NAB Cup Round 2 - Swans v Roos

[annew]

GGrrrrrr! Now the stream starts!!! Can anyone tell us what went wrong?

. That sucks

[Panttz]

It probably got too much traffic. I was streaming it fine for the first half and then I refreshed the page to see if that would clear up some of the static and found myself unable to connect to the stream as well. Pretty easy to do considering there would of been thousands of people all trying to use a smaller stations website/stream.

[Swans500]

...Bet the AFL stopped them....they have total control over radio coverage....

GGrrrrrr! Now the stream starts!!! Can anyone tell us what went wrong?

[Foreign Legion]

Thanks Alive 90.5 - I had to eventually listen on my phone - I suspect no slots were available to stream to the web. Good broadcast with plenty of passion!

Jude Bolton only knows 1 speed - flat out - topped the possesions again tonight. Oh well, we play the well rested bombers next week - hopefully they will drive instead of flying from Essendon airport....

[DLBIA14]

Sydney obviously decided they were done for the night after getting 40 points up. Good hitout, we're looking sharp considering we're only half way through the NAB cup.

Yep there's no need to keep the same intensity when you're guaranteed the win in a preseason. Interested to hear the wrap up from those at the ground, but I got the impression Jetta did some good things? Would be pleased if that was true, because he was quite stagnant last year.

[Foreign Legion]

Wow - Port 1 point in front of WC!

EDIT posted too early WC a goal

[giant]

Were we really 40 pts up at one point? That's pretty impressive.

[dimelb]

Yep there's no need to keep the same intensity when you're guaranteed the win in a preseason. Interested to hear the wrap up from those at the ground, but I got the impression Jetta did some good things? Would be pleased if that was true, because he was quite stagnant last year.

Jetta got good Dream Team points, obviously much more involved - great to see. Full stats now on the AFL site.
Thanks for the thread people - much appreciated.

[BeeEmmAre]

Hi all,
Thanks a lot for the good reports, hopefully those that were able to pick it up were all satisfied with the call. It's a shame that quite a few people couldn't get on or pick it up in whichever form you were trying to, but it is a community station and it was their first ever attempt at a live broadcast of Aussie Rules full stop, let alone AFL. I'm certain they would never have had that sort of traffic on their stream before either, so I assume that would have been part of the issue, but I'll pass all the information on and they'll work on improving it for next time.
A great win for the Swans, it looked like it could have blown out to 10 goals at one stage but North lifted, led by Boomer, and put some respectability on the scoreboard. Apart from most of the second quarter, and the last 10 minutes, the Swans dominated and could have won by a lot more. Those last four goals could be the difference between making the NAB Cup grand final and not making it.

[Nich]

OK - I admit i was wrong. Kick2kick was on! And yes, great drainage.

[nomae]

Can we actually talk about the game? Lamb a no-show? Malceski amongst it again?

[DeadlyAkkuret]

Those last four goals could be the difference between making the NAB Cup grand final and not making it.

I fear it will.

There's a good chance one of Adelaide or West Coast will lose next week and we should beat Essendon, which would mean we'll probably miss out on the top 2 by percentage.

[ugg]

It was my first time at Bruce Purser Reserve and it's a beautiful suburban ground replete with an immaculate looking white picket fence surrounding the playing area. Not much elevation from the seats so when viewing play on the opposite wing (and I always feel that more play happens on the opposite wing!) some of the ground ball stuff tended to be obscured from my vantage point.

Aside from the start of the second quarter where the Swans looked a little lost trying to find the right matchups and were chasing North players to the ball, and the dying stages of the game when the 4 points were already in the bag, the Swans were the dominant team for most of the night and were deserved winners. They won more of the contested ball in the wet and were generally cleaner and calmer in possession than the Roos who worked hard but lacked polish especially up forward. I'll go through the different areas of the team rather than on an individual player by player basis.

Ruck
Seaby took the opening bounce with Pyke up forward. In general, Goldstein and McIntosh edged out our duo but Seaby took some telling marks as a forward whilst Pyke looked a little lost out there. He needs to keep his concentration on the job as a few times he was caught out of position too worried about players further up the ground. Mumford came on for Seaby at half time but I'm not sure whether this indicates that Seaby is behind or ahead of Pyke at this stage. Mumford looked a little rusty in the tapwork department but his competitiveness at ground level and his tackling and chasing are second to none. He was involved in two incidents within a couple of minutes in the 4th quarter that may raise a few eyebrows. I wasn't aware at the time but it turns out they were both on Andrew Swallow. The first incident, the ball was kicked over his head and it was obvious he was never going to get there in time and I felt he intended to charge at the player in order to scare him never thinking he would go through with it but he did and collected Swallow. The second incident he put on a (legal) shepherd on the wing, it was possibly high but I couldn't tell from my vantage point as he had his whole back towards me which obscured the actual collision between the two players

Watching Barry Hall on AFL360 during the week, he re-iterated that he felt that he had to keep up his aggression levels on the field otherwise he thought he wasn't as effective a player, but acknoweldged that there's a fine line between legal and illegal aggressive acts and sometimes he overstepped that mark. I'm beginning to feel that Mumford might be treading that line, and with such a huge frame and the difference that a split second can make, it might be prudent if he could tone it down 'just' a little.

