Match Day SEMI FINAL Geelong v Sydney MCG 7.50pm Friday 15 September

[Foreign Legion]

Parker stunk. In a big final. Again.

being there live i noticed that as well.

Unfortunately you are correct.

WTF is it? Maybe bring him on at 1/4 time? He is a gun who doesn't fire in September.

[wolftone57]

I never suggested we should be proud of what happened tonight, as it sounds like it was very poor. But we can still be proud of a lot of what we saw this season - I don't think that is unreasonable.

I don't think we can be proud of a year where the senior players didn't stand up for the for the first six games and protect the young blokes. I think that stinks. It also stinks that the game plan in those games was sooooo oooold that even I could have picked it off. i don't think we can be proud of losing to Hawks, who are a younger and less developed team than us, twice. I don't think losing to a younger and less developed squad in Geelong tonight is good enough. I don't think we would have been in this position if the coaches had trusted the young players and had stern words to the experienced players

[0918330512]

After 18 weeks of mostly victories and a couple of narrow losses I'd nearly forgotten how so many can turn on their club with harsh impulsive criticism after a loss.

Over those 18 weeks Horse was hailed as a genius at times for restoring a lost season and dragging us from the depths of despair to be the only team in the history of the VFL/AFL to make the finals from a 0-6 start (a start hampered by yet another late pre-season and injuries to keep players who had to work themselves into form). Now I'm relieved to see sanity has prevailed and he should be sacked after yet another poor performance (the first really poor performance in 3 months or so).

Great to see the return of doom and gloom regarding our list that saw the debuts of Dawson, Florent, Hayward, Fox, Melican, Newman; the development of Mills, Heeney, Papley and even Towers; and the return of AJ.

Buddy had an off night. Should take the shine off the Coleman that he won this year.

I'm reassured that Towers regains his whipping boy mantle after a month of people erroneously suggesting he had found enough confidence that his potential might have started to be realised.

Although Gary Rohan should be the heir apparent (apparently). And luckily for the Tippett thread, his form was poor enough to breathe life into it (don't worry about the injuries that resulted in the form slump).

Oh and all those players who should now be traded? Sorry all our energy was wasted when we were so excited about resigning them during the season.

Yes, wonderful to see that a loss can bring out the worst of some on RWO.

Swans, I am disappointed with your bookend 0-6 start and semi-final capitulation. But thank you for a memorable year from round 7 to the Elimination Final. And no much how I hurt as a supporter tonight after that loss closed the chapter of 2017 for us, I know the players and coaches are hurting more. While my life as a Swans fan is forever and will have many highs and lows to come, I do understand your lives as Swans players is more fleeting and tonight's loss will hurt you more than we as supporters will understand.

I look forward to tonight's disappointment spurring you greater successes in seasons to come.

[wolftone57]

Yesterday I said "I'm always nervous when Swans go into a game in the finals as "red hot favourites." The 2014 GF has left me scar(r)ed." and @@@@@@ me ragged if we didn't turn in a total stinker.

I actually agree with Ludwig that there's little to be gained from dissecting this one abysmal performance. No idea why they were so poor. I'm thankful they made history by making finals after a 0-6 start. Looking on the bright side we get higher draft picks and a longer preseason this way.

Back in the dark days of the season I booked a holiday next weekend. Maybe I'm physic?

I think you mean psychic not physic which is an ancient word for a doctor. it also means a laxative, purge or cathartic medication. In ancient times it meant natural science.

[Doctor]

It's silly to even bother talking about selection mistakes when our best players are having such poor games. Kennedy, Parker, Buddy and Rampe all getting hammered, so it's hard to blame the bottom six. It's just one of those nights. It happens. Console yourselves by thinking: "Oh well, we probably would have lost to Adelaide anyway."

Probably your best ever. Well said.

[crackedactor]

After 18 weeks of mostly victories and a couple of narrow losses I'd nearly forgotten how so many can turn on their club with harsh impulsive criticism after a loss.

Over those 18 weeks Horse was hailed as a genius at times for restoring a lost season and dragging us from the depths of despair to be the only team in the history of the VFL/AFL to make the finals from a 0-6 start (a start hampered by yet another late pre-season and injuries to keep players who had to work themselves into form). Now I'm relieved to see sanity has prevailed and he should be sacked after yet another poor performance (the first really poor performance in 3 months or so).

Great to see the return of doom and gloom regarding our list that saw the debuts of Dawson, Florent, Hayward, Fox, Melican, Newman; the development of Mills, Heeney, Papley and even Towers; and the return of AJ.

Buddy had an off night. Should take the shine off the Coleman that he won this year.

I'm reassured that Towers regains his whipping boy mantle after a month of people erroneously suggesting he had found enough confidence that his potential might have started to be realised.

Although Gary Rohan should be the heir apparent (apparently). And luckily for the Tippett thread, his form was poor enough to breathe life into it (don't worry about the injuries that resulted in the form slump).

