Lets try Kicking the damn football

[Old S.M.Blood]

Watching the game against Freo.It seemed to me that every time one of our players got the ball he was looking to hand pass it no matter what!
Even if the way straight down the ground was clear the first thought was HAND PASS at all costs.Boy did they get themselves in trouble with one to many hand passes.
How many times did we see a player turn back into trouble when he could have run straight ahead? "Kick the damn ball" I say. No They have to hand pass and watch in horror as the other side get the ball. What ever happened to the old "Stab Pass" In my time if you could not hit a team mate with a stab pass running flat out you were lucky to get a game. Bring back the "Drop kick" it travels a lot faster than a punt kick. Anyone remember Freddy Goldsmith kicking out from fullback? Bob Skilton Kick a stab kick on the run?
Kick the damn football I say.

[Matty10]

On occasion my Dad used to kick a stab pass to me in the back yard with his work boots on and they still came in hard and fast to my breadbasket - but they were well out of fashion by that stage so I never really developed the skill myself.

It is interesting how people see a particular game so differently. I didn't find myself yelling "kick it" this week as I have some times in the past. Our disposal was so poor (by hand and foot) that I wasn't sure what to yell out (mind you I was watching a recording of the game and already knew the result).

I thought that part of the frustration with the game against Freo was due to the fact that it was one-on-one all over the ground and we could not free anyone up to get clean disposal. The succession of handballs became problematic because Freo's forwards applied continual pressure and did not zone off. In past years one-on-one football would have suited us better as we would have held the ball up and waited for a loose player to create some space on a lead, this year our game style is quite different and all the run that we are trying to create through the midfield comes from handballing to loose men out of the backline etc, which obviously came unstuck on Saturday. It is exciting when it works, but frustrating when the opposition is on and our players don't work hard enough, handball to team-mates under more pressure than they are, execute skills poorly, or fail to create enough space for each other through not shepherding etc.

When that happens I agree - they should just kick it!

[Hartijon]

Watching the game against Freo.It seemed to me that every time one of our players got the ball he was looking to hand pass it no matter what!
Even if the way straight down the ground was clear the first thought was HAND PASS at all costs.Boy did they get themselves in trouble with one to many hand passes.
How many times did we see a player turn back into trouble when he could have run straight ahead? "Kick the damn ball" I say. No They have to hand pass and watch in horror as the other side get the ball. What ever happened to the old "Stab Pass" In my time if you could not hit a team mate with a stab pass running flat out you were lucky to get a game. Bring back the "Drop kick" it travels a lot faster than a punt kick. Anyone remember Freddy Goldsmith kicking out from fullback? Bob Skilton Kick a stab kick on the run?
Kick the damn football I say.

Ouch, Still have bruises on my chest !! Those stab passes could really sting!The execution of skilled kicking was worth going to the match to see, even if we lost. Gone alas forever! I did think that Moore's kick to Bradshaw was one of the best I have seen from a Swan in a long time. Generally as a team we kick poorly apart from McVeigh,Bradshaw now, and Smith. The rest,including Goodes would be lucky to hit the side of a barn with a handful of wheat ,a description from stab pass days!!!

[Melbourne_Blood]

I recall seeing a stat about round 5 or six, and it showed that the Swans were ranked number one or two for disposal efficiency, compared to about 14 or 15 in previous years. Now i havent seen any updated stats since our little poor patch began, but it's fair to say that we would be somewhere down the bottom for the past three rounds.

Mal and Mcveigh are certainly the best kicks in the side, but for a stat to improve that much on recent years it must surely suggest that players who generally aren't great with their disposal had improved a fair way.

With the increased pressure of playing quality sides comes a distinct slide in our disposal efficiency, which severely dents our overall competitiveness. However i don't beleive this is entirely due to the opposition pressure, but more so players losing confidence in themselves and their disposal.

Despite playing poor sides in the first few rounds, we had an air of confidence that we knew we were a fair way better than these sides and played with confidence and won comfortably. One horror half of footy down at Geelong, coupled with injuries galore, has damaged our confidence severely and we look like a shadow of the team that was playing so well at the start of the year.

Getting some of these players back will help, but it won't help significantly until the issue of confidence ( and the subsequent effect it has on disposal) is addressed. If we were to play the teams we beat rounds 2-6 now, with the same teams that won, but with the confidence levels as they are now, i think we would get our pants pulled down.

[Melbourne_Blood]

PRO-STATS Australian Rules Football - The Stats The Coaches Use

Tried to find some disposal efficiency stats but had no luck. Still there are some pretty damning stats on here:
Ranked 16th in 1%ers, ranked 14th in rebound 50's per game, ranked 13th in Contested possesions per game ( I think we were something like top 4 for this after round six), ranked 15th in tackles per game.
Pretty unswans-like to be down on tackles and 1%ers i would've thought, especially considering the decline in the other areas where we were doing well in at the beginning of the year (Cont. possies, Overall Possies, disposal efficiency).

[Nico]

We are not spreading when the backs are coming off half back. Hence the guts is bloked up and it is turnover city. If we spread then a player must go with or after them, this in turn creates space down the middle. This is what we did before the Geelong game.

[RogueSwan]

...
Mal and Mcveigh are certainly the best kicks in the side, but for a stat to improve that much on recent years it must surely suggest that players who generally aren't great with their disposal had improved a fair way....

I would add Jetta to those two. But only when on song obviously.

[Bloody Hell]

This is just a reflection of the high number of changes over the past few weeks, so there is little cohesion with disposal across the team.

Stability will resolve.