Defence
Very solid back 6 of Richards, Grundy (later LRT), Johnson, Mattner, Smith and Malceski. Teddy continued to impress at full back and dominated Drew Petrie in the first half. Without that marking target the Roos had little else to go to as Nick Smith was also as effective in blanketing the other threat Lindsay Thomas for most of the night. Alex Johnson gave away some height to the resting ruckman but was not beaten. Reg Grundy played the first half before giving way to LRT during the break, who with a few trademark fumbles aside was also not troubled by Petrie who to be fair had to contend with the slippery conditions and some atrocious delivery. Malceski also was solid, I've been harsh on his defensive and physical work in the past but he was very competitive in those areas tonight.

Midfield
Reading the AFL Prospectus during the offseason, they highlighted Goodes and Mumford as our only 2 elite players (by their Champion Data rankings) and they posed the question of who could step up and provide the 5-8 elite players that are trademarks of premiership winning teams. Kennedy would be my favourite to move up into that bracket: he just went about his gruntwork tonight with a minimum of fuss but was dominant especially in the clearances. The experts last year gushed about the ruck-to-rover combination of Jamar and Moloney and I think this year they could be carrying on in the same vein about Mumford-to-Kennedy. Jude was right beside Josh with his terrific workrate and the two covered well for the absence of Goodes and ROK in this midfield.

Parker was also another standout for me, he looks like he has played in this team for many years now. He is incredibly quick with his hands and combined with his elite physique, will be one our of main clearance options this year. Jetta also gets a thumbs up for me with his workrate which has improved markedly in the 2 NAB Cup weeks but he still has such a skinny little body that most players can shrug him aside with ease. McGlynn had a purple patch in the third quarter where he set up three consecutive goals while the other Mc, our captain, was also prominent across the half-forward/wing before slowing down in the second half.

Forwards
A real dog's breakfast at times and I really hope it was a case of just trying a few things rather than a case of the system breaking down. Without Reid as a true leading target, in the first quarter the three talls White, Walsh and the resting ruckman plus Morton continually had to compete for high balls coming in bombed long by our midfielders. To no one's surprise, not one of them completed a mark inside 50 in this time. To compound the issue, there weren't any real crumbers either in front of or at the back of the pack which allowed the Roos defenders to clean up with ease. In the second quarter, as the Swans tried to stem the Roos' charge, more players flooded back so much so that there was only one or at times no players in the forward half. At times, a Swans player with the ball would look up and see Benny McGlynn as the only forward target in front of them which as you can imagine wasn't the ideal setup.

White improved in the second half after being subbed off in the 2nd quarter (and somehow brought back on at half time!). Playing on Cam Delaney he held onto some strong grabs after working his way in front, pity about the finishing. Tommy Walsh only played the first half and he was just as guilty as any of his teammates with some ill-directed kicks into the forward line. He juggled a few easy chest marks but that may be due to the slippery ball. But with only 2 halves as a Swan under his belt so far, it is wishful thinking that he will be able to slot into our best 22 and fix our forward structural issues. He may have the physical presence but I don't think he has any real idea how to play as a true forward target at this stage. He has a big booming kick as I noted his shots during the warmup - it won't be an issue for him which has plagued some Irish converts to our game.

Rohan, his exciting goal (and boy was it oh so exciting I hope they have footage of it) aside, really struggled to have an impact on the game, starting deep in the forward 50 arc and trying to push out to the wings. Everitt had more of an overall impact than Gary, but the things he did were more suited to a smaller man than a tall - a nice crumbed goal and a beautiful sweeping handball to the running Jack for his supergoal. Like most of the other tall forwards, he failed to take a grab in the forward 50.

Misc
I struggled to see the comparison of Cunningham to Paul Kelly last week but I definitely 'got it' this week. It's the hunched shoulders and the frenetic movements with or without the ball. There's still a lot of work he has to do but I wouldn't put it past him sneaking a few games this year, especially if the coaches require an injection of pace into the team. Rohan gets the plaudits for his goal but Cunningham was the player with the foresight to put it into space in the first place and for a while was leading the chase to the ball before Rohan outpaced Hansen to get there first.

Poor Jarred Moore only subbed on for the last few minutes and subsequently failed to trouble the statisticians but if you think that's bad spare a thought for Campbell Heath. He did all the warmups but didn't play a single minute, looks like he was the emergency for the night. Lots of non-playing Swans watching on the sidelines including Goodes, Shaw, Hanners, Mitchell, Biggs and O'Keefe.

The NAB Cup rule of the player last to kick or handball it out (or whatever they're calling it) is a joke if the umpires have no idea how to police it. There was an instance where a Swans defender punched the ball in a marking contest and it flew out of the full and they paid that as a Kangaroos free kick. I'm pretty sure that's not how the rule works. And there were also a couple of instances for both sides, when a player inadvertently toed the ball over the line, that was paid against them too! Very confusing to all watching.

For those interested in the nitty-gritty details
1st half subs
Rohan on Parker off
Everitt on White off
2nd half subs
Gordon on Kennedy off
Moore on McGlynn off

Halftime swaps (if that's the term)
Mumford on Seaby off
Moore on Morton off
Roberts-Thomson on Grundy off
Gordon on Walsh off

[ugg]

I fear it will.

There's a good chance one of Adelaide or West Coast will lose next week and we should beat Essendon, which would mean we'll probably miss out on the top 2 by percentage.

http://www.afl.com.au/nabcup/tabid/74/default.aspx

Pretty big gap to Hawthorn at the moment.

[DeadlyAkkuret]

http://www.afl.com.au/nabcup/tabid/74/default.aspx

Pretty big gap to Hawthorn at the moment.

Yeah, the advantage of playing GWS.

We need to win and then hope Geelong, Hawthorn and West Coast lose. I guess that is pretty unlikely.