Fremantle Game Day Thread

[10Totti10]

In: Hall MOL Moore
Out: Barlow Thornton Malceski (as much as it pains me to say)

Don't agree on Malceski, instead I'd prob drop Buchannon again.

Disgusting performance from the Swans. Last week McVeigh talked about our lack of tackling pressure and we showed that last night. The players have to realise that no matter which team we r playing, our pressure has to be consistent. Next week we will have to improve. Lost in the ruck, to a point in which our own hitouts had little effectiveness. Its clear we need MOL, BBH, Veszpa, and Moore back and hopefully in a couple of weeks we will have them all back and all fully fit. Laidlaw needs to be given a go. Haven't seen him much, but he seems to score a few goals and would be a good addition to our team. In all a bad performance from the Swans, they need to pick themselves up and look towards the Richmond match. Richmond are going to be tough so we will def need to be at our best especially with Cousins, Cotchin, etc being back.
Oh and Buchannon's effort was there but his skill wasn't, to erratic and makes poor decisions.

[Lohengrin]

With only 36 inside 50s, Hall and O'Loughlin would have made no difference to the result.

Swans are definitely in the bottom four as far as skills are concerned. We have some of the worst kicks in the competition - rarely do we hit a player on the chest without break stride. How many handballs are at a player's feet?

[Nico]

I am glad other people are now venting their spleen about our centre clearance work. We have this defensive/blocking mind set that all other teams woke up to years ago. Other sides have 2 players at least free and we are hell bent on blocking. Pickering on TV kept banging on about Bolton having 5 centre clearances but what sort of clearances were they. Short scrubby kicks to nowhere, yet Freo had the likes of Pavlich screaming from the gutsd with long kicks.

When you have Kirk, Bolton and Ablett in there there is no way we get good clean clearances. Occasionally Goodes gets the second or third handpass. We need clean first possession. You can't blame the ruckmen. They are brilliant around goals but our midfielders have no idea at centre bounces.

Others have mentioned pace. Ablett is a massive culprit. How rare is it for him to have a possession where he can get clear, balance and deliver; non existent.

As I said earlier our efficiency drops at least 10% when Buchanan plays. Believe it or not he was included in the best in the Herald Sun. Mistake riddled selfish footballer.

The stats are interesting. Bird had 55% and Meredith 60% ground time. Both were prominent late in the game which suggests they are being kept for that time. Meredith is interesting. He launched that long goal late in the game but his field kicking (4 others kicks) was woeful. With a player who kicks so well why not instruct him to use the skill. Both Bird and Meredith show genuine poise and talent when they have the ball but while they have such low TOG it is difficult to get a handle on any effectiveness they might be having.

[dimelb]

I didn't see the game and couldn't stand what SEN laughingly call their "commentary", so I'm not in a position to make a judgement. Instead, I'll put in Paul Roos' assessment of ROK:
"Along with Kirk, Jude Bolton and only a handful of others, Roos was delighted with the game of Ryan O'Keefe, who was carrying a heavy load without key forwards Barry Hall and Michael O'Loughlin.

"I thought he was outstanding. His work rate is phenomenal and he was one of three or four guys who played really hard tough footy for the whole game," he said.

"He works so hard and was really tired by the end. He had a good battle with (Steven) Dodd, but 'Pebbles' was one of our better players and it was a good effort as it's hard for him at the moment without Hally and Mick."
From the official website
Roos despondent for captain Kirk - Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans

[Legs Akimbo]

Craig Bird : Whilst I think he may be Ok, gee he will never be a household name. As a midfilder you must make same sought of presence week in week out and Birdy just goes. On bigger grounds he to slow and doesnt put his stamp on many games. Like the boy, though he is just a player.

Birdy 'just goes' when he is on the bench. He 'just appears' when he is on the ground.

He's getting about 60% game time at present and still racking up decent numbers of quality possessions.

