Tonights Game

[Swans_Lad11]

What on earth was that???

1st quarter was good, then we seemed stuck in reverse! Still, we rallied well in the last quarter and there were some positives. Not looking forward to the Hawks next week... Well actually I am because I'm itching to get back to the footy!
What I'm NOT looking forward to though is all the told you so rubbish from the media about us being too old and too slow etc! I honestly don't think age had anything to do with it tonight, it was just one of those rubbish performances that curses teams every so often. Atleast we won't be bottom, and atleast we weren't as bad as Richmond!!!!!!

Come on Swannies!!!!! Lets keep the Hawks winless after 2 games next week!

[573v30]

After that performance, I'm not sure on how the Swans are going to produce a win against the reigning Premiers, even if they aren't at full strength.

[Captain]

Positives
Backline - Bolton, LRT and S Ted performed well all night
Bird really did well

Negatives
O'Keefe - for a star player, he was crap
Barlow - how pathetic was he!!!
Older players - Crouch, Kirk, Hall

[Captain]

As for Ray Chamberlian - he is a putrid, visious little midget who isnt fit to umpire little league. Clearly BOG for the Saints. Now my most hated umpire.

The umpiring really hurt us tonight and gave the Saints momentum at crucial times. Those holding the man decision were a joke and LRT was unlucky a few times.

[sharp9]

Captain, you forgot that Goodes did nothing of note when the game was to be won.

Also White looks pretty good. Grundy is alright. Jolly doing his job fine. (except for all the frees and the times he taps it straight to the opposition for a goal...and gets used as a stepladder...hmmm....maybe he's not doing so well )
Shaw really adds something.

And Bird...well as they say in the English Premier League "The Boy's a Bit Special."

All our defensive midfielders failed spectacularly tonight. yuck, yuck, yuck.

Worst of all we were smashed in contested possession and smashed in the tackle count.

we should never, ever attempt any sort of zone defence.

[Swans_Lad11]

We are Perennial bad starters though, so I still have faith that it will get better. Hopefully Barlow will make way for Ablett, what was wrong with him anyway? I never found out. My only real concern about this season is the lack of a 2nd frontline ruckman, for the first time really probably since Roosey took over but hopefully we will be able to cover Jolly. Just hope he doesn't get hurt.....

[liz]

The umpiring really hurt us tonight and gave the Saints momentum at crucial times. Those holding the man decision were a joke and LRT was unlucky a few times.

There were three in quick succession near the start of the 3rd quarter on the wing. Each time a Swan pretty much wrapped up a Saint in a tackle but the Saint was given a lot of leeway, and then the Swan was penalised for the softest (or often non-existent) crime. Not long after, Teddy has Riewoldt land on his back and Chambo declares it "in the side".

Also the Saints got two absolute gifts in front of goal. Even the commentators thought so.

Doesn't excuse the ineptitude of 2 and a half quarters. mind.

[Swans_Lad11]

Sharp I'm glad we didn't attempt any zones tonight, the Saints would have just strolled right through the middle with the way the midfield went tonight. I would have been a massicare

[dimelb]

Barlow has a lot to do. More time in Canberra, and come back in a season. We missed Noggy.
I thought Crouch was OK, didn't see too much of Kirk, and Goodes was disappointing. Moore looks NQR, seemed to run out of puff once or twice.
Baz got lousy delivery as usual, otherwise he was good, forced a turnover that led to a goal. But he did dish off to O'Keefe when he should have kicked for goal himself, and someone mentioned his appalling attempt at a tight angle that should have been centred.
They played better than we did, simple as that, at least for two and a half quarters. Their hand and foot skills were better, their marking was more reliable, and I lost count of the times our blokes got two hands to the ball from a kick and then spilled it. Also their intensity lifted after the first quarter and they maintained it until they had the game iced; we were too in and out.
The defenders weren't bad, but they had too much to do because the midfield didn't apply enough pressure, with the exception of Bird, who seems to be growing into his number. Jolly was generally good, and White was at least useful.

[annew]

I think the 15 points flattered us - we were very ordinary

I agree that the 15 points flattered us totally but what I meant was at least in the end it was only 15 points it would have been worse if we had have lost like Richmond did and considering how bad we were after quarter time if the Saints had have been a better team it was highly likely we could have. Guess we will lose by heaps next week instead.

[Mike_B]

My observations from level 3 on centre wing.

