Lindsay Gilbee 'dumbfounded' Patrick Veszpremi couldn't get a game....

[Jewels]

Except for Jolly of course. But we didn't "welease Dawwen", the initiative to go came from him.

He was the only one that came to my mind but I didn't use him as an example for the reason you gave.

[Hartijon]

There seems some confusion ,at least in my mind on this point.I think we can clearly demonstrate that many players released by other coaching staff from other teams have gone on to bigger and better thingsat the Swans. The list is quite big but the latest two of McGlynn and Kennedy illustrate the point. So on the one hand "coaching staffs" can be wrong but the Swans coaching staff has never been wrong. If this is the line of thinking I am glad I follow the Swans,omniscience is a rare virtue usually found only in Gods.

[laughingnome]

There certainly aren't many that I can remember, but there are a few we moved on (usually at the player's insistance) that succeeded. Rocca wanted to go home after 1996, Licuria followed him to Collingwood after 1997 and Scott Stevens went to Adelaide in Trade Week 2003. You could add Jolly to that and possibly Hall, but they key thing to all these players is that they wanted out: we didn't drop them thinking they were no good. Players like Buchanan, Schnieder and Cook were traded and were servicable with their new clubs, but hardly superstars.

[Go Swannies]

There seems some confusion ,at least in my mind on this point.I think we can clearly demonstrate that many players released by other coaching staff from other teams have gone on to bigger and better thingsat the Swans. The list is quite big but the latest two of McGlynn and Kennedy illustrate the point. So on the one hand "coaching staffs" can be wrong but the Swans coaching staff has never been wrong. If this is the line of thinking I am glad I follow the Swans,omniscience is a rare virtue usually found only in Gods.

Ability, application and opportunity are probably the three things that coaches look at when recruiting from other teams. The Swans have a wonderful record of getting that right - from B2 to Mummy. And occasionally, Swans players have benefited from leaving - Schneids and Baz for eg. But if you think that Schneids and Baz would be playing as well for us as they are for their new teams then I think you're wrong.

The Paul Roos model for recruiting has proven to work well - guarantee game time and support as long as they do what's expected. It's made Shaw, B2, Kennedy, McGlynn and Mummy into much better players. So, yes, the Swans do it better than others - and that's very widely recognised.

Do you think that Vez would have been left out of the team if he'd been ready to play? I don't. Hence the frustration among fans and coaches. Will he ever realise that talent alone is not enough? I hope so.

And do you hear any sour grapes from the Swans coaching staff when a departed player does well? I've heard nothing but best wishes from our coaches towards Schneids and Baz. My impression is that the coaches take their roles as mentors very seriously (more than I've seen in other teams) and it's one of the reasons I'm proud of the team I support.

Omniscient and god-like? Maybe not but bloody good at running a football club that largely produces good people. Roos was just one of the guides for the model so I expect it to continue unabated in the Horse era - and would be very disappointed if it didn't.

[Hartijon]

Ability, application and opportunity are probably the three things that coaches look at when recruiting from other teams. The Swans have a wonderful record of getting that right - from B2 to Mummy. And occasionally, Swans players have benefited from leaving - Schneids and Baz for eg. But if you think that Schneids and Baz would be playing as well for us as they are for their new teams then I think you're wrong.

The Paul Roos model for recruiting has proven to work well - guarantee game time and support as long as they do what's expected. It's made Shaw, B2, Kennedy, McGlynn and Mummy into much better players. So, yes, the Swans do it better than others - and that's very widely recognised.

Do you think that Vez would have been left out of the team if he'd been ready to play? I don't. Hence the frustration among fans and coaches. Will he ever realise that talent alone is not enough? I hope so.

And do you hear any sour grapes from the Swans coaching staff when a departed player does well? I've heard nothing but best wishes from our coaches towards Schneids and Baz. My impression is that the coaches take their roles as mentors very seriously (more than I've seen in other teams) and it's one of the reasons I'm proud of the team I support.

Omniscient and god-like? Maybe not but bloody good at running a football club that largely produces good people. Roos was just one of the guides for the model so I expect it to continue unabated in the Horse era - and would be very disappointed if it didn't.

Nicely put. I agree with most of what you say and your examples are well chosen. The Swans are certainly well known for getting the best out of players and that is the sign of good coaching. I worry a bit about the way the x factor player is handled but that could also be the players fault. Certainly Mickey O was treated very differently to the norm and paid us back big time! Did he ever do a full training session? Sometimes these kind of players need a bit more slack and they repay on game day. But overall we supporters got a lot to be thankful for .

[AnnieH]

Micky didn't need to do a full training session!!
You can't train for magic moments.

Seriously, if you didn't play in the seniors this year (with all our injuries, etc.), well quite frankly, you weren't good enough.

[liz]

I reckon that if you look over time at players traded out by clubs you will find very few real howlers - ie where the traded player has performed significantly better over an extended period of time than his trade value suggests (excluding trades where the departing player forced their club's hand - they were determined to leave).

Even with the Swans' reputation for trading well, I think we've generally traded for fair value, rather than getting any huge bargains). Mattner has given us one very good season and a couple of decent ones. Shaw one very good season and one decent one. Hall we did get very good value for, compared to what he cost, but argubaly the Saints did OK out of the trade too, and in any case, Hall forced their hand. Ball and Williams gave us very good service but we coughed up a 1st and 3rd round pick for each. Jolly is probably the best trade we've done in the sense that we got 5 good to excellent seasons from him and then traded him in for more than we paid for him. Mumford, Kennedy and McGlynn are looking like excellent value trades at this stage but we need to revisit in a couple of years. And at least in the case of Mumford, the Cats didn't want to trade.

In terms of who we've traded out, Stevens we definitely received unders for, but he's hardly a superstar. I think Schneider has performed slightly better than the pick we got for him suggests but that was something of a salary cap forced trade.

Who from other clubs proved to be a howler? McLeod is one that springs to mind. Which others? (And the Carey / Longmire howler lives in a different era so can't really be compared.)

[reigning premier]

Think we need a stalker's forum......

[Auntie.Gerald]

Schneider !