Match Day Rnd.4 West Coast V Sydney. Domain Stadium 20.10 pm.

[S.S. Bleeder]

That one where Sam Mitchell kicked downfield after about 3 blows of the whistle was a joke. No 50 m penalty, but they where real quick on Callum Mills, with an 70 meter penalty at least, or closer to 100. Sinclair is a waste of space, it almost like we had no one in the ruck, Foote is not up to AFL standard, has had many chances now. Nick smith is well past it, he is going downhill rapidly. Our short passes are becoming laughable. Cannot hit the side of the barn. I think we are the worst side in the comp at the moment. I wish I didn't renew my membership.

Since when is your teams ladder position and form relevant to whether you are a member or not? You support a team through the bad times as well as the good times. That's what "supporters" do. If you don't, you're just a "barracker".

Maybe I have my head in the sand but I think we'll be up there again this year. We've been decimated by injuries and crooked umpiring. Once we get a few of our top players back we'll start winning again.

[mcs]

I expect these sort of posts from my fellow Americans...I didn't realize they come from Down Under too! Look at the bright side...you haven't been getting up at 2 am to watch these games!!!

As someone that with another hat on watches a lot of English Premier League Football, I can feel your pain US Swan - lots of late nights only to see disappointment along the way. It takes a lot of commitment to be getting up at those sorts of times to watch the games - bravo mate

[mcs]

Maybe I have my head in the sand but I think we'll be up there again this year. We've been decimated by injuries and crooked umpiring. Once we get a few of our top players back we'll start winning again.

I hope so Bleeder, but with the way we are going, we will be far too behind the eight ball when we do get the guys back.

Hopefully we get good news this week, as a few of the guys coming back are back training and hopefully half a shot at selection. There is always the issue of taking in undercooked guys (Papley for example last night), but we should do it against GWS and accept we have nothing to lose in that regard. Better to lose a game we will probably lose anyway but get a week into those guys.

As from here, if we are to be any hope of getting anywhere this season, we can't lose games we should be winning. The following 5 weeks after GWS, if at anything near our best, we should be expecting to win at least 4 of them, if not 5. It looks a long way off from here, but if we get enough troops back, we could turn at 5-5, which would give us an outside chance of playing finals footy.

[111431]

Man, the first sign of trouble and the knives are out for some. We've been dealt our fair share of good times.

Reckon our travails start with Hannebery and Parker and creep down the ground to Grundy, Mills and Smith. Historically consistent and reliable performers, well off their game.

But collectively, bad decision-making. We really need the mature and calm influences of McVeigh and Rampe and the dynamism and strength of Heeney. Quick, because some players are losing faith a bit.

the perfect observation

[liz]

As you can see, I have had to clean up a spat between a couple of posters. I realise that emotions run high, especially after another loss, but that is no excuse for being abusive towards other members.

The next posters to continue in a similar vein will receive a temporary break from RWO.

[Hartijon]

How many WC goals were due to mistakes by Swans?? Unfortunately it was some of our most experienced defenders who handballed to the feet of a team mate,who chose to chip a 10 metre pass from the front of goals and kicked out on the full next time.To me the team looks as demoralised by the GF loss as supporters.

[Mug Punter]

The addition of Rohan, Tippett and Heeney next week will make a big difference, replacing bottom three players with three of our best 10.

Whatever the changes are I want to see Mills let off the leash in the midfield along with Heeney. And if his form doesn't improve there he needs a spell in the NEAFL

[Faunac8]

Since when is your teams ladder position and form relevant to whether you are a member or not? You support a team through the bad times as well as the good times. That's what "supporters" do. If you don't, you're just a "barracker".

Maybe I have my head in the sand but I think we'll be up there again this year. We've been decimated by injuries and crooked umpiring. Once we get a few of our top players back we'll start winning again.

I agree and posted a similar sentiment earlier which was deemed a spat
hopefully my agreeing with you won't be judged as sniping and result in your post being deleted

[lwjoyner]

Reg has been doing it (the turnovers) for years even though he has played well. Why he doesn't kick the guts out of the ball staggers mw, he prefers these dinky kicky that more often than not cost us
Thought Sinclair did ok and I am not as worried about Ollie thought he did ok as well. KJ is definetly struggling while Hammers tried hard

[Mark26]

We're all disappointed from watching the past four weeks. This is not the start anyone envisioned for us. We have been clearly down over the past month in areas which have typified Bloods' footy in recent years. It's a long season and there is plenty of footy to watch yet.

[Legs Akimbo]

Not one iota of doubt. Senior posse of players has ptsd.