In the first quarter we were switched on - hard at the ball (yes even Barlow put his head over it), numbers around the contest and hitting targets both by hand and foot.

The second quarter came and we just stopped. We didn't get numbers to the ball, we didn't run hard to create an option and we played dumb football. We would have only Barry Hall forward of the defensive edge of the centre square with FIVE St Kilda players nearby. So where were the other 4 Swans when we won the ball defensively and looked up with nobody to kick to? And yet when there were stoppages inside our forward 50, we managed to clog it up brilliantly. Yet St Kilda managed to find plenty of outlet options on the turnover because they actually ran.

I know Roosy is not willing to play a zone because he feels we don't have the players for it, but to play footy in 2009 and be a successful team, you need to run run and run and move the ball quickly. We aren't capable of this because our players don't run nearly hard enough. They keep saying we're fitter than ever - where is this???

And as usual, once the game was lost, we started running, like we do against Collingwood time after time, kicking a few late goals to cut the margin to something respectable that just papers over how bad the performance was.

I'll steal Des' comment and crown us 2009 Junktime Premiers already, with Goodesy winning the Junktime medal.

[Bas]

I could never understnd in the past why some people here were complimenting Barlow so much. I couldn't see anything spectacular about hisplay and sadly see even less now.

It was another pathetic game by the Swans and once again we only scored when the other team had closed up shop for the night.

We did look so good in the first qtr BUT IT"S NOT ROOSY's FAULT!!! he told us at the beginning of the year. Players fault.

I know it's only Rd 1 BUT on what I saw tonight and having seen the other teams play - we won't make the 8 this year.

What is really tragic is that we won't get the compensation through the draft. That is the really upsetting part

Hawthorn by 50 next week.

[Robbo]

We have been hanging on for two years, but I think this is the year we come crashing down. A total revamp is needed.

We just have very few shining lights, and very little coming through to replace the blokes who are in their twilight.

The dockers swung the axe and cut the fat at the end of last year, and then added 14 new players to their list. We have to do something similar at the end of this year.

Barlow is @@@@ing useless. How he's been on our list so long I will never know. Would struggle with the instensity of WAFL reserves. So, so, so slow. The peanut who said he was quick a couple of years ago should be deported to Egypt. I've never seen anyone miss so many targets either. Mark McGough like. Couldn't hit water if he fell off a boat. Should never play again.

[SimonH]

While it was a dire, dire night for the whole team and was hardly likely to convert anyone to the virtues of Roos' gameplan, there were actually a lot of individual positives as well as at least one big negative.

Rhyce Shaw looked fine. We have to run off half-back to win enough games to be competitive, and he sure provides plenty of run off half-back.
Darren Jolly, despite one clanger, is a very strong ruckmen who seems to be getting better with age.
Jesse White was really good, I thought. Strong in the body, good leap, reasonable ruck technique and never took a backward step against 2 very experienced ruckmen.
Jarrad McVeigh has just continued where he left off in 2008, and Brett Kirk must surely be the most consistent player in the comp.
Craig Bird is at worst going to be a good long-term player, and seeing he's barely old enough to drink he could easily develop into a very good or elite one. Can you believe that the entire competition passed him over in the 2006 (I think) national draft?
Our whole defence (including LRT) were fine; giving up 20 scoring shots across the whole night ain't too shabby on any evening, let alone one where the ball barely entered our forward line for a solid 2-and-a-bit quarters. Craig Bolton of course is a rock without whom we'd be in dire trouble.

Nick Malceski isn't in the 'good' camp, but nor was he bad. He still looks like he's running somewhat gingerly, but did at least show a few glimpses of what he can do.

Ed Barlow should be given from now to the end of May to go back to Canberra, contest some footy, hold some grabs, run at full pace for extended periods and lay some tackles, and be told that if he can't do these things on a regular basis, his card will be marked 'delist'. Not merely disappointing: disastrous. Looked like he didn't belong among the other 35 players on the ground; in the same way as his debut performances in late 2007 were apparent career-makers, that was a career-breaker.

More generally, what does that game say about the whole year? For my money, nothing too terrible about our midfielders or defence. However, the forwardline as it currently stands is not going to kick enough goals. BBBH is too one-dimensional and easily distracted, and MOL when he comes back, is always better as a 2nd/3rd forward rather than the saviour. Playfair is neither here nor there.

