Rnd 17 MDT. Sydney V Hawthorn. SCG. 19.20 pm.

[RogueSwan]

I don't know if this has been mentioned or not but it was shocking the ease at which the Dawks could pick off our passes.
Maybe they were too easy to read or our guys didn't come to the kicker/passer, they just waited for it to come to them? Either way it was a big problem and meant turnovers and easy F50 entries for the opposition.

[dimelb]

I thought Buddy should have got a stack of frees.. Every time the ball went near him with he seemed to have a Hawthorn player holding each arm..

Buddy deserves a medal for meritorious restraint. I know it's wrong of me but i'd like to see him hand out a Baz tummy tap.

[AnnieH]

If only Duddy had Allir's large, sticky hands.

[rojo]

How about dropping Towers and Benny? That should eliminate quite a few of those 100.

Oh, and didn't Tower do a appalling kick out of defense in the second quarter which cost us a goal???

I agree that Towers is like a rabbit in the headlights with the ball in his hands but give him a break - why do you not pick up in the same way all the butchered kicks of Hanners and his consistently missed set shots on goal. Even some of the delivery of Parks, Mitchell and Kennedy is sub-standard and their shots on goal these days are very hit and miss. Towers poor decisions is not the only reason we lost. Who kicked the ball in straight to an opposition player - goal to them? Sure his lack of vision cost us but no more than stuffups by Jack, Hanners, Macca, Papley ........

As a team we are consumed by defence and so our back line does a great job at keeping the opposition goals down but in offence and up forward against good teams we are quite ordinary. I don't like the new strategy of keeping Buddy up field - if he doesn't kick his regulation goals who else is going to? Thank goodness for Rohan last night, except that when the crunch is on he gets moved back like everyone else. Still having said all that we could have, should have won last night. We had the opportunities but we just didn't kick enough goals.

[AnnieH]

This is a bit far fetched. Probably would've won all things being equal and be sitting on top of the ladder.
Pretty comfortable where the side is. We are always going to be up and down with such a young side.
Come finals time i'll be confident that we can match it with the best

I'm very confident that we'll be finals fodder this year.
If you want to win a granny, you have to play like to want to win a granny.
At one stage, our effective disposal rate was 43%.
I don't know who Hanners thought we were playing last night. We wear red and white and I don't think one of his disposals hit a red and white target.
Same for Kiz (and Towers).
This blindly "just kicking the ball out to nowhere in particular", has to stop.
Handballing into oncoming traffic, has to stop.
Playing the man and not the ball, has to stop.
Ten swans going for a screamer, leaving no rovers to pick up the crumbs, has to stop.

The difference between last week and this week is just mind blowing. You HAVE to WANT to win.

Last week, they WANTED to win.
This week, they just stood around and looked at the ball.

Not good enough.

[troyjones2525]

I agree that Towers is like a rabbit in the headlights with the ball in his hands but give him a break - why do you not pick up in the same way all the butchered kicks of Hanners and his consistently missed set shots on goal. Even some of the delivery of Parks, Mitchell and Kennedy is sub-standard and their shots on goal these days are very hit and miss. Towers poor decisions is not the only reason we lost. Who kicked the ball in straight to an opposition player - goal to them? Sure his lack of vision cost us but no more than stuffups by Jack, Hanners, Macca, Papley ........

As a team we are consumed by defence and so our back line does a great job at keeping the opposition goals down but in offence and up forward against good teams we are quite ordinary. I don't like the new strategy of keeping Buddy up field - if he doesn't kick his regulation goals who else is going to? Thank goodness for Rohan last night, except that when the crunch is on he gets moved back like everyone else. Still having said all that we could have, should have won last night. We had the opportunities but we just didn't kick enough goals.

