Our reserves' form...misleading!

[Matt79]

I have no doubt that the form of our players making their debuts and/or promotion back into the seniors from our reserves is extremely misleading.

More often than not, when you see players making their debuts for a Vic, WA or SA club they seem to be able to handle the pace and skill a lot easier than our players.

It seems obvious that when a player is consistently racking up 30 odd possessions or kicking 5-8 goals a week in our reserves side and gets promoted to our seniors they seem to look hopelessly out of their depth in terms of the skill or pace level required.

I am not sure what can be done but IMO the current reserves situation for our club is hindering our future prospects greatly.

[Mike_B]

Matt, unfortunately this has been the situation ever since we stopped having players go down to play with Port Melbourne in the VFL. It rally is a huge downside to being drafted by the Swans for kids at 18, because they aren't in the top handful of picks (in recent yhears due to our success) so aren't ready made for senior footy, yet their development is slow-tracked by the football they are playing.

The Swans need to do more to pressure the AFL into providing them with a viable alternative to solve this issue.

[swantastic]

IMHO our reserves need to play in the VFL competition just too see where they really are at.

[liz]

It seems obvious that when a player is consistently racking up 30 odd possessions or kicking 5-8 goals a week in our reserves side and gets promoted to our seniors they seem to look hopelessly out of their depth in terms of the skill or pace level required.

The situation may not be ideal but I don't think it is true to say that the players who have come up through the reserves look "hopelessly out of their depth". Other than Malceski, none have come in and looked a likely star right off, but I wouldn't say that any of Grundy (especially in his few games last year), Jack, Schmidt or Laidlaw looked hopelessly out of their depth. Phillips maybe did, but that must partly be his size and the way he seemed to be instructed to play at senior level.

More of an issue I think is that Roos doesn't seem to trust the competition as a guide - which may be fair enough. But that doesn't mean its not teaching them to eventually become decent players.

Until we get a worse run with injury or some of the stalwarts of the last few years start to retire, we won't really know.