Oh and all those players who should now be traded? Sorry all our energy was wasted when we were so excited about resigning them during the season.

Yes, wonderful to see that a loss can bring out the worst of some on RWO.

Swans, I am disappointed with your bookend 0-6 start and semi-final capitulation. But thank you for a memorable year from round 7 to the Elimination Final. And no much how I hurt as a supporter tonight after that loss closed the chapter of 2017 for us, I know the players and coaches are hurting more. While my life as a Swans fan is forever and will have many highs and lows to come, I do understand your lives as Swans players is more fleeting and tonight's loss will hurt you more than we as supporters will understand.

I look forward to tonight's disappointment spurring you greater successes in seasons to come.

Too many things to comprehend tonight. As horse said we played with no energy tonight. Understatement!! Why?? We had so much energy last week and suddenly it's all gone? What was up with Buddy's dressings? Had a ton of gauze and a cigar box or something in his pocket.? 16 weeks playing like demons and tonight play like gooses. Don't know why?


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[Matty10]

After 18 weeks of mostly victories and a couple of narrow losses I'd nearly forgotten how so many can turn on their club with harsh impulsive criticism after a loss.

It is enough to make you puke really.



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[bodgie]

Making finals is great. The Swans have maintained that standard for 20 years or more under several coaches. A truly golden era. One premiership with Roos and one with Longmule, 5 years ago. We have a premiership talented list and I reckon it's fair enough to question his role as much as anyone's to get that little extra to WIN a GF again soon. A fresh view might bring quick results from an acknowledged and well drilled group.It may backfire but some dramatic out of the box input after the roos/longmule transition era might be just what we need.

[Belmasta]

Match Day SEMI FINAL Geelong v Sydney MCG 7.50pm Friday 15 September

There will be plenty of teams lining up to sign Longmire. Only worth sacking someone if there's a replacement.

We were simply terrible - can't blame coach all the time.


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I agree. The team that played last night contains the same talent that whipped Essendon last week. Longmire is certainly not to blame. I didn't like the fact that Sydney players were not on their man last night, not like they have been playing the last how ever many weeks. There was a glimps of what we expected them to do in the early parts of the third quarter but was not sustained. It looked very much like a game from rounds 2, 3 and 4. There can sometimes by a fine line between awesome and ordinary and we were on the wrong side of the line. Buddy was being tied down be Geelong and the long bombs they got away with last week should have been abandoned earlier for kicking to a free man.
More Cheer cheering next year. It's been a great ride this year from 0-6!


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[Melbournehammer]

I do wish people would stop saying there is no plan b c or d. Tonight there were a lot of moves made but they all highlighted some problems.

They basically tried to play Sinclair in the ruck for large parts of the game and took him out of the forward line. Of course this meant towers only rucked for two minutes and we got a goal out of that. Instead we then had two useless rucks as neither Sinclair nor Naismith could influence the game.

Plan c was tried from the mid point of the second quarter when we threw Reid down back and McVeigh forward. This was a problem because McVeigh hadn't been able to impact the long kick to Dangerfield for height or speed reasons. He had also specialised in lateral kicks rather than the creative kicks we needed from a loose. So putting Reid back was supposed to stop the long kick - but this failed as well because Reid failed to mark the ball spilling those that he had the chance to mark and getting sucked into pushing contests instead of just attacking the ball. Plus it robbed us forward of the ball as we had also given up on Sinclair as a forward option.

Plan d was to put Rohan spare instead of Reid.

Nothing worked because we got clobbered at the coal face and our kicking forwards was deplorable and our key defenders were getting thrashed. Grundy was playing exclusively on Hawkins to the extent of following him off in the second quarter - so when Devon smith then shifts forward we have Hannebery playing on hiim and grundy sitting on the pine. Grundy couldn't stay with Hawkins on the lead as it was and but for Hawkins inability to mark on the lead he would have had an absolute bag kicked on him.

Rampe was unable to stay with Dangerfield and McVeigh positioned himself poorly to help there. Having said that when Mengelola marked uncontested in the first you knew something was up. I watched that from the other end and he and another cat just rolled back towards the centre and both were completely unmarked. To be so completely broken apart was just terrible.

I'm not particularly shocked by the result or performance - it was obvious ten minutes into the second quarter that we were gone, and it had a very similar feel to 2014 as you just knew we weren't able to compete for whatever reason. But I do worry about the inability to play with any fluency. Too often I've seen us play the kick and hope when experience ought to have shown us by now that unless things are set up right that this is a bad option.unfortunately it felt like they were always outnumbering us everywhere and we had no other options.

[goswannies]

I guess it had to happen some time. The Cats first win over the Swans at the MCG in 120 years. Pity it was last night & in that manner

[dimelb]

I do wish people would stop saying there is no plan b c or d. Tonight there were a lot of moves made but they all highlighted some problems.

