Match Day Thread Rnd 12 Sydney V Western Bulldogs. SCG. 19.20 pm.

[Plugger1300]

Really happy with Naismith game.
Many times i saw (on tv) a big tackle or someone on the ground feeding the ball out and realised it was Sam.
Incredible effort from the big man
Now to do it consistently

[Nico]

Noticed that with 4 umpires that they often found themselves in the middle of the play. Players had to dodge them more often than usual. Seriously, how many umpires do we need. Can anyone tell me why we now have 4 field umpires?

[waswan]

Great game, big effort, the only blight was the goal kicking, that stuff usually comes back to bite us

[MattW]

Hayward is going to be a gun, and he's a quick gun too.

Papley, Hayward and Rohan as forwards gives a lot of variation and a lot of pressure. Liking the make up of the side as we go forward.

How good was that pack mark in the last (?) quarter? He was the slightest dude out there (English aside, perhaps). Chased and presented all night.

[gazza]

very impressed with BOTH ruckmen against bullies

[bloodspirit]

There doesn't appear to be a lot of consensus here.

Some people say we changed the game plan and it was better. Others say that the game plan was the same but we executed better and were harder/had better intensity. If the former is true, it shows the coaches can be flexible. If the latter is true it suggests that the coaches are not necessarily to blame for our worse performances and that our game plan is good enough. Either way I think this performance reflected well on our coaching staff.

Some people say we played skilfully, others not so much. Either way, we definitely played better. Personally I can't pinpoint the difference and would love to see a replay. I thought we tried hard against the Hawks. However in this game we were more effective and I'm not sure why that was. I kept thinking during the game (and afterwards) that the Bulldogs were insipid and I would have been very disappointed in them if I was a Dogs' fan. Barely any of them stood out. But I think we, and our pressure, had a lot to do with that. When we're good, we're good. Now let us be good next week.

I disagree with barry, Sinclair had a good game. And I witnessed the effort he was putting in which was really pleasing. What's more, Sinkers has been good for a few weeks now. What was more surprising was how good Naismith was. I didn't expect him to play so strongly first game back but he was great. Made me feel we have kept the right ruck because he is a good pure ruckman with his great height. Now Sinclair, Tippo and Cameron are all fighting for that 2nd ruck/forward spot, so long as Naismith stays healthy and in form. I am happy to be playing two rucks provided they are both offering more than just hit outs. Naismith shows great potential to be a good main ruck. And a strong ruck-forward is something every team can benefit from. However this is why, longer term I am not too sure about Sinclair because I think both Tippett and Cameron have the potential to be better forwards when they play well. However Tippett is getting older and has seriously become expendable given his price tag.

I didn't have an overall sense of Towers' game and would love to review it. I noticed him do a couple of nice things but didn't take in his entire performance - so I'm glad others have pointed it out.

[CureTheSane]

I'm a Towers fan, but thought his game was average.

[Dosser]

First game in 2017 where I thought to myself we kept the right ruckman. Cracker by Nainsmith.

I loved Naismith's game last night, but I was continually frustrated by all of the dropped marks. At one stage I was calling him "Nearly" as his ruck partner is known as "Almost". OK, the conditions may not have suited, but if he can start clunking some of those then we have a real winner.

[AnnieH]

Wow.
Totally wasn't expecting that.
Who kidnapped the bad swans team and replaced them with the good one?
Will the real swans please stand up.
There were a few mistakes, but I won't bitch about them... we won, no point.

[GAP2065]

As was going straight from work, then before left home on Thursday morning with pouring rain, cold, windy, etc I thought twice about taking my membership card and cold/wet weather gear. Anyhow took everything and went to game. On the rare post game kick to kicks the SCG surface can get slippery with dew so suspect last night was very, very greasy. Accordingy, maybe the slippages and missed goals can to some extent be put down to conditions.

Per some previous comments I totally support some basics used by the Swans last night like intensity, one up and one down, man on man, and just kick the ball. A lot better than the 20metres we gave to all opposition players in the Collingwood and Hawthorn games.

[Ludwig]

Naismith showed that he's the best at the ruck craft, but the opposition was very weak, and we need to take that into consideration. Both Naismith and Sinclair dropped lots of balls that should have been marked. What we may have learned is that if Naismith is fit, he should do the bulk of the ruck work and whoever else comes in to relieve him needs to play primarily another role in the side.

I thought Sinclair was fine in the ruck and his effort can't be faulted, but I can't see where he's added much of anything to the side. He's not taking contested marks or kicking goals. Even if we think he's okay, we have to take into account that he's keeping another player out of side. Would the team be better served with someone else, like Florent, Aliir or Rohan? Robinson and Cunningham should also be back in a few weeks.

I think Tippett, when in form, and perhaps Cameron, could be options for the ruck forward role, because they both are primarily forwards who can take marks and kick goals. It still may not be the best option and has to be weighed up against the alternatives.

[bloodspirit]

Sinclair was powerful at and around the contest and applied good pressure including some good chase down tackles (which is great to see from a big bloke). So I would say he was valuable apart from his rucking. Arguably as valuable as another player might have been. He has the advantage of having a big, strong body to throw around and he was prepared to put in the effort and do that. I don't think he has to take lots of marks - that doesn't seem to be a great strength of his. Bringing the ball to ground and preventing the opposition from taking possession and giving our smalls a chance to get a hold of it is also important. That said, I agree, once we can start relying on Naismith to do the bulk of the rucking we need a 2nd ruck who does offer something different like goals and marks. At this stage I don't have confidence that Naismith can ruck a whole game. Naismith and Sinclair seemed to split it pretty evenly last night.