Looking at the stats this morning (I confess not to have watched the game), Bird had 13 possessions - laid 3 tackles zero clangers and zero frees against. He had a 92% disposal efficiency.

Jack had 57% disposal efficiency - 2 clangers
Meredith 67% from his 9 possession - 4 clangers
Buchanan 71% - 3 clangers

We are bringing in some young players (hallelujah) and younger teams run hot and cold. It's going to be a patchy season. At present, the areas where we are struggling are intensity and quality of ball use.

On Buchanan, I would prefer him to be in Canberra. He can get the ball, but the quality of his work is highly damaging...to us.

On a totally different matter, what was Stephen Hill like as a player?

EDIT:APOLOGIES TO NICO WHO MADE MANY OF THE SAME POINTS AT THE SAME TIME. I CAN be WALLACE, you CAN BE DARWIN.

[stellation]

We never chance our hand at stoppages, when Freo won a clerance they were getting the ball quickly to an outside midfielder (and they had quite a few of them hunting around the defensive side of the pack) and then a measured kick forward whilst when we won a clearance it was a quick handball to a guy standing still or it was quickly throwing it on the boot.

We've had the same problem for a long time now, it just doesn't work anymore.

2005: I completely disagree in regards to Bird- someone said recently on this site that Bird will be an All-Australian in 3 years (I think), I'm going to go with 5 but he definitely will be a gun player of the competition- he finds space in packs better than any Swans midfielder I've seen in years- I'd actually go as far as to say better than any midfielder from any team I've seen play so far this year.

[Midfield]

[QUOTE=Nico;435144]

As I said earlier our efficiency drops at least 10% when Buchanan plays. Believe it or not he was included in the best in the Herald Sun. Mistake riddled selfish footballer.


Selfish? You have no idea. Amon's is one of the only players that breaks the line and clears the ball out of congestion, of course he was one of the best - he was probably the only player who had a dig in the first half.

It was obvious last week and it was obvious this week that the swans are crying out for Hall and probably MOL. Hall straightens them up and also frees up ROK. They are more direct when Hall plays which takes care of the inside 50's- As long as our guys have a go for the whole game, much like Amon.

[connolly]

Yes painful , losing to @@@@@@ Freo.
Got them the wrong week and Pavlich was due, though we must be better than what we delivered last night ,espacially early.3 goals down after 5 mins and its pretty much what we lose by.

Positives :

Jude Bolton : Probably his best game at the club , busted his backside.
Kirky : At least had a crack and tried to bring the side with him.
Shaw : Another solid hitout and warming to him every week.

Special mentions to Brett Meridith, bloody clean & good footy mind, Darren Jolly again ,Goodsey in parts and maybe Marty Mattner as well

Negatives

Our Disposal (main offenders Monty,Noggy,Kirk,& Keiren Jack )
Pace keep saying it , we are slow. especially bigger grounds.
Freo were simply way to quick last night
FORWARD LINE : Simply no options

Nick Malceski : Buy the Canberra version of the Melways Esky.
He has lost all confidence and is playing scared. He is running in circles and wont put ant pressure on . God , I hate watching him like this.

Luke Ablett / Amon Buchanon : Well @@@@ me.

Craig Bird : Whilst I think he may be Ok, gee he will never be a household name. As a midfilder you must make same sought of presence week in week out and Birdy just goes. On bigger grounds he to slow and doesnt put his stamp on many games. Like the boy, though he is just a player.

Ryan OKeefe : Bloody hard when Hall and Mick are out,though some might say heres your chance and show us something.
What happened over the summer has hurt him and us. he is giving us nothing, whilst he had some impact in the 2nd half he is out of form and clearly not at his best mentally and physically. where is his usual run ?

