Swans v Dockers Game Day Thread

[Margo]

I love how some people think because they feel or think a certain way others should too. Basically no-one is allowed to comment on the game last night or any players efforts without being called a fairweather supporter, yet any other wreek its all good. If your not dissapointed in losing a chance at a flag then im not sure what the games about. There was some embarrasing efforts at times last night ,not one poster has said the team was embarassing or that they loved the club less but others just run with it and say your not a real supporter.

So next year if we make the prelim with a full side and lose no-one has any right to bag the players at all. Not one of the posters who had the gaul to point out mistakes etc is anyless a supporter than any of the holier than though ones who think what they think is what everyone should think. And hell may as well close the trade talk threads as that is just so fair weather supporter. People have inferred things that werent even said just so they can act all uppity. I respect everyones opinion on here whether i agree with it or not, who are others to tell people how to feel and decide hey im a better supporter than you. Guess they must of all been back at the lake oval in the 60's and 70's.

I respect your opinion and your right to express it, and if it differs from mine, that's fine. I can't speak for others, but the reason why I didn't say that the team was embarrassing is because I did not feel any embarrassment. Momentary disappointment when errors were made, yes. There were times when I was pointing to a free player hoping that somehow the message would transcend the t.v. and the width of the country, but in the pressure of a game, getting everything right can be near impossible. During the last quarter, I actually said that I loved them more than ever. I guess we just saw it, and reacted to it differently.
I never "bag"our players because (in the main), I love them all and enjoy watching their skills and courage on the field. That's the up side of being a one-eyed, passionate supporter. A two-eyed passionate supporter will perhaps call it differently. The important thing is that we all keep that passion.
P.S. No-one likes uppities !!

[On-Baller]

Thanks and i respect your and others opinions just dont like people deciding im a fair weather supporter because i point out Mcglynn cant kick or that he had a few embarrasing efforts in first half. Mind you he wasnt on his own. I love the team and club to the point of being a bit obsessed during the season so it just gets me that others can make the snap judgement that im a fair weather supporter because i wasnt all gushing about losing a prelim.

Top effort all year thats for sure and more positives than negatives but damn it hurts to lose a prelim and so it should. Horse and co will look at the game and see what went wrong so not sure why its bad for supporters to do so.

[BillyRayCypress]

I hear there are some peptides that will help prevent injuries. Apparently it works really well, and is good for all involved.

Thats if you can cope with having extremely large ears as a result of side effects.

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As for the game? I am feeling crabby because for the first time ever I was actually organised with tickets and transport to Melbourne.

Perhaps you and Wardy can drive to Goulburn as a mini trip instead to compensate.

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Thanks and i respect your and others opinions just dont like people deciding im a fair weather supporter because i point out Mcglynn cant kick or that he had a few embarrasing efforts in first half. Mind you he wasnt on his own. I love the team and club to the point of being a bit obsessed during the season so it just gets me that others can make the snap judgement that im a fair weather supporter because i wasnt all gushing about losing a prelim.

What the hell is a fair weather supporter????

Is an uppity a "pinky in air" type drinker?

Mal's two kick outs towards the end of the game where they didn't reach their target (one bounced off Smith's leg) looked like he had given up.

Freo deserved to win and were "turbo-charged' compared to our justifiably tired bunch.

Well done guys and off to the fancy dress Mad Monday celebration. Speaking of uppity, I wonder if anyone will get dressed up like Roos?

[Swansinger]

Luke Parker reminds me somewhat of Aker , without the lairising. I love 'em both !

[Auntie.Gerald]

Towers was almost certainly recruited with a view to taking Mattner's spot. But he looked lost playing in defence in the reserves - so much so that he was moved forward for the second half of the year, where he played with much more energy (though needed to make more of his goal scoring opportunities to really press for a senior spot). It will be interesting to see what they can do with him after another pre-season. There is a spot with his name on in the back line but he's going to find it hard to secure a forward line spot, with both Rohan and Membrey showing ability and class as "third tall" types, not to mention a certain Mr Goodes hopefully to return.

I wonder whether BJ can be turned into a small defender, come rebounder?

its an interesting question re Towers and maybe BJ but i would consider erring towards Jack or even Tom Mitchell playing a little game time off the HBF. Yes Shaw will come back but we need to be a step ahead. Cunningham has the potential of being dangerous of HBF also but his defence is not there yet.

last night Pearse and Hill and even fyfe at times were wrapping around and setting up play from the HBF with great ease !

that is a lot of super quality players off the HBF......it worked tremendously well for Freeo and it makes me think we need to be much more adaptable with our structures coming out of defence

Jack needs to compliment Mal and Macca off the HBF as a minimum other wise we are in serious trouble against the top 6 teams !