The answer? We have enough run coming from the back half and the middle. ROK doesn't need to keep running thousands of miles a game. We don't want him collecting the footy on the wing when there's no-one for him to kick it to. He stays in the forward-line, and is given the brief of focusing on goal kicking. Grundy is given a solid go as a leading forward. He is a forward who can lead, take marks and kick goals to the standard required in AFL. It's dubious whether he's AFL-standard at the other roles he's asked to play. Let the guy do what he's good at.

[Melbournehammer]

i don't really know where to begin but i use this as a cathartic opportunity given my child has woken me up at this ridiciulous time in the morning.

Starting with malceski. it is worse than what has been said. When someone his size gets beaten by a dummy by Kosi (I think but it may have been gardiner or king) it is a really bad sign.

Barlow is an easy whipping boy. but justifiably so. I was pleased he kicked the ball into the fence because at least it showed he cared. There were simply too many times on the field where it simply did not look like he gave a stuff. He just plays so much like goodes in the sense of wandering around doing his own thing - but to get to that stage you simply have got to have shown that you are entitled to this at some stage - he neither tackles, gets bumped off his line too easily, can't get contested possession and really struggles to even get involved frankly.

Goodes - his game was beyond disappointing. it was appalling - matched up on goddard for much of the night he was thoroughly beaten. To the extent that he was ball watching when goddard took a handpass outside 50 to kick a pretty critical goal in the third quarter. But it was his performance in the second quarter that was so thoroughly poor. The refusal to handpass the way he was facing and getting tackled leading to holding the ball. Then he received the ball from jolly (directly or indirectly) from jolly's good mark over kosi. and instead of giving the ball sloooooowllllly walks back from the makr. waits until every st kilda player has marked up on a swan. turns the ball over, picks up kosi and fails to prevent him from getting a straightforward run onto jolly's back. he then promptly disappeared for the next 30 minutes as goddard and others dominated.

roos - something needed to be done at 1/2 time - the previous quarter was so bad - the failure to get the ball over halfway for almost the entire quarter should have been ringing some serious alarm bells. once again the decision to have only one game plan until the game has been lost jumped out as being a serious problem.

hall - he was simply playing too deep. he remains our best forward to receive the ball on a long lead. on the other hand he probably is not the best contested mark (in fact do we have anyone that can take a contested mark) and when there are three on one the ball is just going to come back anyway. o'keefe - did he play ?

bevan started well - ultimately beaten.

lrt - tried hard and wasn't too bad when the ball hit the deck - and as his greatest critic i think he was absolutely crucified by umpiring decisions - truly shocking decisions - but thats the thing about him - if he is going to be playing last man (as leo so often does and got criticised for by so many on this forum) his capacity to give away frees leads to a number of such in front of goals 10-25 metres out.3-4 frees in that space per game will lose more games than anything else.

richards was good when he played loose in the first quarter. like the rest of the team disappeared.

bolton c tried hard and largely broke even with riewoldt.

mattner i like frankly - he makes some errors but he never stops trying and doesn't hide - he will keep trying to run and get it.

rhyce shaw was ok - and his speed made for a useful addition to the side - it was nice to see a player get it and be prepared to run with it.

defence on the whole broke even with their direct opponent. But when the midfield is absolutely belted and tu

Speed - They are a slow team in the competition. Their style suits ours. And they beat us easily including for pace. Desperately disappointing.

Midfield. This really was where we got absolutely belted. Kirk was about our best and he was belted. tried hard. moore anonymous. jack started off ok and was very soon made to chase shadows. already said enough about goodes. Crouch was hard at the ball but then disappeared.

i am increasingly thinking that we are looking at ten years of very poor performances because the 20-23 years old have just not developed. and the decisions by roos to stick to the man on man style as the rules have gone against us over and over again.

One last word. The umpiring was simply appalling. Two decisions typified the very one sided decision making. the first was the decision not to award a free for a deliberate out of bounds by st kilda just before half time after a free awarded against richards in the first quarter - no doubt that richards was there but it simply has to be paid in both directions. The second was a decision against mattner for in the back where he scrambled over a saint to reach the football. But what happened there happens in every single pack - including one occasion where luke ball flwe into the back of a swan on the ground trying to get the ball. Lets not pretend that the umpiring effected the ultimate result (because in truth the better team won) but the umpiring was just so one sided for about 80 minutes (until the score was about 80-36) and the consistency of interpretations so absent (including in relation to the distance of a kick) that you wonder whether the players might not be better off adopting self-regulation like a scratch match of basketball.