Round 15: Gold Coast Suns Reserves v Sydney Swans Reserves

[Kirkari]

... Jesse might get my vote as least awful.....

Ouch!

... Max needs another haircut...

The reverse Samson effect? Maybe Dyl does as well (though I wasn't there today - just assuming it's still longish). His form was good while he had all his curls cut short.

[ugg]

Corresponds with liz's thoughts

Sydney Swans
Goal Kickers: A. EVERITT 3, J. WHITE 2, N. GORDON , B. SUMNER , D. MCNEIL , E. MOODY
Best Players: M. SEABY, J. WHITE, B. SUMNER, D. MCNEIL

[unconfuseme]

I'm curious how the younger players and the toppies looked in a side that was under the pump, and under manned for a change.

It's easy to look good on the right side of a 12 goal score line, as they have all season, but it's how you respond in games like this, that gives a better indication of what sort of character you have as a player ... this kind of game, in the middle of this sort of season, tends to expose any downhill skiers ...?

[ugg]

Suns set on reserves win streak - Official AFL Website of the Sydney Swans Football Club

Doesn't correspond with the goalkickers on sportingpulse or even which Moody kicked goals.

[ugg]

So looking at sportingpulse, we had 12 listed players line up (they had Parker in there but surely he didn't play?) and hence down to 11 once Nipper got sent off.

liz and TripleB and anyone else who were there, if you could identify the numbers the topups wore it would help the RWOWiki entry.

[liz]

Pretty sure there was just one Moody goal, to Eric, though overall Andrew was probably livelier. Byron certainly kicked a goal.

Not sure I'll be able to help much with top up numbers. Think Pryor might have been wearing 57. The Moodys were in their normal jumpers as was Murphy. Can't remember much about any of the others. It was a pretty hard game to get into given how lame the Swans were.

[AnnieH]

Goodness!!
They had to have a loss eventually I suppose.
That's the difference between playing with amateur footballers and professional footballers.

[Primmy]

Well if we got flogged in ressies, it means the dropped players would have been crap in seniors too. Good reason to drop them and promote others.

[707]

I got there before half time and noted we didn't have any interchange happening whilst GC had a revolving door going.

Gordon ran laps at half time and again after the ressies game, Johnston was hobbling most of the second half, Jesse looked a bit sore too.

Having not seen any ressie players before, I only knew them by their Record numbers and not sure if all played - 47 Potter, 48 Guthrie, 49 Kenny, 50 Brain, 51 Lynch, 53 Murphy, 54 Wales, 57 Robinson. No mention in the Record of the Moodyboys but there were a couple who may have been them.

None of the toppies stood out to me. Of the listed plyers, Sumner impressed most, first time I've seen him but good evasive skills. Strikes me as a likely small forward type because of this. No one screamed out "pick me" for next week in the seniors.

[BeeEmmAre]

BeeEmmAre - Judging by the fact you have an official team list, are we to assume you are commentating on this match and it will be shown on FOX sometime during the week.

No mate, just speaking to someone who did have it while getting the official teamlists for the GWS v Brisbane Lions match, which we did cover.
It will be screened this Friday at the special time of 7.30pm (Friday night AFL is in Adelaide and starts later) on Channel 518.

[liz]

Having not seen any ressie players before, I only knew them by their Record numbers and not sure if all played - 47 Potter, 48 Guthrie, 49 Kenny, 50 Brain, 51 Lynch, 53 Murphy, 54 Wales, 57 Robinson. No mention in the Record of the Moodyboys but there were a couple who may have been them.

47 and 48 were Andrew and Eric Moody. Murphy did play (and wore his regular number) and Wales was out there too but didn't look to see what number he was wearing. He is the solidly built, moderately tall red head.

