Changes for Round 2 v Western Bulldogs

[liz]

6 players not in the team Rd 1 from our GF team

To make another 4 changes would be 10 !!

That is a lot of change for any team to cope with and to build cohesion

Agree AA is an automatic in

Only if those 4 changes were players who actually were in the grand final team. As far as I can tell, the only additional grand final player to miss round 2 will be Rampe. Who else did you have in mind ousting?

[Auntie.Gerald]

Might have got my numbers wrong but the idea being we need to find the balance between picking a player for Rd 1 and building cohesion vs throwing out 4 players for round 2 as suggested above

Obviously 2 players in Robbo and Rampe are injured

We have towers, Cunningham and marsh in already for Rd 1 and they were not in the GF team

I worry if we bring in edwards and Hayward and Melican that is a stack of new faces and inexperienced players for only round 2 against the GF winning team the Dogs who are on fire already

Missing from 2016 below

Moved on or retired :
Richards
Mcglynn
Mitchell

Injured:
Heeney
Rohan
Paps
Macca
Rampe

[Bloody Hell]

History tells us if you don't rack up 30+ possessions in your first game you've no chance of making it...but I think Florent will be fine.

He looks a dry track player, but acquitted himself reasonably in the wet in his FIRST GAME!

I would be shocked if Swans went against their policy and dropped him after one. Normally they give young players at least 3 when it isn't a forced selection.

[lwjoyner]

Who kicked the black cat?

[longmile]

OUT: Robinson, Rampe, Towers
IN: Edwards, Aliir, B Jack

[56-14]

OUT: Robinson, Rampe, Towers
IN: Edwards, Aliir, B Jack

The more this thread goes on, the more depressed I'm getting - "in B Jack"?

(Keeping a close eye on the club's website re: injury update for Heeney - still showing 2-3 weeks.)

[Ludwig]

In 2016 the Bulldogs had a horror year with injuries, which continues to this day with Dale Morris going down, yet somehow managed to overcome the adversity to win the premiership.

This is how you build depth in a team. Players that might not have gotten an opportunity to show what they can do will now get their chance to develop.

[RogueSwan]

OUT: Robinson, Rampe, Towers
IN: Edwards, Aliir, B Jack

The more this thread goes on, the more depressed I'm getting - "in B Jack"?

Not the worst suggestion. BJ is still on our list, time to see why.
He supposedly a quick footballer and we are playing a quick team, although that is more due to their ball movement than leg speed (which is still pretty quick).
But, again, we are just dabbling around the edges (apart from AA). The top dozen need to have a greater impact and hopefully last week was a realisation of effort required to win a game this season.
Unfortunately I am expecting, similar to last week, a period where to Dogs dominate and keep that five/six goal lead for the rest of the game. We will match them for the rest of the game but not dominate. Or if we do dominate, we don't have to forward half to make the most of that period of control.[/pessimism]
Go Swans!

[56-14]

In 2016 the Bulldogs had a horror year with injuries, which continues to this day with Dale Morris going down, yet somehow managed to overcome the adversity to win the premiership.

This is how you build depth in a team. Players that might not have gotten an opportunity to show what they can do will now get their chance to develop.

Agree. Dogs have/had depth with their "potentials".

In our case, we have to again "blood" the likes of B.Jack. If he kicks 2 goals - auto extension for another 2 years.

[wolftone57]

I forgot about Darcy Cameron. He is available for this week. Tippett was hopeless in the ruck and even worse down forward. Did absolutely nothing. By the way I think the ruck whisperer got it wrong against Rider. I'm sure his tactic was for our rucks to jump early against Rider. But that was an absolute joke. you don't jump early you jump into him. It is the only way to beat him, a proven fact.

I am not making a judgement on the team for the Doggies until right before the teams come out. The reason for this is that we might get more bad luck before selection. I'm not willing to risk picking a player who in the end injures himself by falling over the cat or dog or gets a groin strain in the middle of you know what.

Though the options are limited this week. Rose has not been playing with any conviction. BJ is baked and not playing well. So that means Dawson, Newman, Edwards, Cameron, Hayward, Aliir, Melican etc would all be in the mix. Melican has the form on the board aftera very good trial game season.

[Markwebbos]

Part of me is optimistic about this week. Longmire does seem to be able to lift the Swans after a bad performance, when things seem desperate they usually put in a blinder the following week e.g. After being mauled by GWS in the finals they destroyed Adelaide.

So I'm expecting a very different effort. Whether they have the personnel is a different matter!

