Reserves vs Sydney AFL Development Squad

[Primmy]

No problems, a bit of a breeze, sun, clouds.

Fun to watch, most of the time. Lewis Johnson is a keeper. Needs a bit of time, but a keeper big time. He has great hands and second, third, fourth, fifth efforts. Mike Pike layed a tackle that had rugby union all over it, but illegal at AFL levels. He is a unit that one. Curry is going to be a keeper too. Taylor Gilchrist is a keeper IMO. Also one of the scholarship boys, Nathan Gordon, whooeee as they say, looking forward to watching him develop, kicks without looking straight between the posts. Snow is going to be just fine, can run a bit. Braba is working on his marshalling the troups aspect of his game.



Adam, Mal, Rheece, etal came to watch too. For the fashionistas apparently shades of grey is the new black. Lovely sight of Adam kicking a pink afl ball to someone's group of little girls.

[liz]

Just got back from watching a decent hit-out for several of our up-and-comers. As is to be expected, most of the listed players were a class or two above their opponents - older, bigger and fitter to boot, so it was the kind of game where the result was beside the point. (And I have no idea what it was, except that the yellow team - Swans - clearly kicked more goals than the other team.)

Can't say that anyone put their hand up and said "Pick me, pick me" for next weekend's game but there were some pleasing signs from some players.

Brabazon was arguably the Swans's best. Looked like he was the nominated captain and spent pretty much the whole game on-ball. Looked like he was getting in and winning more of his own ball than I've seen him do before - one of my beefs with him is that he tends to hold off contests waiting for a cheap, dinky little feed. But today he was getting his head down in the middle and had a lot of the ball. He also kicked at least 2 goals, could have been 3. His kicking is never going to be elite but it looked a bit better today than many times I have seen him play.

Meredith was also a bit of a ball magnet. He wasn't always clean with his hands off the deck but he found it a lot, and looked composed and confident.

O'Dwyer cruised around looking a million dollars and pretty sure of himself. He was the one the team looked to go to a lot on the flanks. He worked pretty hard when the ball was in his vicinity, which was often, but maybe didn't do the gut running he might have done to absolutely convince the coaches to pick him next week. His skills were far more consistent than they often are - ie he didn't absolute butcher anything I saw, and he's always been capable of some very nice kicks. Main issue with him was that he sometimes tried to do too much rather than stick to basics and/or didn't show any respect for the opposition - like trying to play on when he'd just taken a strong contested mark, and subsequently getting pinged when he over-estimated his ability to get away from the opponent. Despite this, he looked the closest to getting a senior call-up in the not too distant future.

Pyke rucked for almost all the first half, then spent some time up forward in the second half. He won a lot of taps pretty effortlessly (and the opposition did have a decently sized ruckman - I think it was Wilson(/en?) who spent a couple of years as a Freo scholarship player). A few times he lost his balance at centre square bounce ups and landed flat on his backside, meaning he was completely out of the subsequent contest. And it was generally through over-enthusiastic leaping rather than contact from his opponent. I thought his work at around-the-ground ruck contests was quite impressive. He seems to be learning how to hold his ground and find good position. And when he did, he almost always won the tap clearly through body strength - to be expected, I suppose, given his age and physique. And though he is clearly quick when he gets running, he looks to have a wide turning circle and not particularly agile on the ground - compared to Currie and Orreal, for instance.

Orreal and Currie were stationed up forward for the first half, before getting spells in the ruck in the second half. I did feel somewhat for the opposition when the Swans started the game with both of them stationed near the goal, and Lewis at CHF. Currie looked good early on but then faded out a bit. It might have been his first game for the year, so hardly a concern. Orreal was pretty impressive as a forward. He is remarkably agile for a man his height and he took a couple of pretty good marks. Still looks raw but far far more impressive than anything I saw in three years from Erikson.

I definitely liked what I saw of Johnston. He looks slim, rather than skinny, and his frame looks like it will fill out nicely. He presented very well at CHF and sometimes a bit further up the ground, took most of the regulation marks and some of the toughies, and kicked one very nice goal from a tightish angle. I suspect we'll see a lot of him in the seniors reasonably soon - maybe not this year but from early next year at worst.

Murphy wasn't on the list of players Ugg found yesterday but he played. He looks much thicker in the body than last year and didn't look overly fit. (He didn't show his pace much - didn't go on any of his loping runs.) But he contested aggressively and I was very impressed by his recovery. Several times he looked like he was out of a contest but got to his feet very quickly to make the next one.

DOK didn't seem to see too much of the ball - though he spent a lot of the game in defence, and the ball wasn't down there much. He mucked a few things up, did a couple of nice things. However, he did look to be moving freely and looked quicker than I've seen him before. All this is consistent with him just needing plenty of game time to get confidence back in his body.

