Match Day Thread Rnd 22 Adelaide V Sydney. Adelaide Oval 19.50 pm. Or 19.20 ACST.

[barry]

I don't understand the towers hate. He did a lot of good little things and a couple of bad. Almost all players dropped marks. It was slippery.

I think the game exposed or ruck problem even further. It might be finally dawning on Longmire. We have one genuine ruck: nainsmith. And I think Sinclair had more upside as a forward than tippet.

[Flying South]

Can someone expand on Ling's comments? I was saved from the C7 post match commentary by dint of watching FF instead. I don't recall Papley getting a free all night, nor of him exaggerating contact to win a free that wasn't paid. Did Ling actually provide examples, or has he still not moved on from Duncan whacking Papley?

He still hasn't moved on. It was a bit of a throw away line by Ling. They were actually singing the praises of Paps and Ling said something along the lines of, 'that was important for Papley as he has been in the news recently for staging for frees. So to stand up and kick the winning goal was great'. Something like that anyway.

[MattW]

Can someone expand on Ling's comments? I was saved from the C7 post match commentary by dint of watching FF instead. I don't recall Papley getting a free all night, nor of him exaggerating contact to win a free that wasn't paid. Did Ling actually provide examples, or has he still not moved on from Duncan whacking Papley?

Ling was referring to the supposed Hodge and Duncan incidents. It was a very loose comment.

[SCGonasunnyday]

We did look ordinary from half way through second quarter but we had a lot of blokes down. They kicked poorly but we still got up. Sides loke Crows and Giants can have poor days as well. Need Naismith back to get first hands on it. At this stage I would probably play Sinclair ahead of Tippett because he gives more effort over four quarters.

Yep, well said. A lot to enjoy and a great lead into the weekend to have a nail biting win. At the end of the day their poor goal kicking is balanced by the dubious umpiring and us having so many players down. We can improve from that. I will rewatch the game but at the time I thought Sinkers played well - showed grunt and effort and won some good ball. Rohan, towers, Hayward etc all have more to give and I see that as a positive.

[barry]

I lot is being made that Adelaide won most of the stats. But if you reverse the free kick count so we got 28 and they got 14, and therefore give Sydney 28 more kicks and say a dozen more handballs, as you usually get with a free kick play, then we won most of the stats.

[Blood Fever]

My frustration was not so much the calls for many of the frees actually given, but the huge number of identical incidents not given - it should of been about 30 frees each. Just like that day last year, the free kick count was hugely out of whack with the contest being played.

Spot on mcs

[Blood Fever]

just some salient points.

We won even though we had less of the ball. We won even though the umpiring was trying to strip us of a win. We won even without several players contributing. About those players.

Will Hayward; Will, if you are going to play for the Swans you have to commit completely to us or @@@@ off back to Adelaide. Tonight you showed your allegiance to the Crows not to us. You were pathetic and it was obvious with every ball you attacked your heart wasn't in it.

Dean Towers; As much as I could see you were trying very hard it might be time to admit you just don't have the requisite skills to play with the big boys.

Dear midfield as a group, you are the most fumbly, bad decision making mids in the business on a wet deck.

For crying out loud Longmire will you not get the match ups right? What the @@@@ was the matter with you sending Heens one on one with Sloane? There were forward and back match ups that were not right too and you did not change them. For instance McGovern kicked 4.1 on Melican and it was evident early that the match up wasn't working. The unfortunate problem is that you couldn't change them because the other two were too involved. I truly believe it is time for Aliir to come back.

Changes for next week. Aliir & Dawson for Towers and Hayward.

Way over the top especially re Hayward an 18 year old. Must have imagined that we won the game.

[Blood Fever]

Ruck situation was interesting. Sinclair played all his time on ground as the ruckman and absolutely zero minutes as a forward.

