The Real Cost of Buddy?

[Matt80]

White is still a dud so no great loss. Does Mumford, Everitt, and Ben Reid = Franklin?????? Interesting question. Personally i'd rather Mumford, Everitt and Reid.

Are we assuming that Ben Reid was a Shoo-In to come to the Swans because his brother plays for the Swans. With that thinking the Magpies will be a Shoo-In to sign Sam Reid as a restricted free agent when his five year deal expires at the end of 2016.

We can?t be sure that Ben Reid really wanted to come to Sydney. Maybe despite admitting to having a look at the market his heart was set on being at Collingwood.

Do you think the Swans Management would be interested in providing Bryce Gibbs Management with a five year plan as he assess his options in free agency?

[crackedactor]

Head in sand

Teasdale...

Teaser was a pretty amazing player during his prime, somewhat underrated. I cannot beleive no one in this forum have measured the effective Buddy is having on the current list of players! I really think its a matter of them thinking" You're the 10 million dollar man, why don't you get the ball". I think it was well said on the Fox footy show when Mark Maclure was asked why Buddy did not kick 5 goals as he had predicted. His response was that he did not understand how sick the swans side was.

I hope Horse can change the attitudes.

[Mr Magoo]

White is still a dud so no great loss. Does Mumford, Everitt, and Ben Reid = Franklin?????? Interesting question. Personally i'd rather Mumford, Everitt and Reid.

This all presumes that Reid was ours to have. I dont necessarily think it was that straightforward.

The real comparison is to say : does mumford , everitt , white and armstrong = Buddy, Laidler and Derickx .

When Reid potentially was to come onto the market we probably wouldnt have had to pay for LRT, Goodes and ROK.

[dimelb]

? FWIW - I feel Shane Mumford was the 2nd best ruckman I have seen playing in Swans colours - and regret his departure.

Big Barry R for the best?

[Matt80]

Wayne Carey has written a superb common sense article, in the Age, on the recruitment of Franklin. It's worth a read!

[ScottH]

Wayne Carey has written a superb common sense article, in the Age, on the recruitment of Franklin. It's worth a read!

What cost the high-priced recruit?

[R-1]

If course, everyone is paid more than they were in his era.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Big Barry R for the best?

In my time yes. Teaser had the best single season, but Barry deserves his place in the Swans team of the century. Incidentally he was another great ruckman (like Mummy) whose greatest asset was intangible - "presence" isn't a statistic but I honestly believe it is the most important thing about a ruckman. And too readily discounted by the you-can't-play-two-ruckmen-chorus.

[jono2707]

Wayne Carey has written a superb common sense article, in the Age, on the recruitment of Franklin. It's worth a read!

Yes I was a little surprised when I saw the author that it was such a good read. He also raises the good point that its really the high price of Buddy + Tippett that is problematic....

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Wayne Carey has written a superb common sense article, in the Age, on the recruitment of Franklin. It's worth a read!

I just read it, and yes it is very good. A couple of thoughts did occur to me though.

When Wayne writes "So I was told I wouldn't be getting paid more than their best player, which at the time was Ricciuto, the captain. And fair enough, too. That seemed reasonable to me." I couldn't help thinking that he should have considered himself unbelievably lucky indeed to get paid anywhere near what the Crows best player was earning - Wayne may not have grasped the fact that he was well passed his best by the time the Crows offered him a bolt hole.

Also I wouldn't have described Andrejs Everitt and Jed Lamb (at least not yet) as important players, and while I'm unsure a narcissist of the class of Wayne Carey could ever understand the Bloods culture, his comments on disharmony are worth consideration.

[Matt80]

Yes I was a little surprised when I saw the author that it was such a good read. He also raises the good point that its really the high price of Buddy + Tippett that is problematic....

Carey did write that great performances by Tippett and Franklin would ease any ill-feeling in the Swans group.

Tippett's games last year were very strong. He stood up in a forward line that was missing Goodes, Reid and the support of LRT.

Franklin is now carrying a forward line which is missing Reid, Tippett and Goodes. His two games have contained flashes of brilliance. Have some faith.

If Tippett, Reid , Franklin and Goodes can get going in the same forward line, the only way the Swans will be beaten is starved and rushed supply from the midfield.

We only have one of these four available and this will have an impact. Imagine if the Hawks forward line only had one of Hale, Gunston, Roughhead or Rioli available. That would impact their goal avenues! If we were playing the Hawks with that decimation to their forward line, we would expect to win. This is what is happening to the Swans right now.

