Round 1: Saints (match thread)

[NMWBloods]

Just home from the game and even though it was a scrappy game I have come away with a fair bit of optimism. I thought we should have won. We stuffed around adnausium in the 3rd Q around the 60 metre point with pissy little kicks and at least 6 times missed the mark by a bloody mile. In the 2nd Q we went to the top of the square and really put them under the pump.

I don't think there is much optimism for this year from that woeful display. What on earth is our game plan - run in circles and then make stupid little kicks or handballs sideways. And instead of attack down the corridor, try to spot up a forward leading to the boundary line. So much for the extra time in the off season.

I'd be worried if I was StKilda though too - they seem to lack confidence under pressure.

They were flooding so why didn't we go over the top of the HB flood, just plain crazy and some genuine dumb footy.

Dumb footy worries me.

Moore - his last Q was outstanding and we have now found a genuine centreman. But why wasn't he used at the centre bounces.

I thought he made a lot of silly mistakes in the first three qtrs, but you expect it as he's still new, but had a very good last qtr.

Kennelly - how good is this bloke.

We really need him to fire, but he looked quite rusty (missed a few targets he shouldn't have) and our backline run overall looked lost.

Jolly and LRT - good effort.

Decent effort - at least they didn't get smashed and I thought Jolly was generally pretty good.

Jack - I am on, now I am convinced he can play. He second efforts were tops and he has improved his disposal.

Yep - top rate! How good was his pass in the second qtr to Hall!!!

Bird - don't know that he got a lot of time and wasn't used much on the ball.

Looked a bit lost, but still early, and looked classy a couple of times.

Buchanan was good.

Yes - gave us a lot of run and movement.

Mattner got better as the game progressed.

Will take some time to totally fit in but a good acquisition I think.

ROK played well but is wasted leading to the boundary line 80m out.

The poor

Grundy - real doubts now although he didn't get much help with the crap delivery inside 50.

Yes - shocking delivery into the forward line but went missing early.

Ablett - has lost yards in pace that he has never had. Got caught too much or was hurried with disposal

Really struggled I thought for much the same reasons. Was he hit?

Richards - made a couple of howlers. What about that kickout. very risky down back.

Yes, but a tough gig on Kosi. Thought he was okay.

J Bolton - absolutely woeful. He contested all but 2 centre bounces, got his hands on it twice, overran the ball 3 times and was devoid of a clearance. He is a slow thinker and Jolly must wonder what is going on when gets hit out after hitout and Bolton is nowhere to be seen. Also noticed that when there is a pile of players on the ground he will stand right over the top of them instead of a metre or 2 off the ball for the loose ball to come out. His mindless last Q hand ball says it all.

Complete waste of a player.

Mcveigh - He genuinely dogged it in the last Q on the wing. When he had to put his body over the ball and was first there he had a real big look and allowed a StK player into the contest. I think it was Bird who went to retrieve the situation and got belted and went off. McV is another Mathews, he has no idea what to do when in a contest and simply holds onto the ball.
He almost always gets beaten in one on one contests. He was free late in the game and kicked wildly across ground to leading player and missed by 20 metres. He is simply a dud.

Yes, but he did get more of the ball tonight. Disposal was mixed, but showed better signs than he did for much of last year. Having said that, I still don't think he will come good.

Goodes was woeful - so much for Good(es) to go - but at least we know he'll get better.
Kirk did a good job on Hayes, but was terrible offensively - he should get better but I'm not sure how much.
Hall is a significant worry.
Barry is a bit of a worry.

After the game on 3 AW Roos aid that they had to improve their disposal

Can anyone tell me why Ablett played instead of Barlow?

Besides the 'favourites' argument?

[LaDoleCheckVida]

Dumb footy worries me.

Well dumb footy seems to be the way footy is played these days when the flood is on. As Blight mentioned during the telecast it's time to allow or even get players like Nick Davis to just kick torpedos for an hour after training.

The way that modern players kick the footy these days you wouldnt get far if your 65 meters out and attempt to kick over the flood. It just doesn't happen.

Bring back the torp ASAP. Make Davis our torpedo specialist!

[NMWBloods]

Bevo mainly took Fiora and beat him. When Milne was pushed up the ground Jack played on him.

Bevan was on Milne for much of the first half and was quite clearly out of sorts on him and had to be moved.