It appeared Rampe and Dre got to play loose in the 2nd half and did better then our first half efforts when Mal was shut down...... but they are not at the level of Hill, Fyfe and especially Pearse when it comes to lethal passes and setting up of run

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given we have so many forwards why not play Goodes off the HBF for his final year or two

he would kill it ......absolutely kill it and dominate as a loose player coming from the deep and flying thru and linking with Jetta and Rohan etc

Imagine Goodes running off the back flank and linking with Jetts who then sends a 60m pass to Rohan making a 50m lead....... with a Tippett decoy

its radical and some might say why move him from where he is so dominant ie upfront and midfield but i say between Reid, Tippett, Rohan, LRT, Pyke and White can more then do the job upfront

let Goodes free

let Goodes free !!!

[rojo]

That would also be good. But we also have to take stock of the sort of player we have at the footy club and what they bring individually to the table. The coaching department do this each year and that is fine. But this year the whole talk from the coaching staff was what they bring to the game plan. The game plan has to be thrown out with the bathwater. Sides today are ot playing to any set strategy and we have been left behind. This year sides have been developing the ability to change their strategies to match and then overcome the opposition. If the opposition does A then we do B. This is how the good sides overcame us as we were not changing our game strategies to counter their strategies. We were too set into the 'Game Plan'. I was talking to my nephew who is a Hawks member and he agrees that Clarko had to change the Hawks way of thinking about the game completely. They had to use game strategies rather than game plan 1,2 & 3. Strategies can change many times in a match, up to 8 times. You have to be very flexible to pull this off and this is what we should be aiming for.

In other words we should not be asking what do players bring to the game plan but what to they bring to the table that we can use? How can we use that skill? How can that be used in conjunction with the skills and advantages other players bring to the table? How can we meld it all together in a variety of different ways to counter opposition sides? For instance blocking would help against the Freo hunting in packs strategy.

I think you have something there. Our game plan and structures have become so predictable that the better teams are able to effectively counter and then exploit our game. Freo shut Hanners and Jack down on Sat. night and attacked us and we just had no answers for half a game. We always come out and say, that we didn't play the way we wanted to, we didn't stick to our game plan, we have to look at went wrong and work on it!! But on Sat. night we still bombed the ball long when kicking out, to a heap of players where no one was able to take a mark (except Sandilands), to see it crumbed by Freo and sent back in faster than it came out. Then next time we did exactly the same thing, again and again. Some of the players seem to go into robotic mode, like when we handball, handball, handball, even if it means handballing to the opposition. When it has not been working for us these past few games, against the good teams, instead of making a well practised counter attack we have been switching to panic mode.

Sure, with so many good players out and our midfielders tiring, the team has done us proud. But perhaps there are some bigger picture changes that need to be looked at as we head into 2014. The pressure for top 8 spots is going to be fierce. Freo and Port have thrown out the challenge this year and we have Richmond, Essendon, Carlton. and North gaining serious ground. Even Gold Coast and the Bulldogs have shown a lot of improvement and who knows with Adelaide, West Coast and Brisbane. We will have to aim at playing about 25% smarter at least to stay ahead! Our list changes will be very important - as usual.

[Meg]

let Goodes free

let Goodes free !!!

Oh we missed Goodes last night!

[stellation]

Part way through the 2nd quarter I could just picture Goodesy leading up and taking an overhead mark then going back and making the downwards hand motion for everyone to just "slow down/calm down".

[0918330512]

I love how some people think because they feel or think a certain way others should too. Basically no-one is allowed to comment on the game last night or any players efforts without being called a fairweather supporter, yet any other wreek its all good. If your not dissapointed in losing a chance at a flag then im not sure what the games about. There was some embarrasing efforts at times last night ,not one poster has said the team was embarassing or that they loved the club less but others just run with it and say your not a real supporter.

So next year if we make the prelim with a full side and lose no-one has any right to bag the players at all. Not one of the posters who had the gaul to point out mistakes etc is anyless a supporter than any of the holier than though ones who think what they think is what everyone should think. And hell may as well close the trade talk threads as that is just so fair weather supporter. People have inferred things that werent even said just so they can act all uppity. I respect everyones opinion on here whether i agree with it or not, who are others to tell people how to feel and decide hey im a better supporter than you. Guess they must of all been back at the lake oval in the 60's and 70's.