Tippett played first half mainly as a forward but none of the last quarter as a forward. Perhaps the coaches were wary of the Crows running it out of defence through Tippett's man in the last quarter as Tippett's chasing wasn't that flash

Sinclair/Tippett basically came on and off as the ruckman in the last quarter. Not sure how Naismith would fit into this kind of structure

Naismith gives us a better chance at clearances against Crows. Jacobs had a picnic.

[Blood Fever]

A few random comments:

We were outplayed for most of the game but I'm not too concerned. The coaches won't be fooled and this game will receive a lot of focus in the review. Normally the losing side learns more from a game but the Crows will mostly learn that they need to kick straight. I think there is far more opportunity for the Swans to improve next time we meet, and I also believe they are capable of making tweaks that might make a difference.

The Heeney on Sloane match-up didn't work. Heeney couldn't quell Sloane and he gave us very little offensively. I don't think that one will be tried again, not this year anyway. Sloane was relatively subdued in the last quarter (I think with Jack mostly playing on him) so there are other alternatives.

There were two aspects to the free kick count. First was the number of holding the man frees that went against the Swans. That says that they need to be a bit smarter next time we play the Crows. I find it very hard to believe there weren't plenty of instances of Swans players being held but clearly none that the umpires saw. The second was the lack of HTB decisions that went the Swans way, particularly compared to some that were paid early against the Swans. There were several in the second half where a Crows forward took on more than one tackler before the ball was locked up. They were blatant HTBs but not paid. And I'll need to watch it again, but on live viewing it was hard to understand why the piece of play that led to the Papley point (where he hit the post) wasn't a free to the Swans. We did get a scoring shot away but a set shot from that position would most likely have been converted, rather than the rushed shot Papley took.

All the players were fumbly early on (from both teams) but as the game wore on, the Crows started handling the ball much better in the slippery conditions than the Swans did. I don't think our fumbling got much worse. It was just worse relative to the Crows. That may not be relevant to a game played in better conditions, but it's also something the Swans might want a refresher course on. They'll need to provide their own water, because it doesn't look like raining with intent in Sydney any time soon.

Some of our younger players are showing solid improvement (important on a night when our more senior mids were a bit subdued - other than Kennedy in the first half). Jones made a couple of blues but he also used his pace and aggression well to get the ball moving forward. Hewett was very solid, and Papley was very solid with the few goal scoring chances he got.

The comment about Hayward earlier in this thread is an abomination. Sure he didn't have a good game but he's an 18 yo kid. Maybe he's not ready for finals pressure (and maybe he is but just had a bad night) but the suggestion that his allegiance was with the Crows and that his heart wasn't in it is mean-spirited and spiteful (not to mention baseless).

I thought our rucks started well against Jacobs and that's part of the reason our midfield was on top early. Jacobs definitely responded and dominated the middle quarters. I think the coaches will be keen to get Naismith back in the side as soon as he's fit. He's still a work in progress and the lack of a pre-season hasn't helped him this year, but I still think he's our most competitive player at ruck contests.

I wouldn't have thought Jones has much to worry about with the MRP (though it's hard to tell sometimes). McGuire was arguing quite passionately that it wasn't a reportable action (and questionable whether it should even have been a 50m penalty, given the Crows player hadn't completed the mark when Jones collided with him. Dunstall thought that the lack of any spoiling attempt by Jones might count against him, but he wasn't very convincing with his argument. It's not the kind of "non-footballing" action that the MRP is really focussed on at the moment, and nor is there any question of high contact.

Excellent, rational assessment. We will learn more from this game than Crows. One thing I did notice was that we didn't stick our tackles as well as usual although as Liz says,the umps didn't blow the whistle when they should have.

[Blood Fever]

Can someone expand on Ling's comments? I was saved from the C7 post match commentary by dint of watching FF instead. I don't recall Papley getting a free all night, nor of him exaggerating contact to win a free that wasn't paid. Did Ling actually provide examples, or has he still not moved on from Duncan whacking Papley?

