Just looked at the video on the Swans website where players describe their greatest fear. Virtually all snakes, spiders and sharks except Dean Towers. His greatest fear is "being dropped by Horse". Perhaps helps to explain his tentativeness and indecision!
Changes for Round 2 v Western Bulldogs
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You'd think he play better than that in that case. I think his greatest fear is putting his head over the ballComment
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It surprising that with Talia's experience, that he was not chosen. Must be still in the bad books. Anyhow it may be like us in the first game in 2006. We got slammed by Port Adelaide in the first game and the rumour when around that players shared a drink or two with some ex players the night before. Hopefully the Bulldogs will do the same.Comment
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I agree at a surface level it looks like we could be in for a bath with those matchups in the backline
But I suspect horse is forcing our players into a corner on this one.......he is issuing a challenge to see where we are at re the core of being a blood
He is forcing our guys to win the contests, and win the tackles .......if we do we have the mobility to breakaway and leave their talls in our wake with our smaller backline
But the opportunity cost is if we fail to win the ball and they get to kick to open targets one on one we are stuffed
It's quite clever in a way...no one can hide from the contests otherwise we are gooone !!!
Plan B though is I am sure we will be playing massive players around the ball ie the swans medium defenders will be pushing up and creating massive congestion and or flooding back in numbers..... when u think about it what other option do we have?
With the amount of players we have out for this game we can't take them on one on one.......we have to jam the ball at either end of the ground ie where we can play high pressure contested ball with millions of bodies around the ball in a smaller space
I think horse has chosen the right bodies to execute this strategy...still would have preferred AA in there though
And paps and heeney and Rampe and Robbo and macca and Rohan and and and and and.......
AG I'm more worried that the Dogs will just kick the high ball in and their talls will just clean up on smaller opponents. I can remember a match where we had a huge advantage in height and we used it to kill them off. I can't see us winning with such a huge disadvantage in height in the back half. I have followed Aussie Rules since I was a 4 yo and now I am 60. I have never seen a back half giving away this much height. Sure Leo & Craig Bolton gave away a bit but not generally 10-20cm. Laidler will be giving away 16cm on the resting ruck if he gets him. Mills is in an even worse position being 2cm shorter than Laids (even though 2cm is only about 8/10ths of an inch) but it does matter slightly when you take into account reach (arms are slightly longer).
Quite frankly I'm less worried about the young players coming in than I am about the lack of height and the fact our mids are having trouble winning the clearances and stoppages. If we lose the clearances and stoppages against the Dogs like we did against Port we will get murdered. Our forward line didn't work badly against Port it was the lack of service and crap delivery that killed off any chance. Add to that the fact that we took the ball around the same side of the ground and were so predictable that Port just set up for it and congested the flank and pocket we didn't try anything else. The mids tactics on forward entry were crap. This is a coaching problem not a player problem. The players only do as they are instructed.Comment
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Nah, don't buy this. I saw Harry stick his head over the ball as recently as last week - I was watching deliberately. I know he hasn't done it at times but I hope to see some more of this.He reminds him of the guys, close-set, slow, and never rattled, who were play-makers on the team. (John Updike, seeing Josh Kennedy in a crystal ball)Comment
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Or maybe having (very closely) watched him play, train, recover, develop, prepare and build fitness over a number of years, there is a decision that he is not yet ready to be thrown in for a full hit out of senior AFL. So they've decided to manage his game time again in the twos and will select him when they are confident that he's ready?
Either that or one of the more plausible theories that Horse doesn't know what he's doing or is deliberately selecting an inferior side against the team that beat them in the GF....All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well supported in logic and argument than others. -Douglas Adams, author (11 Mar 1952-2001)Comment
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Or maybe having (very closely) watched him play, train, recover, develop, prepare and build fitness over a number of years, there is a decision that he is not yet ready to be thrown in for a full hit out of senior AFL. So they've decided to manage his game time again in the twos and will select him when they are confident that he's ready?Comment
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