans had played a zone on the kick-in. Kirk just stood like a stunned mullet, in all fairness his skills aren't great and he probably couldn't have hit the targets off one step in the wet.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by gossipcom
The best had to be the handball straight into the hands of the Saints player who goaled.

The dry weather hand ball and run up through the middle of the ground caused that goal, as much as Leo's handball under pressure. I thought Gehrig towelled up Leo, I thought Riewoldt left LRT for dead. I thought we were outplayed and outcoached. Roos lacks imagination.

[Captain]

I think people are quick to turn on Leo. The guy is a fantastic full back who virtually won the premiership for us after 72 years.

Granted that he has given away too many free kicks this year, but that is all part of playing his position, there will be ups and downs. SOS had a stage where he gave away a truck load of them as well. So even the greatest can.

Gehrig scored a couple on the lead that Leo (or any other full back) couldn't stop. This was plainly due to our lack of midfield presssure, not Leo.

[stellation]

Originally posted by ROK Lobster
The dry weather hand ball and run up through the middle of the ground caused that goal, as much as Leo's handball under pressure. I thought Gehrig towelled up Leo, I thought Riewoldt left LRT for dead. I thought we were outplayed and outcoached. Roos lacks imagination.

Agreed, and when Grant Thomas outcoaches you... wowzers... It wasn't just that Gehrig was outmuscling Leo in wrestles, he was miles ahead of him a couple of times on leads too. Surely he could have done a little bit of experimenting? New RWO whipping boy Teddy Richards? Craig Bolton?Dempster on Reiwoldt?

[stellation]

Originally posted by Captain
I think people are quick to turn on Leo. The guy is a fantastic full back who virtually won the premiership for us after 72 years.

Geez, don't be scared to overstate it at all.

Originally posted by Captain

Granted that he has given away too many free kicks this year, but that is all part of playing his position, there will be ups and downs. SOS had a stage where he gave away a truck load of them as well. So even the greatest can.

Gehrig scored a couple on the lead that Leo (or any other full back) couldn't stop. This was plainly due to our lack of midfield presssure, not Leo.

I think last night (and Lloyd) is more an issue on Roos than on Leo.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by stellation
Agreed, and when Grant Thomas outcoaches you... wowzers... It wasn't just that Gehrig was outmuscling Leo in wrestles, he was miles ahead of him a couple of times on leads too. Surely he could have done a little bit of experimenting? New RWO whipping boy Teddy Richards? Craig Bolton?Dempster on Reiwoldt?

What about the true Norm Smith medalist and surely next AA CHB - LRT? Why not leave Chambers down there just to get in Fraser's way? Something...

Smacks of arrogance...

[Thunder Shaker]

Originally posted by Young Blood
Very frustrating. Why did it take us 3 quarters to play wet weather football? Even then, we couldn't find any space in the forward line, whereas the Saints had space all night.

Yep, the Saints flooded our forward line, along with the rain!

[Nico]

Originally posted by Glenn
Why bugger the consistency cries?? a infringment is a infringment regardless of who causes it.
That said Sydney need to put together 4 quarters of football, and not just play catch up football.

My point is that we cant control what the umpires do but Leo can control and correct what he does.