Bloody dissapointing loss against Fremantle.
We must be on our game against Richmond : Cotchin,Cousins,Simmonds and Raines all had good games in the 2s , hopefully Richo may be out though.
We must bounce back straight away next week

In fairness to the midfield Jolly was well beaten by the beanpole. And Pavlich killed us in the first half especially roving off their ruck dominance. Jolly winning hit outs is vital to our midfield. Roos was badly outcoached as well. He should have moved Goodes onto Pavlich in the middle of the first quarterand told him to run with Pavlich and off him. Leaving Ablett on Pavlich was a match losing mistake from the coaching box. Pavlich lifts their confidence and his dominance brought their younger players into the game. i don't expect Roosey to publicly admit it but hopefully he owns up to the players. If you are pantsed in the ruck, have one of the best players in the comp running riot in the midfield and leave our best player (who physically matches Pavlich very well) on a forward line that was simply getting no delivery for half a game the inevitable happens. Its easy to blame a defense under pressure (particulalry LRT) but a midfield getting silver service from Sandilands, particularly Pavlich, will make any defense look ordinary. Also Jessie White showed he will be a very good player in the not too distant future.

[jdow]

As I was at last nights game and its one of the few I get to see live I want to type something insightful or constructive but I cant so I won't

[matthew]

i watched most of the game without the commentary because I can't stand Matthew Campbell, so biased towards the home team, Jackovich is another one.

[Q...]

The tv commentary as well - I swear I heard one refer to "Brian O'Keefe".

As for the rest of the game, it was just too painful for me to offer comment. I drove my partner from the living room, I was cursing and moaning so much.

And "Jacko" cleverly called Goodes "Chris Judd". I'm not sure he's got a brain. I wondered a couple of times how it was that Pickering could put up with having to listen to him prattle on every week.

[hammo]

In fairness to the midfield Jolly was well beaten by the beanpole. And Pavlich killed us in the first half especially roving off their ruck dominance. Jolly winning hit outs is vital to our midfield. Roos was badly outcoached as well. He should have moved Goodes onto Pavlich in the middle of the first quarterand told him to run with Pavlich and off him. Leaving Ablett on Pavlich was a match losing mistake from the coaching box. Pavlich lifts their confidence and his dominance brought their younger players into the game. i don't expect Roosey to publicly admit it but hopefully he owns up to the players. If you are pantsed in the ruck, have one of the best players in the comp running riot in the midfield and leave our best player (who physically matches Pavlich very well) on a forward line that was simply getting no delivery for half a game the inevitable happens.

This is spot on. It was bleedingly obvious all week that Pav was going to start in the guts and physically our best match up would be Goodes. Playing Ablett on him was simply ridiculous. If Ablett can't be played anywhere else on the ground but around the stoppages then he probably shouldn't be playing at all. Too slow, poor skills. The game is too quick and relies too much on clean disposal now to carry players of his ilk. Was acceptable when our game plan was working (05-06) but not now.

If we can be so effective around goals at stoppages there is no reason why we can't be doing the same in the centre. Nico is right. Our attack must start from centre clearances.

[liz]

I spent the game up almost at the back of the Swans-riddled stand behind the goal. Although I probably wasn't much higher up than my normal vantage point in the O'Reilly, and definitely lower than level 4 at Stad Oz, the lengthwise view of the game and the fact that the TV screens were even more useless from my vantage point than that waste of a screen at the SCG means that I got a pretty good "big picture" view of the game but had almost no clue of what was happening in tight.

My overall impressions were:

- Swans were very low intensity in the first half - static and the tackling intensity was ordinary

- Jolly's inability to get hit outs to advantage stymied the type of cleaner clearance - usually to Mcveigh or Goodes - that we tend to get when he is dominant

- Freo roved very well off Sandilands. I lost count of the number of times he was able to direct the ball down to space on his right hand side, where two Dockers typically moved, one to collect and the other to support/shepherd. It was how they got so many clean clearances, and because they were doing so, their players were spreading much more quickly to space.

- I haven't read this whole thread, but I did see one comment suggesting that because we had so few inside 50s, the lack of Hall and O'Loughlin wasn't a factor. Not sure I agree with this. It seemed to me that when they did get the ball moving forward, they went wide when they didn't need to, and seemed to be looking for a perfect pass, rather than have confidence in someone like Hall to win one-on-one, or at least bring the ball to ground.

