Round 4, 2014 v North Melbourne

[mcs]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

Spot on - that in a nutshell shows why our forward line is dreadful. Its really not helped either by our best small forward in Mcglynn being used in midfield or as a tagger (he really was good against the Old Man today.)

[annew]

Two words for the Swans of 2014 No ticker!

[bloodsbigot]

in 2006 we were LLWL same as this 2014.

Yep.

I didn't get the chance to watch the game today (Thank god), so I'm not as emotional as others, and this is why I'm still optimistic about our future and chances for the remainder of the season.

Let's hope for a nice dry game next week (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... NO MORE RAIN PLEASE). At this stage, I seriously think we will go down as one of the worst wet weather teams in history. You'd think we'd be good at it with so much practice at it? John Longmire needs to turn the sprinklers on during the week and play out a full match in it.

Our record this season:
Rain - Loss
Rain - Loss
No rain - Win
Rain - Loss

We just need to string a couple of good games together to get back some confidence. Morale is probably pretty low at the club for now.

[hot potato]

Yeah lift ya Morals Swannies !
This is just too awful to watch .

[Big Al]

Here are the positives from today loss:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

I think that about all I could find.

[swanwolf]

Congratulations to North. Given our form, our best hope was playing better wet weather footy than them and when that didn't happen we were done for. Laidler, Smith, Kennedy and McGlynn were good, I thought. The bad were too many to mention. Longmire (I assume) makes some odd decisions sometimes and I really cannot fathom his intent, I'm not so sure most of the players can either.

I'd almost written this year off from Eagles NAB game team selections but there is still time to salvage the season, maybe even make the finals! So I'm already looking forward to next week's match and the questions it will answer: Who are you Swans? What do you stand for? What are you made of?

Hard, Disciplined, Relentless.

Have you forgotten?

[Matt80]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

Some other observations:

When the Swans kicked the ball up the line or long into the forward line, they hardly kicked the ball to the forwards advantage. When you don't kick the ball to advantage, the forward has no chance to mark and makes it tougher to get the ball out for a throw in and reset. The difference in delivery to Petre and Franklin was noticeable.

North seemed to read the drop of the ball better, and completed all their chest marks and some overhead marks. The Swans misread the drop of the ball, dropped many chest marks and hardly had any overhead marks. When you drop chest marks, the ball will be turned over or you next possession will be rushed. I can think of three critical goals that were conceded by unacceptable dropped marks.

[Melbourne_Blood]

Freo are murdering the bombers at the minute, can't wait to play them next week ....

[Melbourne_Blood]

Freo are murdering the bombers at the minute, can't wait to play them next week ....

[Ludwig]

The footy in general has been terrible this week, and the whole season for the most part. Only one decent contest out of the 9 games this weekend, that being GWS v. WB. The rest were blowouts and some really poor quality football. So far, Hawthorn look to be in a league of their own.

I'm really concerned about Longmire's coaching. How he could play ROK and Derickx in these conditions is beyond me. The head coach has got to take responsibility if seasoned players continue to make basic errors. Why is the team not clicking? Why can't we run out games?

The team needs a new look. This team doesn't appear like it cares about winning. Maybe all the off season stuff has drained the team mentally. We will never know.

[hot potato]

Maybe they all want $10 million. That should fix it.

[baskin]

I am still mulling over my thoughts of the game, but one thing that I think is being overlooked in some of the discussions is that we have lost some very experienced coaches in the last two years. Also a number of our players are now at other clubs.
Is it just a coincidence that the three games we have lost this year are to the three teams which have the most recent injection of SWANS trained players and coaches?
This is just another way of looking at things. Not saying it explains everything but I think it does have a bit to do with our position at the moment.

For what it's worth I think we miss Jude Bolton's ability to scrap and rally the troops.

[Gthommo]

Hi all first post.
About time dean towers got a go. Been an emergency a few times and has played nab cup. Time for some young players as well. Can't hedge all our bets on tippett and goodes

[BloodStainAngel]

Would like to see young Membrey considered soon also, kicked 8 goals in the reserves today, a decent effort regardless of the opposition. He's a smart player & deserves a go, along with Towers & Nankervis.

[Gthommo]

I agree, membrey looks good and dare I say it out loud, we have to become like hawthorn and geelong and have multiple avenues to goal. Would like to see us kicking goals. In three games we have averaged 6 goals a game, crows game was the exception. Missing alex J down back.
The coaches are getting out coached though.
To be positive I think in 2005 we were 2 and 4 and the big boss said we were ugly.
Fire up swans.