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At the time we only knew of Mills and McVeigh. It's a given that no one is 100% at this end of the season, but those who have missed matches preceding the final are always under extra pressure. Historically, it rarely works successfully. As in every endeavour, there are exceptions that prove the rule.
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Pretty good rant .Despite the umpiring (absolute disgrace)...
Tippett, Rohan, McGlynn & Richards were utterly ineffective all day.
McVeigh & Mills shouldn'tve played, both injured, killed our flexibility and slowed us down.
Laidler also slow, couldn't keep up with anyone in the second half.
Papley & Hewett relatively unsighted.
Parker, Jack & Smith weren't on, nowhere near their best.
Bud & Hanners were both injured during the game & performed below par thereafter.
Naismith & Lloyd tried all day but weren't overly damaging.
The rest of the lads were pretty solid or better.
But that's six/seven blokes having stinkers and way over half of the team (16/22) not playing near their best, which just isn't good enough on GF day, against anyone.
Jones, Heeney, Rampe & Mitchell (gonna miss him next year) all put in solid, hard-working, four-quarter performances.
Kennedy & Grundy were inspirational.
But to be fair to the players who were great all year and who mostly did give it a real crack on Saturday, Horse & the coaches (who were also great all year) got flustered and cooked it in Grand Final week.
The messaging was wrong.
During the week Horse was banging on about 'knowing what is required' and 'responsibility'.
Beveridge was preaching heart and soul and emotion, from what I've seen Horse doesn't instill much of that into us.
It's not about 'responsibility' & 'knowing what's required', that makes it sound like they're just there to earn a paycheck.
It's about putting your heart on the line all day and having a fair dinkum crack like we did in 2012, and like the Dogs did on Saturday.
Professionalism is a great mantra for us... until 3QT in the GF, then you need to find something else... ticker.
That professional message was a conservative instruction for the players and it was wrong for grand final week.
In a Grand Final you've gotta get the boys motivated and focused on playing fast, instinctive footy (like Aliir did in the previous two finals, we missed him so much) and throwing everything at it like your life depends on it like the Dogs did in that last 10 minutes and we didn't.../couldn't.
And I think it was certainly more of a we couldn't than a we didn't.
From the outer looking in, my view is the selection committee got it wrong with playing injured players, after Aliir was ruled out the removal of another member of what was so far during the finals a very stable back six - Marsh for an unfit bloke Mills or McVeigh take your pick - was a horrible decision.
And Horse's conservative approach didn't get the players focused on the right things and didn't help him either, a rather riskless and reactive performance on gameday from the coaching group when we really needed something special from upstairs.
Back to selection and with Marsh, Cunningham, Towers, T.Richards, Nankervis all fit & available (Marsh & Toby both in career-best form too), the McVeigh/Mills/Tippett selections sends a shocking message to those guys too, Horse obviously doesn't have any faith in them if they weren't picked over clearly unfit blokes.
Would've loved to see them try, even if we went down in flames, but Horse said "Nup not good enough Cunningham (even though you're signed on until 2019) I want 50% fit McVeigh".
Absolute rubbish, nonsense mixed-messaging.
Richmond sorta stuff.
Let alone the ripple effect it had on the way we played.
After Hanners & Buddy became hampered, the McVeigh & Mills selections killed our flexibility and tired out the fresh blokes.
Marsh/Cunningham/Towers may or may not have lost a few more 1-on-1s and may or may have not been exposed for decision making under pressure but they would have run, run, run, run, run like nobody did in the fourth on Saturday.
Having those hobbling blokes out there gave us no option to rotate our cooked midfielders or swing Heeney forward.
In the end we were shown up for not being adaptable enough to deal with the Dogs run and effort in the 4th quarter, I'm putting it on us not backing Marsh or Cunningham over an injured bloke.
And just quickly, despite being on one leg, the decision to eliminate Ted's (and ROK's) dreams of regaining his spot halfway through 2016 (and 2014 with ROK) is one that doesn't sit well with me.
Should've had him still chasing the hope for a spot in the team putting pressure on the blokes who did get the spots in the Grand Final.
If Horse comes out and publicly takes responsibility for his conservative Grand final week messaging, the decision to play the unfit players and his mundane gameday coaching performance that'll be good enough for me to bury the hatchet on ROK & Ted's treatment, and it'll be the first step in the right direction for next year.
/endrant
PS. Go Bloods, this post makes me look like I hate them all
, I don't, I'm just passionate about the Swans and gutted about the loss and if we don't accept responsibility for these faults we're kidding ourselves thinking we can compete with the further-advancing GWS & Dogs next year.
Nobody's perfect, I have nothing but love for all of the players & coaches, they all wear the red & white, but everyone can get better.
We need to get better again.
Our club going forward in 2017 needs all of our players, coaches, staff and supporters to generate that passion and desire to go one step further so we will be all focused and desperate enough to get it right next time we get the opportunity.
Regardless of whatever you think of my opinions about the game on Saturday I think we can all agree that despite the Grand Final result the players are legends and put in an awesome effort this year.
Hopefully in 12 months time whether the odds be great or be small the Swans will go in and win over all.
You never know who is going to get injured, Buddy n Hanners were probably close to our worst outcome , and we were still so close to clutching the cup with minutes to go.
I like the children's book Salty Dogs Bevo gave to all his players . He's a smart man .Comment
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i thought Picken playing as a defensive forward and taking rampe out of the game as a playmaker in the 3rd and 4th qtr was genius by Bevo
Rampe couldn't move and we already had Smith missing approx 3 or 4 kicks with 2 of them under no pressure.......Laids and Mills missing in counter attack
our backline was fairly ordinary with ball in hand"be tough, only when it gets tough"
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Yes, I certainly thought that we missed Aliir in the GF. Mainly for his attacking prowess. In that he usually seems to see the correct rebound option really quickly and generally hits the option without hesitation.
Though I think that some credit must be given to the Bulldogs defensive running, since their coverage of our players probably slowed our rebound at times, as our defenders were waiting for clear options that weren't eventuating.Comment
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Has there been any info about the injuries to Buddy and Hanners? Do they need surgery?
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AFL360 -Jake Niall stated that the AFL will admit that the umpires got 4 wrong against us and should get another. Not released but Niall was letting the cat out of the bag.
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What about what the players missed :
How many getable set shots well within range : at least 5 , if nailed = 30 points minus the points achieved = 25 .
How many points did we lose by ?Comment
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Obviously the AFL wanted wb to win. Watch out for either Demons or saints next year with free kick differentials Jake said the free would not have made a difference, but I wonder at the stage they were missed,Comment
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It is not just the free kicks, though the umpiring was terribly biased. It changes the momentum of the game. The Swans would never officially say this as it would be seen as whinging. But we keep getting the rough end of the pineapple.Last weekend in Sept 05 - The best weekend of my life!Comment
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All I'll say is they better not give Jeffrey or Stevic a game at the SCG next year - I'll be waiting for them at the Umpires race and will be telling them just what I think of their umpiring performance in the Grand Final
I'm just surprised they actually publicly released information about the review - as others have noted, there is no sign of a Whistleblowers episode this week on the website, despite a multitude of calls (several more beyond what is mentioned in that article) that could have been reviewed (and no doubt defended).
Typical AFL - what a load of bull@@@@."You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."Comment
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