Pretty sure neither Smith nor Laidlaw played. Actually, am certain neither of them played - until, that is, someone else comes back and reports than they saw them out there!

And lastly - number 20. Not sure if I was judging him differently because he's not a listed player, but I reckon that even without that qualification, he was up there with Brabazon, MOD and Meredith as the most impressive contributors. He caught my eye early on with a super tackle and recovery on the wing, and then got better and better as the game went on. Ran hard all game and was a bit of a ball magnet. Think he kicked 3 goals, and took one excellent mark up forward. After his first excellent piece of play proved not to be a flash in the pan, I started wondering who he was, and occured to me it could well have been Nathan Gordon. And then in the final quarter I wandered to a different part of the ground to watch the game, and was standing near a group who shouted "Nipper!" everytime he did something good. So, I suspect it was Gordon. Definitely looks as if he could be one for the future.

[ugg]

liz no. 20 was Gordon. He was definitely one of the better players out there, has that uncanny goal sense.

Smith was standing with a bunch of other non-playing Swans (Veszpremi, Barlow, Schmidt amongst others) but I didn't see Laidlaw at all.

Johnston has a big kick on him, and is double footed too. Kicked 2 in the last term, one off his left about 45m out in the right forward pocket, and the other a set shot with his right about 35m out on a slight angle.

Didn't keep perfect count but the final goals tally was something like 13 to 3.

[satchmopugdog]

Thank you for the reports. Glad about the positives for Johnston and Gordon. Really hope DOK can get his confidence. Getting him up to scratch would be a real bonus and would make thefuture look a bit more secure.

The continuing story of Pyke is a page turner. Equally as worthy of a documentary as Ben Cousins

[alison.z]

Thanks heaps for the detailed reports .... very very interesting!!

With a few injuries it will be interesting to see the team named for next week and how that pans out over the first bit of the season -

hopefully we will see some of the younger players stepping up to seniors this year which is always really exciting!!

[Primmy]

Yep Liz, that was Nathan Gordon "Nipper". Leaves you rubbing your hands togther doesn't it, and he is just a kid!. Also Nick Smith was standing with the coaching mob, so he definitely didn't play.

[Primmy]

Also should make mention of the development umpires steering this game today. We made note that MSU's didn't make themselves apparent, so the kids umping this game did a good job.

[Mountain Man]

Thanks for the great report - good to keep up with the future.

I was hoping that the Swans jumpers were being used and No.20 meant that Ablett had been further "promoted" from chook raffle king to leader or the Reserves. But then I read of skills being displayed.....

Seriously though, I suspect the young players have been well served by having a senior, experienced player as the stable Captain for the season. Over the past few years, Mathews and Spriggs have been impressive in the role.

Nothing against Brabazon, but would leading the Reserves restrict his promotion prospects?

[The Lad]

Nothing against Brabazon, but would leading the Reserves restrict his promotion prospects?

How so. As long as he focuses on using it to inspire himself as well it could be the thing he needs to find his feet to go the next step.

The swans no doubt want to back him so perhaps this is the next way of giving him a focused task he can use to step up.

[Old Royboy]

Thanks for the report Liz. Very pleased to hear that young Nathan Gordon has carried on from where he left off last year - he was one of the best in the reserves Grand Final win. If he can continue his progress this year we will in 12 months have another to go with Craig Bird - drafted off the scholarship scheme and straight into the firsts.

[Primmy]

Nothing against Brabazon, but would leading the Reserves restrict his promotion prospects?

To be honest, Braba has been a bright shiny kid for the last couple of years. Today he looked like a bloke.

[bootlaces]

nathan gordon will definitely be one for the future. gut runner, silky skills and just knows where to be. easily could play 200+ AFL games. Brabazon best on by miles, pretty much had his own footy, getting kicks at will. Pike tapped extremely well, hit almost every target. Things are looking promising...

[ugg]

SportingPulse Homepage for Sydney AFL

Sydney Swans proved too strong and too polished for a determined AFL Sydney Development Squad Reprsentative side at Bus Loop Oval today.

Sydney Swans 3.4 9.6 11.8 13.13 (91)
AFL Sydney 1.1 1.6 1.9 3.10 (28)

Yay I can still count. So #19 was Ben Woods.

[ugg]

Photos:

Sydney AFL Photos ? Blog Archive ? AFL Sydney Development Squad vs. Sydney Swans
Michael Vettas Photography - Photos Store > AFL > AFL Sydney > 2009 > Representative Fixture > AFL Sydney vs Sydney Swans

[Primmy]

Photos:

Sydney AFL Photos ? Blog Archive ? AFL Sydney Development Squad vs. Sydney Swans
Michael Vettas Photography - Photos Store > AFL > AFL Sydney > 2009 > Representative Fixture > AFL Sydney vs Sydney Swans

Ugg, who is the long tall hairy blond kid playing for the Development squad, third last photo? We rated him big time.