[bloodspirit]

Is it just me or are these Power Rankings - AFL Power Rankings Round 1, Fox Footy?s ranking after Round 1 of every club from best to worst | Fox Sports - bizarre? Suns ahead of Lions. Hawthorn above Port. Swans above all of these. I guess they seem like reasonable calls if one is talking about where the respective teams will be at season's end. But I thought Power rankings were about the here and now and that's not necessarily how I'd rate these teams if they play this week. For instance, I think Port would deserve to go in favourites against the Hawks if they played this week after what we saw from each side this weekend just gone.

Every website has its own version of Power rankings and what they measure. Here's another: AFL Power Rankings 2017: Round 1 | The Roar. These seem closer to the money but I'm still a little surprised we are rated as high after our listless showing on the weekend, the draw ahead and our injury ward at present. I'm not one to think the sky is falling because of a single loss but I think these rankings don't give sufficient respect to the results of the last round. If it weren't round 1 the results of a single round 1 would count for less but as it stands round 1 is all the up-to-date exposed form we have to go on.

I think we'll be hard pressed to beat the Dogs this weekend but I'm still confident we'll get our season back on track and be thereabouts come season's end, especially if we have some luck with injuries (although perhaps confident isn't quite the right word - there's a long way to go between here and there). Then again the Dogs weren't that impressive on Friday night either but they did enough to deserve favouritism this week.

Really it comes down to what went wrong for us. Why didn't our senior players show up (with a couple of exceptions)? Was it just an aberration or is there a problem? The answer to that helps figure out where we should stand in current 'power rankings'.

[Sandrevan]

OUT: Robinson, Rampe, Towers
IN: Edwards, Aliir, B Jack

I wondered about Brandon Jack too. He knows how to tackle so he might be useful in stopping the Bulldogs run out of defence.

[wolftone57]

Part of me is optimistic about this week. Longmire does seem to be able to lift the Swans after a bad performance, when things seem desperate they usually put in a blinder the following week e.g. After being mauled by GWS in the finals they destroyed Adelaide.

So I'm expecting a very different effort. Whether they have the personnel is a different matter!

Longmire was very displeased with his experienced players. He said the effort by the majority of experienced players was unacceptable. He's right is was. how are the young blokes going to get a good grounding when our experienced players play such dross. They are certainly not providing a good example. In fact two of the best kicks of the day were from young Ollie Florrent.

This week the experienced players are on notice. If they don't perform it seems they might bit by bit get replaced. This would mean we are in a rebuilding phase if it happens. I'm just hopeful the experienced players will have the guts to see how bad they really were and make up for it. How can young players learn when the example being provided is of such a low standard they actually far surpass it.

Having said that I think a mature age recruit will come in, Darcy Cameron. He has ticked all the boxes. I too don't know what horse has against Aliir. I thought he was ripe early last year but Longmire wouldn't even play him in the preseason matches for long. I got the feeling he was still hoping X Richards came good as a defender but the evidence was Aliir was a far better defender than X Richards will ever be. Whether this is a bit of unconscious racism or just not liking his attacking style I don't know. He seems once again very reluctant to play one of the best defenders in the AFL. WHY? The boy is fit. He played Kizza and he wasn't match fit. He played Mills & Macca in last years GF and they weren't match fit. They were also crap. He played Naismith after as much time out. I must admit I am confused by Longmire's handling of Aliir.

Unfortunately there is a time when the players stop listening to the coach. Have we hit that time? Is Horse on borrowed time? Does he have something new to propose in the way of tactics? Not that I have seen so far. There were a few things tried in the preseason comp but they were not employed on the weekend. In fact I thought they reverted to 2010-11 set ups, god dreadful, that were discarded because they were crap. We also reverted to kicking in panic, long bombs and effectively giving the ball up without a fuss. So far this year Horse has come up with nothing new. No new tactic or game plan. No new set ups. In the preseason we tried the lead up game and it worked pretty well. About half way through the second quarter we discarded that and started bombing long every time. We also discarded switching the ball from one side to the other but did so only to attack down one side of the ground. The defensive side (the Women's & Members stands side). It is so easy to be hemmed in there and then if you lose the ball you get scored off so easily.

Let's hope someone in the coaching panel has an idea because we need a new one very quickly. can't just play the same as last year, the year before etc, as all the clubs know what we are going to do. Port certainly did. Take that same plan against the Bullies and we will be destroyed by over 100 points.

[The Big Cat]

Whether this is a bit of unconscious racism ...

What?!!!!!!!!!!!