You respect everyone's opinions, EXCEPT those who "think because they feel or think a certain way others should too".

I think if we all had our REAL names, email addresses & phone numbers attached to our comments, the flavour of the forum might be somewhat different for many posters (though not all, I'm sure some have the aggotts to say what they really think regardless of who else knows or what others think). But, from the anonymity of our nick-names & avitars we can safely criticize & vent to our hearts desires without fear of a great deal of retribution.

[Mug Punter]

Was still proud of us last night. Sure we had a few players missing in action and missing injured but Freo were immense and I think it is there time. That second quarter was the most one-sided and brutal quarter of finals footy I have seen.

The fact we were able to blood a large number of players this year (Rampe, Cunningham, Lamb, B Jack, Biggs) will stand us in good stead for the future. I'd like to see one major off-season signing in our backline (Ben Reid please) but basically I think we have the foundations of being a top 4 team again next season.

Just because you don't win the flag doesn't make it a dud season and I think this season has been a success for us.

Well done Freo for last night, do the footy world a favour and do a job on the Hawks. Looking forward to Crowley tagging Sam Mitchell

[bodgie]

Gotta say it was brilliant they made it so far with so many newbies and the underdones and the overdones. Hard yakka game time for what were fringe players. That must be good for our depth next year.

[Dan]

Being the optimist I am this year is probably better in the long term than last. If we played the exact same team as we did in the GF all year we wouldn't have known how Rampe would be a gun top defender in the big league, that Mitchell would be a huge possession getter and show up bigger and more experienced bodies, that Everitt can consistently play at AFL (I thought he was one of our best players last night, just need some more big torps from him!), Jesse would become an important part to our structure by changing between a leading forward and wingman, and that Lamb, Cunningham, Biggs, BJ and even Xavier can play with the big boys of the competition. Add to the fact that Rohan is finally playing some footy, the year as a whole is a success!

I'm so proud of what the boys have achieved this year considering all the injuries. The rest of the competition better watch out when we get Goodes, Reid, LRT, Shaw, Johnson and a match fit Jetta back next year. I would hate being a team selector knowing we have about 30 players good enough to get us to a prelim final!

[Mug Punter]

Being the optimist I am this year is probably better in the long term than last. If we played the exact same team as we did in the GF all year we wouldn't have known how Rampe would be a gun top defender in the big league, that Mitchell would be a huge possession getter and show up bigger and more experienced bodies, that Everitt can consistently play at AFL (I thought he was one of our best players last night, just need some more big torps from him!), Jesse would become an important part to our structure by changing between a leading forward and wingman, and that Lamb, Cunningham, Biggs, BJ and even Xavier can play with the big boys of the competition. Add to the fact that Rohan is finally playing some footy, the year as a whole is a success!

I'm so proud of what the boys have achieved this year considering all the injuries. The rest of the competition better watch out when we get Goodes, Reid, LRT, Shaw, Johnson and a match fit Jetta back next year. I would hate being a team selector knowing we have about 30 players good enough to get us to a prelim final!

Agree in principle though 2012 was hard to top

Gary Rohan coming back is the icing on the cake for this season. I think he could possibly be moulded into a good running backman as he has a real presence. Know he did OK this year when he came on but he'll be like a new recruit with a fully fit pre-season.

Think 2014 could be a fly under the radar year again...

[DK_]

Being the optimist I am this year is probably better in the long term than last. If we played the exact same team as we did in the GF all year we wouldn't have known how Rampe would be a gun top defender in the big league, that Mitchell would be a huge possession getter and show up bigger and more experienced bodies, that Everitt can consistently play at AFL (I thought he was one of our best players last night, just need some more big torps from him!), Jesse would become an important part to our structure by changing between a leading forward and wingman, and that Lamb, Cunningham, Biggs, BJ and even Xavier can play with the big boys of the competition. Add to the fact that Rohan is finally playing some footy, the year as a whole is a success!

I'm so proud of what the boys have achieved this year considering all the injuries. The rest of the competition better watch out when we get Goodes, Reid, LRT, Shaw, Johnson and a match fit Jetta back next year. I would hate being a team selector knowing we have about 30 players good enough to get us to a prelim final!

Well said! Agree on all counts!

[caj23]

Well said! Agree on all counts!

Yep summed it up beautifully Dan