[sprite]

I am waiting till round 8, to see what the season holds.

Should we be 4 - 4; then a possible 5th to 7th finish.
A 3 - 5 result then a 7th to 9th finish.

Any thing else will be missing the eight altogether.

But then a staggering 15 game winning streak (hmm could that happen?) will put my calculations out the window.

As for the coaching, I don't believe any team has a plan "B", all they do is change the tempo to control the play and drop additional players behind the ball (which has been a standard ploy for many years now). What I have seen, is the team have not been delivering our changed plan "A".

I have a cunning Plan C - play Buddy at CHB to make the midfield look for different options and Parker to FF.

[Dosser]

I think this is the season i probably expected last year but we really over performed. If this year means short term pain by playing kids for longer term gain then i am ok with that. We may just have to suck it up this year and take joy in the improvement of our kids while sympathising with our older players who have given us all so much pride in the past but are now in their football decline.
The good news is that we follow a club for which this scenario is a foreign feeling. It might take us one year or it might take us a couple, but we will be back.
Oh, and can everyone please stop blaming the umpires for us not being good enough to win games? It is getting tiresome.

[Ludwig]

It takes 5 to 10 good ball exchanges to effectively move the ball from the back line to the forward line in a good position to kick a goal, all have to be executed precisely and often under pressure. It doesn't take much to get one of these wrong and turn a goal-scoring opportunity into a turnover with the ball moving in the opposite direction: a poor kick, someone not timing his run into space to receive a pass, a handball slightly behind a fast moving overlap runner. From what I can see, we are trying to execute a game plan that would produce results if we could do it right. The best teams are doing these things well, while we are simply falling down in some aspect along the way. I don't think we should be surprised that it will take time to get all these young players on the same page, or even have them physically capable to perform the right plays repeatedly.

Having a lot of fringe players in the side allows the opposition to focus more on our stars, which is at least a contributing factor to why their performances are down across the board. Even JPK doesn't seem to be able to break those tackles he usually does and has been noticeably less effective this year.

We still have plenty of young talent yet to debut: Melican, COL, Cameron, Fisher and Maibaum, and hopefully AJ will return later this season. It will be a challenge to the coaching staff to bring these players in when the time is right and get to whole group executing well so we can match it with the best teams asap. Some old favrourites will have to be dropped. So it goes.

We are in an interesting phase of the club's evolution, one that we haven't experienced in quite a while. We're not winning, but I can feel something good brewing with the rewards just over the horizon. It can be a great time for us Swans fans, filled with hope and anticipation.

Let's enjoy the ride.

[wolftone57]

It is always the player's. Dimma admitted he was wrong, the coach, and now they are playing 'new' footy.

Are the Tigers going to win the flag. No, but trying to play real quick footy and it works well.

Longmire always blames the players. In 6 years never admitted he was wrong. Not one.

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He did after the 2014 GF. Said he didn't have a clue how to fix the problems. No idea at all. Said he was out-coached and caught on the hop with no second, third or otherwise plan that could have worked. That shows he is not an A student of the game. But yes, I agree it is generally their fault according to John. But I can remember in 2011, we were not going that well and the game plan wasn't working. The senior players approached Horse and there was a frank discussion about that apparently. His plan was simple just bomb the ball in and hope the forwards clean up. Unfortunately against good sides the ball came out faster than a Drag Queen at a formal.

There needs to be an open discussion as to where the game plan is going as sometimes stuff just doesn't work or coaches end up blinkered, as in the Bud situation we have. Take the idea of having Sam Reid as the second ruck. If we had Melican in the team, he would have been perfect for Kennedy, then Aliir could have rucked. But Longmire went with the tried and failed model. Sam needs to STAY in the forward line Horse!

As much as I knocked Harry. He was quite reasonable last night. Not our worst by far. But I still have doubts about his long kicking. He doesn't often kick to our advantage when he kicks long. This was one of Harry's strengths but it is failing him at the moment. He needs to work on that at training. Maybe some extra work with a couple of teammates.

I am not worried about being 0-4 or 0-5. We have players to come back. If we make the finals well and good then we will give it a shot. But if, even with all the players returning, we fall off the perch then I say give the season away and play youth. A few things that need to happen as we get players back. Nick Smith to the reserves to get form and Zac Jones to the pocket. Melican in, he needs to play next week and quite frankly Aliir might just miss out after a horrible game. Although he had to pick up Smithy's man on several occasions and Kennedy when Reg got burned off. I don't think he could play his game. But he was beaten in too many contests by staying back too far. Has to get that right.