Where the game was lost.

[Hartijon]

1. Two selection mistakes: Barlow=way too soft for Geelong,Bevan should have got the nod
Secondly Gary Rohan,great potential but not the right opposition for your first game, Took a long time to get a possession . O'Dwyer was the in form player to pick instead.

2. Coaching mistakes: No one tagged Ablett and he killed us all over the ground.Even Richmond tags him .If Kieren Jack sacrificed his game to tag Ablett the scores would have been much closer.Playing Teddy in the key full back position was always going to hurt us.Pods killed him.Compare his positioning,reading of the play etc. to Scarlet's the other end! Varcoe needed a closer check as well and this was not addressed.Goodsey needed to be brought into the play but was left missing for 1/2 the game.

3.Player errors. Slow reactions from Mattner,Teddy and Barlow really hurt us and no pressure on the deliverer from the centre line eventually(not at first) made the backlines job impossible. Terrible delivery into our forward line ,apart from McVeigh gave players like Bradshaw no opportunities.

4.Home town umpiring in the first 1/2. Soft frees to "staging" Geelong players while hard playing Swans were manhandled around the neck and head. and not paid. Two missed frees to Gary Rohan the first time he went near the ball.Could have had a goal with his first kick if the maggots had not been so bad.

5.Geelong were a better team,fantastic skills in picking out a player by hand or foot.I was waiting for them to make a mistake but they rarely did.They would have beaten anybody on that display.They demonstrate the gap between them and us.

[Wardy]

1. Two selection mistakes: Barlow=way too soft for Geelong,Bevan should have got the nod
Secondly Gary Rohan,great potential but not the right opposition for your first game, Took a long time to get a possession . O'Dwyer was the in form player to pick instead.

2. Coaching mistakes: No one tagged Ablett and he killed us all over the ground.Even Richmond tags him .If Kieren Jack sacrificed his game to tag Ablett the scores would have been much closer.Playing Teddy in the key full back position was always going to hurt us.Pods killed him.Compare his positioning,reading of the play etc. to Scarlet's the other end! Varcoe needed a closer check as well and this was not addressed.Goodsey needed to be brought into the play but was left missing for 1/2 the game.

3.Player errors. Slow reactions from Mattner,Teddy and Barlow really hurt us and no pressure on the deliverer from the centre line eventually(not at first) made the backlines job impossible. Terrible delivery into our forward line ,apart from McVeigh gave players like Bradshaw no opportunities.

4.Home town umpiring in the first 1/2. Soft frees to "staging" Geelong players while hard playing Swans were manhandled around the neck and head. and not paid. Two missed frees to Gary Rohan the first time he went near the ball.Could have had a goal with his first kick if the maggots had not been so bad.

5.Geelong were a better team,fantastic skills in picking out a player by hand or foot.I was waiting for them to make a mistake but they rarely did.They would have beaten anybody on that display.They demonstrate the gap between them and us.

that pretty much says it all!

[Auntie.Gerald]

i felt their set play of kicking it to the pocket for Stevie to lead all the time and got a lot of grabs was clever. It pinned us down just inside the 50m zone and they came out trumps...........it allowed them to slow the game down in their end of the field very cleverly but it had Stevie leading knowing where it was going before it had even left the boot

Rohan will bounce back I feel but McGlinn and Hannebery is a walk in..........and Jetta and Rohan may struggle to stay........I would almost be tempted to allow Rohan to stay over Jetta ?

[liz]

1. Two selection mistakes: Barlow=way too soft for Geelong,Bevan should have got the nod
Secondly Gary Rohan,great potential but not the right opposition for your first game, Took a long time to get a possession . O'Dwyer was the in form player to pick instead.

2. Coaching mistakes: No one tagged Ablett and he killed us all over the ground.Even Richmond tags him .If Kieren Jack sacrificed his game to tag Ablett the scores would have been much closer.Playing Teddy in the key full back position was always going to hurt us.Pods killed him.Compare his positioning,reading of the play etc. to Scarlet's the other end! Varcoe needed a closer check as well and this was not addressed.Goodsey needed to be brought into the play but was left missing for 1/2 the game.

3.Player errors. Slow reactions from Mattner,Teddy and Barlow really hurt us and no pressure on the deliverer from the centre line eventually(not at first) made the backlines job impossible. Terrible delivery into our forward line ,apart from McVeigh gave players like Bradshaw no opportunities.

4.Home town umpiring in the first 1/2. Soft frees to "staging" Geelong players while hard playing Swans were manhandled around the neck and head. and not paid. Two missed frees to Gary Rohan the first time he went near the ball.Could have had a goal with his first kick if the maggots had not been so bad.

5.Geelong were a better team,fantastic skills in picking out a player by hand or foot.I was waiting for them to make a mistake but they rarely did.They would have beaten anybody on that display.They demonstrate the gap between them and us.

You have these in the wrong order.

Number 5 is by far the most significant. Ordinary as the Swans were, I think most of it that we were made to look ordinary by a brilliant team, right on its game.