[ugg]

Bevan was on Milne for much of the first half and was quite clearly out of sorts on him and had to be moved.

Thank you! I thought I was going mad.

[LaDoleCheckVida]

Bevan was on Milne for much of the first half and was quite clearly out of sorts on him and had to be moved.

What else is new with Bevan?

[Hazcam]

Hey everyone how are ya'll. Great to see the AFL back and kicking, although haven't been as focussed on it with all the issues going on with my Bulldogs in the NRL and those filthy rotten dirty gun player stealing Rorters from Bondi.

But that's another story...

I really expected a loss tonight but somewhere in the range of 15-30 points. The way the Swans played in the 1st qtr and the amount of ball the Saints had I thought a 6 goal margin would've been a fair result. To the credit of the boys they really put it on the line, although there are still major carry over issues from last season (eg; stalling in the kick before entering inside 50 and also half back breakdowns).

They only restricted them to 2 goals in 3 quarters and it's was a reminder of the time we lost by 2 pts on a wet SCG 2 yrs ago and a few of our other clashes where less than 14 goals were kicked for the match. The X factor was Nick Riewoldt and a few of their new boys and the usual midfield suspects did well. I think if Gehrig was fit amongst others it would've been a no contest.

We really have to win most of these under 10 pt cliff hangers and learn to play in the fashion we did in the 2nd quarter and late in the 4th...where's the urgency during the whole game?

I have this feeling that teams like St. Kilda and the Pies who've had a wood on us because they can adapt to our style of play, well they'll continue to beat us. We must persist with the new guys and need some young tallies along the lines of Heath Grundy to step up.

LRT needs less time to think so he doesn't do something totally blonde and BBBBH needs to quit being so reckless in tackles and learn to stay on hit feet and mark the damn ball.

Not too disappointed in the end as we could have @@@@@@ up St. Kilda's season build up by winning the game and being in front for about 15 secs of the whole game had Moore nailed that last kick.

Well done St. Kilda, step up the open style of play next week vs Port PLEASE.

cya

[Wazza]

Moore - his last Q was outstanding and we have now found a genuine centreman. But why wasn't he used at the centre bounces.

Ablett - has lost yards in pace that he has never had. Got caught too much or was hurried with disposal
Mcveigh - He genuinely dogged it in the last Q on the wing. When he had to put his body over the ball and was first there he had a real big look and allowed a StK player into the contest.

Agree with much of what you said apart from

Moore - looked ok but to ssslow to be a genuine midfielder, reminds me of early comments about McVeigh and his potential. Maybe better suited as a small crumbing forward but I cant understand why we would play Moore in the midfield before Barlow

Ablett - first game back with limited pre seasons I think the Coaches will be happy he got through ok.

McVeigh - Ive never been a fan but I thought he was ok tonight.

And IMHO I would add what a terrible selection going in with 1 ruckman as LRT looked good when on the ground and would have been more value to us if he had spent the full game in defence.

Cheers

Waz

[gazza]

fair result against 2nd favorites for the flag.
the kids showed enought to persevere with them.
grungy and bevan proved again that they are not senior players.
barlow would have been better than either of them.
everitt,barlow and schmidt would make a difference

[bandwagon]

Horrible game to watch. Doesn't make me optimistic about the evolution of our game plan. Still, it was always going to be difficult to win with one ruckman when stoppages are so important to our game plan.

Oh, and I thought McVeigh was actually ok.

[sharp9]

Thornton can replace Jude next season? Wishful thinking They need to put Barlow in Malceski's position, and just let Mattner carve it up on the wing. If Marty plays in defence all season, it's a wasted trade.

I didn't see the game at all, but I'll be happy when I know I'm never going to see Bevan, Grundy or Jude again (See Mathews & Crouch). One player that people haven't talked about is Jolly, how did he go?

Jolly was by a fair margin the worst player on the ground. He was slaughtered in the ruck...and when he got hands on it, fully 4 times out of five tapped it STRAIGHT down the throat of a saint.

Horrible clumsy fumbles, gave away the most APPALLING STUPID free kicks. Did not man up....took one lovely contested mark on the wing. he was so bad (in the head as well, terrible, terrible decisions and, did I say inexcusable frees) that I would seriously consider dropping him and playing no recognised ruckman as we would do much better to have LRT, richards, White, Barlow types who can at least play around the ground, and compete at ground level straight after ruck contests....Jolly did get one clearance in the forward fifty which he got a handball away fro someone to have a shot.