Incidentally, Ludwig, Beveridge made some interesting comments about the value of rucks in his post-match interviews. He made the point that they took Roughead away from the ruck contests and sent him down back to replace Adams because they weren't winning the hitouts anyway and thought that sending another mid would be more valuable. However he said it didn't work. He also said that when a midfield is well organised and playing with intensity, having a good ruck that can give the mids first use really is valuable. Since Bevo is one of the main poster boys for "no ruck theory" I think you would find those comments very pertinent.

[liz]

There doesn't appear to be a lot of consensus here.

Some people say we changed the game plan and it was better. Others say that the game plan was the same but we executed better and were harder/had better intensity. If the former is true, it shows the coaches can be flexible. If the latter is true it suggests that the coaches are not necessarily to blame for our worse performances and that our game plan is good enough. Either way I think this performance reflected well on our coaching staff.

I think it was a little from column A and a little from column B. But I also think that our preferred game style - based on keeping the ball in dispute for long periods of the game - works far better against the three teams we've looked impressive against (North, St Kilda, Bulldogs) because those teams like to run and carry the ball and use quite a lot of handball. That means that the ball is winnable via pressure far more than a team that likes to move the ball via short kicks, as Hawthorn has been doing for years, and how Carlton and Collingwood were able to sustain for decent periods of their games against us.

Defeating the Hawthorn style is hard, simply because it limits the amount of time the ball is in dispute. However, it's also a very hard style to execute for a whole game because you need an entire team with good kicking skills. That's what the Hawks had over their period of premierships and, while their team-wide kicking skills aren't quite that that level, they did execute well against us a couple of weeks ago. Sure, the Swans' pressure could have been better, but the Hawks still did their thing quite well. Despite that, the Swans were able to change the tempo of the game to one that suited their preferred style as that game progressed, but just didn't have the legs to hang on at the end.

Some people say we played skilfully, others not so much.

In an absolute sense, there were a fair number of handling errors but, given the conditions, I thought the skill level was reasonable enough. Hanners, in particular, execute some handballs that were really creative, and opened up play for team mates. Indeed, I had him as my BOG watching the game live and even after watching a replay, I'm not sure I've changed my mind. Though I've noticed a lot more of the great stuff Kennedy did, on replay, and was reminded on how much of an influence Heeney had throughout the game.)

I didn't have an overall sense of Towers' game and would love to review it. I noticed him do a couple of nice things but didn't take in his entire performance - so I'm glad others have pointed it out.

Watching live, I thought Towers was just OK. A contributor but not much more. On replay I've seen a few really lovely things he did in traffic. He seems to be more comfortable in contested situations than earlier in the year. He's never going to be one of our top dozen or so players, when the stars are playing well, he's a good foot soldier to have. When he was dropped after round 1 his first couple of NEAFL games looked like those of a man completely bereft of confidence so I'm really happy to see him contributing positively to the team.

[Ludwig]

Incidentally, Ludwig, Beveridge made some interesting comments about the value of rucks in his post-match interviews. He made the point that they took Roughead away from the ruck contests and sent him down back to replace Adams because they weren't winning the hitouts anyway and thought that sending another mid would be more valuable. However he said it didn't work. He also said that when a midfield is well organised and playing with intensity, having a good ruck that can give the mids first use really is valuable. Since Bevo is one of the main poster boys for "no ruck theory" I think you would find those comments very pertinent.

I thought Bevo's comments were interesting. A lot of 'pundits' thought it was strange that Bevo played Tim English and many expected that Honeychurch would replace him in the final team (and I did as well). The Dogs were also without Liberatore, which made for a complete stoppage dominance from us. When English took over the rucking in the 2nd half, the disparity really blew out. You could imagine what I would have said on a Bulldogs forum about Bevo's selection of Tim English.

The Dogs played poorly and were unlucky in a sense that they have a number of important players injured or out of form. I'm happy to celebrate a well-played victory, but we still have a lot of work to do to make finals from the position we find ourselves. We need to find a few more advantages that can take us to another 8 victories in 11 games. Our list is in pretty good shape now, but we still can make a few improvements.

On another observation, some of the things that Newman did while playing through the midfield were impressive. His laser kicking was incredibly damaging. I'm starting to see our best back line as Reg, Melican, Aliir, Rampe, Smith and Lloyd, with Newman, Jones and Mills playing primarily through the midfield and rolling back in defence. Aliir can also be an option on the wing.

[Swanny40519]

Great team effort last night and great coaching by Horse and his team. I criticised Horse last week after the Hawks loss as it seemed his tactics were set in concrete, but last night we played closer to the opposition and shut them down when they did get the ball. Plus we put more pressure on the opposition than what I have seen all year.

Lloyd and Newman are playing great footy - all I would like to see is Lloyd take more care with his kicking - he kicks into the man on the mark more times than any other player - but that aside a great game last night.

Hopefully we can take the same game style and pressure to the Tigers next week and climb up the ladder with a great win.