Totally agree. Towers was far from our worst and people need to lay off this rubbish call for him to be dropped and never to return...for now at least. On the other hand McGlynn and his shocking disposal, bye bye. We can't drop Hanners and Parker and the others mentioned but they all have very ordinary skills at times. Cunningham was mentioned earlier and while he doesn't get a lot of it, he does usually use the ball well. Sometimes our obsession with hardness, ie. Benny, blinds us to the fact that it's basic skills that succeed in the modern game. Clarkson said he could care less about the contested possession numbers (which we clearly won) but they dominated the uncontested possessions and disposal efficiency against us. Cunningham would fit in nicely to the Hawks game plan, perhaps we need to look at ours and try and fit him and few others with good skills into our side if we want to win more of these close ones against the other skilled top sides!

Sent from my SM-G920I using Tapatalk

[Industrial Fan]

Blaming towers is a beat up, I agree. If he kicks it long it still goes OOB and the throw in is 40m further up the ground and we still lose possession. Had he gone a bit quicker he had free players, but the MO was to slow the play down and keep them off the ball so you cant have it both ways.

If the umpiring was even we wouldnt have had to worry about the last few minutes.

[0918330512]

I think the scoreboard flattered us. Hawthorn were vastly superior to us. They just lacked a full forward. Should have won by 6 goals.

???????? your logic is flawed (for a change). They had no Roughy at FF. We had no Tippett ????????. Even i'd say

[DA_Swan]

If only Duddy had Allir's large, sticky hands.

Maybe we should buy him some Gloves at $1500 per game they would be a good investment !!

[AnnieH]

Maybe we should buy him some Gloves at $1500 per game they would be a good investment !!

They'd have to be AFL approved.

[Blue Sun]

I think the scoreboard flattered us. Hawthorn were vastly superior to us. They just lacked a full forward. Should have won by 6 goals.

We were lucky not to be further behind at half time after that dreadful 2nd quarter, I'll give you that. But the Swans were better in the other 3 quarters and should have won the match. A couple of freak goals to Burgoyne and Rioli sealed the deal for them, but the Burgoyne goal shouldn't have happened on account of Hill running too far.

[RogueSwan]

I think Ted playing forward has shown how much we need a fit Reid. Ted is playing a similar role but i Sam can do it better when he is on the field. We know Reid is a strong mark and is usually pretty good with his disposals. He and Buddy roaming the F50 with an improving bunch in Rohan, Papley, Heeney and Rose suddenly makes our forward six look pretty good. Add in a ruck that can actually take a grab and I will be happy.

[mcs]

We were lucky not to be further behind at half time after that dreadful 2nd quarter, I'll give you that. But the Swans were better in the other 3 quarters and should have won the match. A couple of freak goals to Burgoyne and Rioli sealed the deal for them, but the Burgoyne goal shouldn't have happened on account of Hill running too far.

You could equally argue the Hawks were lucky not to be several goals behind at quarter time after their dreadful first quarter.

- - - Updated - - -

I think Ted playing forward has shown how much we need a fit Reid. Ted is playing a similar role but i Sam can do it better when he is on the field. We know Reid is a strong mark and is usually pretty good with his disposals. He and Buddy roaming the F50 with an improving bunch in Rohan, Papley, Heeney and Rose suddenly makes our forward six look pretty good. Add in a ruck that can actually take a grab and I will be happy.

We won't see Reid this year in my opinion.

[KTigers]

Losing last night made the job a bit harder, but a top four spot is still quite doable. The other teams around us on the ladder are going to drop games too (they'll be playing each other, the teams from 9 to 12 aren't completely hopeless and will win a few against teams in the eight) and maybe 15 wins and a good percentage will be enough. Right now, I'd think Hawthorn & GWS will take two of the top four spots, leaving a couple spots. We can play better than last night, it's not beyond us.

[Doctor]

I think the scoreboard flattered us. Hawthorn were vastly superior to us. They just lacked a full forward. Should have won by 6 goals.

They had one (Sicily - although I know he's not a big unit) and Reg shut him out completely.