Reserves today?

[liz]

Match Results

Team lists are up. Two scholarship players RBN and Matthew May played. I believe RBN usually wears #49? Disappointing that the stadium scoreboard didn't list the top-ups as per usual.

Pretty sure it was RBN again today in the no 49. Kicked a very nice snapped goal too. Also recognised Spiteri and Rawson from the game a fortnight ago, though neither was as prominent. Spiteri did kick a late goal though, I think.

[ugg]

Match Results

Detailed results are up. They've taken one off Beckmans and given it to RBN. Skull Murphy BOG according to them.

[Reggi]

Only saw two quarters

Murphy and Currie were the most impressive. Would expect Currie to debute, but history says ruckman are better left to developed, played young they often end up with injury concerns (David Willis, Gareth John and Stephen Doyle are examples)

We are not over endowed with young midfielders but good to see the likes of Faulks, Currie, Murphy,White and Grundy looking to be talls down the line

More weeks of reserves for Fosdike and Schmidt

[SimonH]

Okay, remind me: what are the rules of this comp vis-a-vis the Swans? There appear to be 15 players in the team listed on the sportingpulse link. I thought it had been downgraded from 15 to 12, or something.

It can't be that it's a max of 12 Swans on the field at one time; b/c there are only 21 named for the Swans (vs 24 for the Nong!) and so a '12 on field' rule would make it impossible for one of the top-ups to get a rest (or get injured).

The other absurd thing about the AFL Canberra rules (esp once we start getting players back from injury) is having Swans who we most need to be getting match practice, sitting around doing nothin'.

Presuming 15 is the number, we can only field a maximum of 37 players a week, it seems (22 league and 15 reserves). At the moment it seems like something like 9 are missing through injury (Grundy, Barlow, Kennelly, Veszpremi, Laidlaw, Meredith, BBBH, DOK, Thornton). That makes 46. We have 47 on the list (41 senior inc the veterans and the promoted Nick Smith, and 6 rookies). So near enough-- although as far as I can tell the unlucky guy to be fit but miss out this week was a guy who debuted 3 weeks ago and would be raring to prove he deserves another game-- Nick Smith!

Anyhoo, all but DOK and Thornton are going to come back in the next 4 or so weeks, and touch wood we shouldn't lose anything like that number in that time. The reserves are not about to rest true senior players like Nick Davis, Ben Mathews, Nic Fosdike, Heath Grundy, Luke Brennan-- Roos needs them to be fit and ready to go in the event of a call-up. Younger fringe players like Laidlaw, Schmidt, Brabazon, White aren't going anywhere-- they're mainstays of the 2nds and they're playing for their careers.

Who will go out and sit around playing kick-to-kick in the park? Blokes like Orreal, Murphy, Terlich, Beckmans-- the kind of long-term or statistical low-probability of success guys that the Swans have made such an artform of developing into league players. They won't develop if they don't play. Our list advantage over Victorian sides (who don't have their own 2nds, and anyway the 12/10 rule means that rookies are almost always left to rot in the VFL seconds) is built on them developing. And we're at risk of throwing that advantage away.

By all means skew the rules so that they favour the Canberra sides and the results are more like 2008 and not 2005-7; but not by making us sell out our future success.

[ugg]

Simon,

13 listed Swans on the field, 5 topups. 5 listed Swans on the bench, 1 topup. The squad has been extended to 24 players. Also, in the finals (IF we make the finals, never thought I'd say that especially when it's a top 4 out of 6 teams) the limit becomes 12 listed Swans on the field.

The players who don't get to play because of the restrictions get farmed out to Tuggeranong, who are the weakest team in the comp atm (IMHO). This hasn't occurred yet but as you have predicted, could happen soon.

Page 8

http://www-static.sportingpulse.com/pics/54/36/5436017_firstfileFILE.pdf

[SimonH]

Simon,

13 listed Swans on the field, 5 topups. 5 listed Swans on the bench, 1 topup. The squad has been extended to 24 players. Also, in the finals (IF we make the finals, never thought I'd say that especially when it's a top 4 out of 6 teams) the limit becomes 12 listed Swans on the field.

The players who don't get to play because of the restrictions get farmed out to Tuggeranong, who are the weakest team in the comp atm (IMHO). This hasn't occurred yet but as you have predicted, could happen soon.

Page 8
http://www-static.sportingpulse.com/...stfileFILE.pdf

Thanks for that. Have to withdraw a lot of my criticism if this means we're allowed to name 18 listed Swans in the squad, but just have to keep rotating and rotating them on and off the ground (while the top-ups get precious little rest!).

I'll reserve my criticism for the rule that for our games in Canberra, our top-ups have to come from the Canberra comp. This gives our opponents a cast-iron guarantee that 5/18 of our team on the field will be not up to league standard-- if they were, we wouldn't be allowed to have them! While if we were allowed to select from kids anywhere in NSW/ACT, the odds are still firmly with the Canberra side that they will have the better of those 5 match-ups; but we're not picking with one hand tied behind our backs. However, it appears that Swans scholarship holders like Bottan-Noonin are exempted from this rule-- he's played every game.

So, I wonder if this means that the Swans didn't bother to provide the full team list to sportingpulse, or we just chose to play with 21 men? Either way,
any mail on why Nick Smith didn't play?

PS Looking at the team lists, I thought that the well-and-truly superannuated Nathan Irvin(e)-- played a big one match for the Swans in 1993 and also played a lot of SANFL in the '90s-- had decided to go around again with the 'nong. But the date of birth of this Mr Irvine is 1982, so just a coincidence.

[ugg]

Yes, there was just 3 on the Swans bench. Not sure of the reason.

[wedge.maverick]

Thanks for that. Have to withdraw a lot of my criticism if this means we're allowed to name 18 listed Swans in the squad, but just have to keep rotating and rotating them on and off the ground (while the top-ups get precious little rest!).

I'll reserve my criticism for the rule that for our games in Canberra, our top-ups have to come from the Canberra comp. This gives our opponents a cast-iron guarantee that 5/18 of our team on the field will be not up to league standard-- if they were, we wouldn't be allowed to have them! While if we were allowed to select from kids anywhere in NSW/ACT, the odds are still firmly with the Canberra side that they will have the better of those 5 match-ups; but we're not picking with one hand tied behind our backs. However, it appears that Swans scholarship holders like Bottan-Noonin are exempted from this rule-- he's played every game.

So, I wonder if this means that the Swans didn't bother to provide the full team list to sportingpulse, or we just chose to play with 21 men? Either way,
any mail on why Nick Smith didn't play?

PS Looking at the team lists, I thought that the well-and-truly superannuated Nathan Irvin(e)-- played a big one match for the Swans in 1993 and also played a lot of SANFL in the '90s-- had decided to go around again with the 'nong. But the date of birth of this Mr Irvine is 1982, so just a coincidence.

This one's from Ganmain-Grong Grong- Matong United.

[Triple B]

This one's from Ganmain-Grong Grong- Matong United.

That would make him a mate of the McPhersons.

[bedford]

That would make him a mate of the McPhersons.

Better than the mcveighs

[goswannie14]

This one's from Ganmain-Grong Grong- Matong United.

When did Grong Grong Matong merge with Ganmain?

[swantastic]

All the bull @@@@ aside who peoples favourites are,who from the magoo's would get a game in the seniors next week and do ok?

Also who would definitely get a game by the end of the year if we have a few injurys?