Not having all our gun forwards available and going also gives opposition defences more confidence in running, and link up play with their own midfield. The other night we saw Clinton Young playing on ROK. Young was running off, linking with the midfield and launching those long left footed bombs.

If Young was playing on a fit and firing Adam Goodes, he would have no head space to be creative in attack and would be thinking of only stopping Goodes. This would then lead to the midfield dealing with one less threat!

The Swans need to battle out a couple of gritty wins against Adelaide and North Melbourne to keep the season going, while we get our forward line back.

[mcs]

Carey did write that great performances by Tippett and Franklin would ease any ill-feeling in the Swans group.

Tippett's games last year were very strong. He stood up in a forward line that was missing Goodes, Reid and the support of LRT.

Franklin is now carrying a forward line which is missing Reid, Tippett and Goodes. His two games have contained flashes of brilliance. Have some faith.

If Tippett, Reid , Franklin and Goodes can get going in the same forward line, the only way the Swans will be beaten is starved and rushed supply from the midfield.

We only have one of these four available and this will have an impact. Imagine if the Hawks forward line only had one of Hale, Gunston, Roughhead or Rioli available. That would impact their goal avenues! If we were playing the Hawks with that decimation to their forward line, we would expect to win. This is what is happening to the Swans right now.

Not having all our gun forwards available and going also gives opposition defences more confidence in running, and link up play with their own midfield. The other night we saw Clinton Young playing on ROK. Young was running off, linking with the midfield and launching those long left footed bombs.

If Young was playing on a fit and firing Adam Goodes, he would have no head space to be creative in attack and would be thinking of only stopping Goodes. This would then lead to the midfield dealing with one less threat!

The Swans need to battle out a couple of gritty wins against Adelaide and North Melbourne to keep the season going, while we get our forward line back.

Franklin is the forward line at the moment. We had no forward structure at all last week. We need to at very least have a structure up forward, so when we bomb it in aimlessly, there is a hope it will go somewhere where its better than 3 on 1 up there.

Of course we are undermanned up front, everyone can see that. But its no excuse for a complete lack of structure, and playing a game plan to get it work right. If every team used the excuses we are using at the moment, you'd think noone would win football games. Good teams make do, as we did at times in 2012 and definitely 2005, with the parts they have available. They adapt their game to suit what they have, not sit around yearning for the better days.

You are right - we need to get a couple of gritty wins across the next fortnight - something we needed to do in Rd 1 and 2 but couldn't get close to doing. If not, our season will, for all intensive purposes, be over before it really begun.

[DamY]

Intents and purposes

[Matt80]

Franklin is the forward line at the moment. We had no forward structure at all last week. We need to at very least have a structure up forward, so when we bomb it in aimlessly, there is a hope it will go somewhere where its better than 3 on 1 up there.

Of course we are undermanned up front, everyone can see that. But its no excuse for a complete lack of structure, and playing a game plan to get it work right. If every team used the excuses we are using at the moment, you'd think noone would win football games. Good teams make do, as we did at times in 2012 and definitely 2005, with the parts they have available. They adapt their game to suit what they have, not sit around yearning for the better days.

You are right - we need to get a couple of gritty wins across the next fortnight - something we needed to do in Rd 1 and 2 but couldn't get close to doing. If not, our season will, for all intensive purposes, be over before it really begun.

We play the Crows, North and Freemantle over the next three weeks. If we could be 2 Wins, 3 losses from our first five weeks with some good news on the physiotherapy table, that would be a satisfactory result.

Hopefully after round five we get some guys returing to great form and some returning players to bolster the team.

[Dosser]

I have only seen the first half against the Pies so far this year but I noticed one passage of play that rang alarm bells for me. It occurred as one of the Swans players (cant remember who) handballed to Buddy and then stood there with Buddy under pressure. Buddy handballed back again and the player just sent it straight back to Buddy who was collared and the Pies ran off with the ball.
I am wondering if a couple of the players are in awe of Buddy and think that they just have to give it to him and he will do the rest (or maybe I am being naive and there is an element of the Brisbane Bears/Warwick Capper scenario here)? I am hoping that if any, it is the former, however these players must realise that Buddy isnt going to win a game by himself - they all still need to put in their best effort and not take their foot off the pedal just because they gave the ball to him.