Number 4 might have been a minor factor in the first half but was a non-factor in the second half, where the game was truly lost.

Not overly convinced that coaching issues made much of a difference. Jack has tried tagging Ablett the last three times we've played them and never with any effect.

Given the personnel we had available to select from, I doubt different selections would have made much difference. I would have preferred to see MOD there to Barlow but can understand that Barlow's height would have got him the nod, given we lost a tall. Not that Barlow's height was really used during the game. Rohan barely touched the ball but I doubt it is an experience that is going to dent his confidence. He got to see first hand what he needs to aim for, and he worked reasonably hard despite a very modest influence. These two (over MOD and who else - Vez? Bevan?) had very little influence over the outcome I reckon.

[Hartijon]

You have these in the wrong order.

Number 5 is by far the most significant. Ordinary as the Swans were, I think most of it that we were made to look ordinary by a brilliant team, right on its game.

Number 4 might have been a minor factor in the first half but was a non-factor in the second half, where the game was truly lost.

Not overly convinced that coaching issues made much of a difference. Jack has tried tagging Ablett the last three times we've played them and never with any effect.

Given the personnel we had available to select from, I doubt different selections would have made much difference. I would have preferred to see MOD there to Barlow but can understand that Barlow's height would have got him the nod, given we lost a tall. Not that Barlow's height was really used during the game. Rohan barely touched the ball but I doubt it is an experience that is going to dent his confidence. He got to see first hand what he needs to aim for, and he worked reasonably hard despite a very modest influence. These two (over MOD and who else - Vez? Bevan?) had very little influence over the outcome I reckon.

Yeah,your right about 5 but my order was not meant to be a list in order of importance,it was just a list.

Coaching was a bit of a factor I thought.I would have run Bradshaw as a loose man in defense for a while in the 3rd to get him into the game and to make it less easy for Geelong to score.

With selection hindsight we wold have got more out of Bevan and O'dwyer but still probably lost due to point 5 andI mentioned the umpires were only a factor in the first 1/2 where we did ok.

[Peace]

pretty sure the game was lost at kardinia park?

[RogueSwan]

I thoght it was lost on our forward line.
the rebound of half back was good but we fell over on our delivery into the fwds.
From their the Cats pounced and caught us out of position.

[andyn]

pretty sure the game was lost at kardinia park?

yeah. no team has won there for years. Basically this is a 'bonus' opportunity for teams to go down there. You mark it as a loss and see whether you can cause the upset of the year and gain something on your rivals. Unfortunately this attitude is enabling them to keep winning. I just hope our major competitors have to play them there too, but no doubt half of them will get to play them at the MCG instead. Different story then

[johnno]

I thoght it was lost on our forward line.
the rebound of half back was good but we fell over on our delivery into the fwds.
From their the Cats pounced and caught us out of position.

Sorry RogueSwan, but I felt Geelong's forwards/midfield did very well to stifle our run out of half back. There was the odd occasion when we did get it out with run, but most of the time we didnt but when we did, there was that much pressure being applied to the runner coming out of defence, the kick forward was easily picked off by the Geelong defenders who sent the ball back forward so quickley, our boys(down back) just did not have a chance.

The main difference was pressure, pressure and more pressure. The amount of pressure that was applied to our boys by geelong all over the ground was what the difference. Also geelong just killed us on the rebound....and all this happened in the 2nd half. In the 1st half we did well to stay with them, i do agree with some earlier posts that the umpiring in the 1st half(2nd quarter in particular) was a bit strange, but still that wasn't the difference between the 2 teams.

Also, having LRT and Bolton out was never going to end up good for us. I just hope all the people who give LRT a hard time here NOW understand just how important he is to our structure down back, I just knew driving sown the highway and hearing on the radio that LRT was out we would be playing Richards as a key backman on Sunday. As much as I love Ted, he is not cut out for this role, he cant play on the gorillas. He is better of playing on the mid size forwards and playing that role in front of the big men and chopping of their leads. He may get killed one day doing it, but thats what he's there for.

For what its worth, I felt our best player was Nick Smith, did fairly well on Stevie J, but the way the ball was coming to that Geelong forward line, there really wasn't much he could do to stop all of them all day.

[RogueSwan]

Sorry RogueSwan, but I felt Geelong's forwards/midfield did very well to stifle our run out of half back. There was the odd occasion when we did get it out with run, but most of the time we didnt but when we did, there was that much pressure being applied to the runner coming out of defence, the kick forward was easily picked off by the Geelong defenders who sent the ball back forward so quickley, our boys(down back) just did not have a chance.

Hence the guys up the ground were not working, creating space to give the hb's a target

The main difference was pressure, pressure and more pressure.

Agreed

Also, having LRT and Bolton out was never going to end up good for us.

Yep, a huge out. It left a lot of our defenders playing one-on-one and the Cats delivery was to good.

For what its worth, I felt our best player was Nick Smith, did fairly well on Stevie J, but the way the ball was coming to that Geelong forward line, there really wasn't much he could do to stop all of them all day.

Agreed, showed he is definitely well inside the best 22.