[liz]

I am not game to write Ugg style notes on that game. To be honest, my attention wandered a bit after it became evident how poor the Swans were. I reckon that 12 listed players is about the number the team needs to become a pretty good outfit, and maybe against a regular ACT team they would still have been competitive. I suspect part of the issue was the type of listed players available. We were reasonably well manned in defence (not that it always showed) with the likes of Heath, McKaigue, Johnston and Otten, and had two tall targets in White (when not rucking) and Everitt. But the midfield was very bare, especially after Gordon's exclusion from the game. Poor McNeil had none of the support he usually gets, and - I suspect quite significantly - was without Currie tapping it down his throat. Sure, he did have Seaby and White, so we were hardly bereft in the ruck, but Seaby didn't manage the same taps to advantage that Currie frequently produces. And of course, having fewer legitimate midfielders didn't help matters.

Both teams struggled with height in defence, and when the Swans were able to get the ball into their forward line, both Everitt and White presented pretty well. It just didn't get down there often enough.

I noted earlier that White was my "least bad on ground" and to his credit, he had a real dip and looked like he truly cared that the team was getting flogged. His first goal came from a great contested mark falling backwards to collect a clever kick from Andrew Moody. He also took two genuine marks on strong, fast leads, but failed to convert either of the goals. He worked hard in the ruck and had a few possessions around the ground. By the end he looked exhausted and slightly lame.

Seaby took a lot of marks because he got himself into good spots and was tall. He looked a bit plodding, though.

Sumner was a mixed bag for me. He certainly has some tricks, when he tackles, the player generally stays tackled and he buzzed around until the end. My slight beef with him - and it may not even be a fair beef - is that he sometimes hovers around the outside of packs waiting for the ball to come out, rather than throwing himself into every contest. Possibly it is just him being smart, or maybe he is playing to instruction. But when you're used to watching Bolton, McGlynn, Jack et al, and even Parker, McNeil and Moore at reserves level, throw themselves in headfirst at every opportunity, it is a bit disconcerting watching Sumner wait for the ball to come out to him at times. If there was ever a game where some kamikaze pack diving was required, even if ineffective, it was probably this one, if only to give the tenative toppies a bit of rev up.

Bevan was typical Bevan. He busted a gut all game, won some wonderful contests with his relentless attack on the ball, but was sloppy with his disposal at times. Everitt took some decent marks, mostly on leads against a shorter opponent, but wasn't particularly smart with his use of the ball, trying sometimes to be too clever when something basic was required.

McKaigue and Heath both struggled one -on-one in defensive contests, often done for height. But for large passges of the game the ball was coming into the Suns' forward line with such ease there was little they could have done to stop the flood. Still, both would have been pretty disappointed with their games, I suspect.

The biggest let down for me was Lewis, mostly because he was probably the one player out there I most want to see really come on. Even allowing for the delivery to the forwards, I thought he looked slow to react, beaten often on leads and in the end, almost giving up. His kicking was mostly indiscrimnate. I must acknowledge that he took what looked to be a painful knock to the knee. I think it was just before half-time. He was attempting one of his signature moves, running through the middle and signalling for whoever had the ball to handball to him so he could launch at goal. Whoever had the ball (I think it was one of our more experienced talls, maybe Seaby?) messed up the delivery and so when Johnston tried to take possession he collided with an opponent. After that he looked like he really didn't want to be out on the ground. He probably didn't. But with the team down on numbers, he had to stay. Without knowing how badly hurt he was, I don't know how critical to be of his game but he really didn't impress me with his defensive efforts even before the knock.

This was a game where either Otten or Kruger might have stood up and taken a more central role than they usually do with the team so undermanned. Neither did. Otten was particularly flabby, I thought, running around like a bit of a headless chook. I am almost ready to take back my taking back of my earlier lack of enthusiasm about him, which I was forced to do after a couple of very good games. But as someone commented earlier in this thread, you find out more about players when things aren't going well than when they are in teams winning by 100pt margins, and for me, he failed to demonstrate he could step it up when most needed.

[Matt79]

Thanks for the write up Liz. Sounds like not too many changes ahead for the Freo game barring injury. Still hoping TDL may get a call up despite missing on the weekend.

[AnnieH]

It's not hard to pick the Moody boys ... when they stand still. They're both about 3 foot 6 inches, yet play like they're 10 feet tall.
I'd so love it if they stayed with us.

[dimelb]

Thanks Liz - a valuable impression of what it was like. Combination of undermanned and not playing hard enough for each other seems like a fatal disorder. But then it usually is.