King and Gardiner were absolutely miles better than him. He was our worst.

[sharp9]

The terrible thing about McVeigh is the eternity he takes to move the ball on...and then OFTEN makes a poor decision to a low percentage kick to the pocket etc. Also (as I noted adnauseum last year) he is very, very soft in a one on one on the ground and almost never wins the ball in theat position as against, Jack, Moore, Buchanan, Schmidt etc who are good in the area ...and Davis (and Bird in the pre season).

We just refused to play on quickly to an open forward line which had me throwing things at the tele. This is especially bad on a turnover. When there is a turnover in the midfield, even if the forwards are outnumbered 2 to 3 there MUST be a way to get a kick to advantage if the lead and kick are done straight away, but we keep holding on till it is 6 on 5, then kick sideways or a dinking one.

O'Keefe gave the perfect example of why we suck, he had the ball on the left HFF to a flooded fifty and tried an ambitious cross kick to the opposite 50 for Micky to run on to....it was the ONLY chance for a clear mark, BUT it was a stupid kick because not only was it low percentage to be marked, there were NO SWANS anywhere to crumb so that as soon as hit the ground the Saints were 100% to gain possession, which they did and promptly ran it the length of the field for a score.

In that situation we MUST kick long to the top of the Sqaure and GET NUMBERS THERE AND COMPETE FOR ATHE BALL. this is what Collingwood and Geelong are doing to greast effect, not just because of taking pack marks...which does occassionally happen, but becasue we can compete on the groun and cause FEAR. That O"Keefe kick causes RELIEF...and even if it had, amazingly come off, Micky would have kicked from just inside the paint. Poor, poor footy. Similar was a dinky kick from Davis to Jolly which fell short (bouncing on the paint) - what a waste of a huge build-up. We MUST lose this idea of finding the perfect kick....or at least, if you can't find a pin-point pass to a player in great position kick it to the top of the square.....our response is to try a LOWER PERCENTAGE dinky kick and kicks to contests in the pocket near the fifty...if you're gonna kick to a contest make the Goddam contest 15 metres out and get numbers to the ball!!!!!!!!

[floppinab]

Jolly was by a fair margin the worst player on the ground. He was slaughtered in the ruck...and when he got hands on it, fully 4 times out of five tapped it STRAIGHT down the throat of a saint.

Jeez, sharp9. Wouldn't you think that maybe the other blokes around those ruck contests might be able to read one or two of those taps, like Buchanan did in the last q. Arguably Jolly beat both King and Gardiner at the ruck contests and certainly held his own around the ground. How about that 50m pass to Jude for a goal in the second.

Good comments about getting the footy to the goal square though.

[Nico]

Contrasting opinions on Jolly, Sharpy. I thought he was OK, it is not his fault that our creakingly slow centre bounce staff are Piss weak.

But I am with you on the dumb short passing around 50 instead of either putting it to the top of the square or having a ping at the sticks. When we kicked to the square in the 2nd Q it really put their backline under the pump and their flooding I thought was a reflection of their poor backline.

If we kick it long and quick into the forward line then maybe our small forwards might learn the art of "front and centre" or at least practice it. The very reason sides flood us is their respect for our forwards so why not make backlines work to earn their keep against us. As it is they just pick off our errant passes.

[gazza]

sharp9 apply for a coaching position

your positive reinforcement would do wonders for a team

[swansrule100]

three things frustrate me more than actually losing last night because i didnt think we would win in all likelihood anyway.

1/ barlow not included especially against the saints who have a fair bit of height in their team.

2/ the delivery into the forward line, or lack of it, i know theres a reluctance to turn the ball over in modern football but jesus sometimes just bomb it in, id rather turn it over in our forward line then near their goals. we need to be a lot more direct. The delivery to our forwards is pathetic hall isnt at his peak anymore and he isnt wayne carey or anything he cant be trying to mark some of the rubbish that comes in.

3/ adam goodes- 2 brownlows and thats the best he can do. he is a star but he needs to get rid of the wide gap between best and worst, he is starting to look like he cannot handle a tag. I think its time they shove him forward or into the ruck mix it up when he is struggling. Wether its right or not the success we are after depends heavily on him putting in solid performances and last night was woeful