Coaches

[hammo]

I hope one thing the Swans address in the off season is the assistant coaching situation.

In some ways this could be resolved if John Longmire is given a job elsewhere although his stocks appear to be diminishing and he's no longer the leading contender with other assistants now in caretaking roles such as Mark Harvey.

The decision to appoint Longmire as midfield coach has failed. Our midfield setups and tactics have been poor all season. It's no coincidence that Longmire hasn't live up to expectations there because he didn't play much of his football as a midfielder (some as a ruckman, but predominantly as a full forward). Surely assistant coaches should be assigned responsibility according to experience?

The flow-on effect from Longmire's move to assistant coach is that our forward structure, after being the best in the league for 2 seasons, is now a rabble. Our best forward is in career-worst form. When other teams super-flood us, we have no idea how to create space.

Losing Jonas and Lyon in the off season was a big blow. Moving Longmire to midfield coach means our forwards, defenders and midfielders all have had new coaches. No wonder our play lacks fluency and many players have gone backwards this season. With such a highly structured, rigid game plan like the Swans have that's too much change for one year.

[dimelb]

I'm no expert on coaching, but I can't help comparing our forwards and midfield this year with last year. And we always knew St Kilda had a good midfield on paper, but they look as if they now are nearly as good as they should have been in the first place.
I suspect the changing of the guard has arrived sooner than we feared. Our older core players (e.g. Hall, MOL, Kirk, Barry) are still good, but not as good. But we can't replace them at present.
It's different for our coaches. I would like to see Roos break the mould (Fitzroy Old Boys Union) and sound out people like (in order of preference) Hird, Voss and Buckley. I have great respect for Voss but if he thinks he can slot straight into an AFL coach's position he's dreamin. I'd really like to see him with us for a while.

[Margie]

I really like the idea of Voss as an assistant coach - could be a great boost for our midfield.

[mcs]

Buckley wouldnt be much use as an assistant coach- he would still spend all the time in the physio's room!

We sure need to sort it out. My feeling this year is that we have lost discipline within our midfield and most definetly discipline within the overall defined roles of the players and the gameplan generally.

I gagree with what you are saying Hammo especially "With such a highly structured, rigid game plan like the Swans have that's too much change for one year" . I think this is where the problem lies generally
Not so much in the facet of the highly structured, rigid game plan but with the disappearance of the discipline to play the game plan. This is probably a combination of the new coaches not be able to implement the plan as effectively and also come back I think to the fact that players have lost having a completely defined role in the team.

Perfect example is the champion O'Keefe- he is having a great season no doubt but where exactly does he fit into the team these days? He's a half forward. He is not a midfielder, and he most assuredly isnt a defender, so why is he been all over the place this year. Perhaps its out of necessity with the way the rest of the team is playing, but he is not the only one. Jude Bolton and matthews also spring to mind. They are seen up forward far too much for my liking. Then the midfield seems to be all over the place- with Kirk the only one really being totally confident in what he is doing.

I think dimelb you also have a point about the changing of the guard, but Im not so sure. When you look at those players you mentioned- Mickey O has looked good when the ball has actually got to him and will kick somewhere in the vicinity of how many goals he kicked last year and Kirk I think is still playing close to as good as he ever has. Leo Barry I feel is probably past his prime, but then again I dont feel that in 06 or 07 he should have had the responsibilities of playing on the key man so often. As he reaches the end of his career, he should be playing more out of the pocket. I know its been difficult without LRT and the irishman, but he has been put under a lot of pressure due to this. And that coupled with the new stupid rules have made life very tough for him.

And then there is Hall. No doubt he has been struggling with injury, but he may also possibly be on the decline. The new rule has really hit his hard physical style very severly, I think possibly harder then any other forward maybe bar Gehring or poor old Richardson. But he has also struggled immensly with not getting good quality delivery into the forward line.

The assistant coaches have been part of the problem this year I feel, but a lack of discipline and a hardness and willingness to really dig deep and play hard week in week out has hurt us. For the style of footy we play, we need every many as committed as the next and if there are weak links they get exposed big time.

Our midfled has really gone backward this year as has the forward line. The Forwards though have had the problem of overall terrible delivery into the forward 50 for a lot of the season. But they have also struggled to make space when we invariably get flooded. But the midfield I feel is where the biggest problems lie- we arent hard enough at the ball or quick enough to the ball or often desperate enough and in many of our losses especially we have been a distant 2nd to the opposition in that department. And I think that stems from the fact the players have lost sight of the strictly defined and simple gameplan that served us so well in 05 and 06.

A hard one to fix, but I think no matter what happens this year we have the opportunity for 1 last tilt next year so we have to get it right. its a matter of getting back to basics I feel, but to do that we need to get the game plan right and that goes back to the coaching staff to fix.