They basically tried to play Sinclair in the ruck for large parts of the game and took him out of the forward line. Of course this meant towers only rucked for two minutes and we got a goal out of that. Instead we then had two useless rucks as neither Sinclair nor Naismith could influence the game.

Plan c was tried from the mid point of the second quarter when we threw Reid down back and McVeigh forward. This was a problem because McVeigh hadn't been able to impact the long kick to Dangerfield for height or speed reasons. He had also specialised in lateral kicks rather than the creative kicks we needed from a loose. So putting Reid back was supposed to stop the long kick - but this failed as well because Reid failed to mark the ball spilling those that he had the chance to mark and getting sucked into pushing contests instead of just attacking the ball. Plus it robbed us forward of the ball as we had also given up on Sinclair as a forward option.

Plan d was to put Rohan spare instead of Reid.

Nothing worked because we got clobbered at the coal face and our kicking forwards was deplorable and our key defenders were getting thrashed. Grundy was playing exclusively on Hawkins to the extent of following him off in the second quarter - so when Devon smith then shifts forward we have Hannebery playing on hiim and grundy sitting on the pine. Grundy couldn't stay with Hawkins on the lead as it was and but for Hawkins inability to mark on the lead he would have had an absolute bag kicked on him.

Rampe was unable to stay with Dangerfield and McVeigh positioned himself poorly to help there. Having said that when Mengelola marked uncontested in the first you knew something was up. I watched that from the other end and he and another cat just rolled back towards the centre and both were completely unmarked. To be so completely broken apart was just terrible.

I'm not particularly shocked by the result or performance - it was obvious ten minutes into the second quarter that we were gone, and it had a very similar feel to 2014 as you just knew we weren't able to compete for whatever reason. But I do worry about the inability to play with any fluency. Too often I've seen us play the kick and hope when experience ought to have shown us by now that unless things are set up right that this is a bad option.unfortunately it felt like they were always outnumbering us everywhere and we had no other options.

States the problems well.

I was worried from the moment I realised that we had gone in with one - just one! - tall defender. We'll never know whether Melican might have made a difference but removing Reid from the forwards certainly did.

Why on earth did we largely omit Towers from rucking and move Sinclair back in, especially after what we saw last week? And Rohan is a forward, not a back. I can understand that the coaches might try desperate measures, but our back structures weren't working either.

But the worst problem was that as usually happens the game was won and lost in the middle where we didn't return the pressure. And Hail Marys belong in church, not on the football field. Our links weren't working and we blindly bombed to targets who weren't there.

It was just one of those nights, but unfortunately it was a final. Here's hoping for more consistency next year!

[707]

I don't think we can be proud of a year where the senior players didn't stand up for the for the first six games and protect the young blokes. I think that stinks. It also stinks that the game plan in those games was sooooo oooold that even I could have picked it off. i don't think we can be proud of losing to Hawks, who are a younger and less developed team than us, twice. I don't think losing to a younger and less developed squad in Geelong tonight is good enough. I don't think we would have been in this position if the coaches had trusted the young players and had stern words to the experienced players

Sorry Wolfie, that's simplistic.

[Matty10]

Getting knocked out of the finals is always disappointing - but the manner in which we were knocked out is the gut-wrenching part.

The team were just so collectively 'off' that recriminations seem pointless - and answers impossible to find or comprehend. It felt a lot like 2014, except that we have already had 2014 - and the pain of 2016. The ruthless resolve that we expected after those disappointments was absent last night.

You imagine that everyone at the club would be waking up today and wondering, 'what the hell happened?'. The output of last night beggars belief, and yet that is the reality we have to deal with.

The evenness of the season also screams out in a reverberating echo that it was wasted opportunity for ultimate success. It is very difficult to quantify underperformance in an 18-team competition, but if feels like we are a premiership short of where we should be - and that sucks nuts.


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[MattW]

States the problems well.

I was worried from the moment I realised that we had gone in with one - just one! - tall defender. We'll never know whether Melican might have made a difference but removing Reid from the forwards certainly did.

Why on earth did we largely omit Towers from rucking and move Sinclair back in, especially after what we saw last week? And Rohan is a forward, not a back. I can understand that the coaches might try desperate measures, but our back structures weren't working either.

But the worst problem was that as usually happens the game was won and lost in the middle where we didn't return the pressure. And Hail Marys belong in church, not on the football field. Our links weren't working and we blindly bombed to targets who weren't there.

It was just one of those nights, but unfortunately it was a final. Here's hoping for more consistency next year!

Yes. The structural imbalance was totally unnecessary. We had a formula which worked, why move away from it? To fit in Harry Cunningham?! The cost-benefit seemed obviously skewed. Perhaps complacency after we smashed Essendon at home. We didn't adapt. The team looked a mess. Disorganised. Unprepared.

After turning the season around with combative, physical play it was a humbling end. Wilted in a final again. Getting a reputation. Kind of mortifying.