- In the second half, the intensity was noticeably better, even down to the way they were celebrating goals. And to be fair, we probably were about even with the Dockers in the second half- but were just too far behind. There was some pretty attacking, positive play in the third quarter, but the midfield defensive intensity still wasn't there, meaning the Dockers were kicking answering goals too easily.

It was too hard to pick out good or bad players. Most of them did some good stuff and some not so good stuff. I thought Shaw and Mattner tried very hard all game to generate run from the back half, and Jude was good early and late, but went missing a bit in the middle of the game.

Barlow needs some urgent instruction on where to run when the team doesn't have the ball. He just seemed to be drifting around in the middle, not on a man, not really in space, not with any apparent purpose. I thought he did some decent things but just looked a little lost out there.

Similarly, we were screaming out for a forward who can time a lead from the goal square. There seemed to be multiple and rapid rotations through there - one moment Grundy, one moment Jolly, the next White. But they generally plonked themselves down and weren't providing leads. This might say something about the way the ball was coming in, but I don't think they were making it easy for the ball carriers.

All in all I am not as disappointed as many on here seem to be, and I don't regret travelling all this way to see them. The Dockers were the better team, and well deserved their win, but rather than describe the Swans as shocking, I'd say it was more a team that looked a little lost out on a ground unfamiliar in dimensions, a team that was probably carrying one or two inexperienced members too many, that certainly didn't work hard enough early in the game but suffered as much from being too tentative at times. The Dockers are a decent team, made to look worse than they really are by the Saints result, and usually play pretty well at home. They -and the crowd - were pumped up for a big game and the Swans would have needed to do most things well to beat them. Even though the scoreboard flattered us a bit, due to that uncharacteristically straight shooting, I don't think the game or the results were disasters for where the team currently is.

[connolly]

This is spot on. It was bleedingly obvious all week that Pav was going to start in the guts and physically our best match up would be Goodes. Playing Ablett on him was simply ridiculous. If Ablett can't be played anywhere else on the ground but around the stoppages then he probably shouldn't be playing at all. Too slow, poor skills. The game is too quick and relies too much on clean disposal now to carry players of his ilk. Was acceptable when our game plan was working (05-06) but not now.

If we can be so effective around goals at stoppages there is no reason why we can't be doing the same in the centre. Nico is right. Our attack must start from centre clearances.

Wasn't it obvious that Goodes should have gone to Pavlich after the first fifteen minutes? But no Roos lost his nerve and opted for the defensive strategy of Ablett on Pavlich. Roos at that stage had two options - Goodes or Craig Bolton. He kept Goodes on the forward line because of our lack of tall key position forwards. If Goodes went to Pavlich we had to change our game plan and play into a small forward line. He could have shown more faith in Thornton as a leading forward. The kid is a tremendous mark and a good shot for goal. With Thornton leading he could have dropped White and Jolly (resting) back into the square. Or he could have thrown Bolton onto Pavlich and put White, LRT, Richards on their three talls. Whatever was done it would have taken a risk. And Roosey for all his coaching planning brilliance and player management skills never rolls the dice in a game. The most that come out of the box was Shaw on the forward line (match winning stuff!!) and Goodes belatedly onto Pavlich. By then the stable door was well and truely shut after the Pavlich nag had bolted. Today the club's PR is lauding moneybag's effort (too embarassing to admit we are paying a fortune for a good half forward flanker) and rubbishing "some players". How about some honesty and an admission that we were done like a dinner in the coaches box? And pigs might fly.

[Midfield]

As I said earlier our efficiency drops at least 10% when Buchanan plays. Believe it or not he was included in the best in the Herald Sun. Mistake riddled selfish footballer.

Amon was clearly in the best. He was one of the only ones to have a go in the first half - as he always does. Mistake riddled selfish footballer? You have to be kidding.