It was a throwaway line by Ling when he was actually praising Papley's temperament when kicking the last goal. He mentioned there had been talk about Papley's staging. Nothing to see here. Not sure why people take commentators that seriously to be honest. Four points will do me.

[Wardy]

[QUOTE

I wouldn't have thought Jones has much to worry about with the MRP (though it's hard to tell sometimes). McGuire was arguing quite passionately that it wasn't a reportable action (and questionable whether it should even have been a 50m penalty, given the Crows player hadn't completed the mark when Jones collided with him. Dunstall thought that the lack of any spoiling attempt by Jones might count against him, but he wasn't very convincing with his argument. It's not the kind of "non-footballing" action that the MRP is really focussed I'd on at the moment, and nor is there any question of high contact.[/QUOTE]

Agree Liz - the ABC commentators - and Gerard Whately in particular, said that it should not have been a 50 or should it be reportable as the mark had not been taken - actually Gerard was quite vocal about a number of frees paid against us that were just totally wrong. So glad I went to this game - I was a little scared by some of the ferals around, but the crows supporters on the train were all lovely. At the end there were clearly a large bunch of swans behind me and the "Sydney" chant went up - fantastic!! but what a great result.

[O'Reilly Boy]

It was a throwaway line by Ling when he was actually praising Papley's temperament when kicking the last goal. He mentioned there had been talk about Papley's staging. Nothing to see here. Not sure why people take commentators that seriously to be honest. Four points will do me.

I'm usually pretty phlegmatic about the commentary, but last night that Channel 7 mob did my head in. They were only commentating one side of the contest; the only story was the Crows. The sustained paeans to Crows players were offset by moments of grudging back-handed references to Swans, and, towards the end, by their equally grudging acknowledgement of the Swans' premiership favouritism. Of course Sloane was terrific, but the Heeney match up was pretty much a diversion: KJ or Hewitt next time.

Anyone watching without seeing the scoreline would have thought that the Crows were winning all night. The Swans were magnificent, twice clawing back the lead after the Crows came so hard. One of the great wins by an outstanding football team. I loved the deadpan lack of engagement with that fool BT in the rooms afterwards; Papley just gave him the evil eye throughout what passed for an interview, and Rohan looked at him with mocking contempt.

All the way, boys, all the way.

No changes next week unless Jones suspended (he'll get a week won't he? He leapt off the ground and collected Crouch late in the back). Hayward was always going to struggle in that company, and will be the better for the experience. I though that Tippett was good; very involved, combative and showed some nice skills.

The boys looked pretty sore post game: Rohan was lurching on that leg, and Papley had a big bruise on the back of his thigh, but next week should not present too many challenges, and then there's a week off.

[bloodbrother]

now cue tigers to lose to saints next week and give us the top 4 spot ...we will need to be 15 per cent better than the crows in the finals to acount for the umpire bias

[sprite]

That was a tense game to watch.

Thought Rohan should have got a free kick and had a second shot at goal after he was cleaned up and shouldered in the face after the kick too.

He did get a free kick, which would have been paid down field. As a goal was scored that then stands, if it was a behind another kick would have been offered.

The only way for him to get a second kick ala Papley, is if "all clear has been called" and another act of play occurs. It was late contact fractionally after he kicked the ball.

Hope that explains the decision.

[crackedactor]

A lot was made about Mills playing on after his mark and collecting a 50 metre penalty. Ok ,this was one bad decision for the Crows but for them to claim they lost the game this way is a joke. Just look at the free kick count and the number of legitimate frees we missed out on and it makes our win even more meritorious.

I am not sure why it should be mentioned? Likely due to the CH 7 team. I seen the exact situation at least 6 times throughout the year, its not play on until the umpire calls play on, simple rule. I notice in Longmire's voice that the Bias umpiring is starting to get to him, he is only human. 150% more free kicks in GF, 100 % more frees yesterday. Maybe during the finals the umps will strive for a 200% more free kick count. Even though we won, I did not enjoy last nights side show. Can we bring back Bill Dellar?