Swans Selections for round 1

[goswannies]

Playing Rohan as ruckman is a masterstroke. He will redefine the role. Speed is better than height.

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I mean how many time do we see the lumbering ruckman fail to make it to the ball when the boundary important does a bad throw. .... Not when we have the fastest ruckman in the comp!

Rhys Stanley (2009), Majak Daw (2015) are pretty quick genuine ruckmen

[AB Swannie]

With Josh Kennedy (WC) ruled out of Round 1 I wonder if Grundy might be given another week and get back for Charlie Dixon and Round 2?

[aguy]

With Josh Kennedy (WC) ruled out of Round 1 I wonder if Grundy might be given another week and get back for Charlie Dixon and Round 2?

That?s a very interesting thought. On the other hand west coast looked worse than a NEAFL team on the weekend. I?m sure they will be significantly better in round one but I wouldn?t think it?s as tough a game as most other games so it may well be a good game for him to play.

[The Runner]

There's a big difference between playing no ruck and a solo ruck. A midfield trio of Gablett, Danger and Selwood may neutralize it at times but even they would struggle over four quarters.
The physical battering you take in the ruck is like no other position on the field.
To say that Richmond set the blueprint for not using ruckmen is to imply that Nankervis had no impact, which is false.

[Beerman]

I haven't seen much of the preseason games. What happened to Hayward? He was so good last year! He looked like a few more weight sessions over the pre-season and he would be ready to be a genuine star this year.

I didn't see anything about injuries (but the Swans are notoriously bad at updating injury lists). Has he had some other issues?

[Ludwig]

Playing Rohan as ruckman is a masterstroke. He will redefine the role. Speed is better than height.

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I mean how many time do we see the lumbering ruckman fail to make it to the ball when the boundary important does a bad throw. .... Not when we have the fastest ruckman in the comp!

Playing ruckman did wonders for Towers. It forces a player who tends to go missing to get involved. Rohan is a real talent and should be in the middle of things. Add Aliir to the mix and we can count on 4 or 5 goals a games just bursting from the ruck contest. A Brontosaurus would be dead meat trying to handle that trio all day. Likely to go extinct by 3 quarter time.

With Josh Kennedy (WC) ruled out of Round 1 I wonder if Grundy might be given another week and get back for Charlie Dixon and Round 2?

No NicNat either of course. Holding back Grundy allows us to use Sinclair, if Longmire is not brave enough to try a more dynamic ruck setup. No disrespect to WC, but we should smash them. It's a good game to try something new, but I'll bet the coaching staff will be too scared, having bean burnt so badly at the start of last year. They want a win on the board and will likely be conservative.

Grundy is a bit too slow for Dixon, who is surprisingly quick for a big man. Melican is a better matchup, I think. If they play Todd Marshall, Grundy can take him, else he might have to go with Watts. Marshall is also too quick for Reg, but Reg can physically abuse him. I'm assuming Aliir will play and take Ryder all over the ground. If Sinkers plays, we have no matchup for him.

[liz]

Don't think we should assume NicNat won't play round 1. He played in a WAFL practice game at the weekend and reportedly pulled up OK. My guess is that they'll bring him in so long as he's physically OK, even if he's a bit rusty. The fact that the Swans will be a bit light on for ruckmen will probably encourage them to take the risk.

[Markwebbos]

Don't think we should assume NicNat won't play round 1. He played in a WAFL practice game at the weekend and reportedly pulled up OK. My guess is that they'll bring him in so long as he's physically OK, even if he's a bit rusty. The fact that the Swans will be a bit light on for ruckmen will probably encourage them to take the risk.

I agree. They haven?t got a lot to lose.

[ernie koala]

Don't think we should assume NicNat won't play round 1. He played in a WAFL practice game at the weekend and reportedly pulled up OK. My guess is that they'll bring him in so long as he's physically OK, even if he's a bit rusty. The fact that the Swans will be a bit light on for ruckmen will probably encourage them to take the risk.

I hope they do play him.

Firstly, because he's always fun to watch. He'll no doubt provide some highlights but......

Secondly, after 19 months on the sideline and only 1 WAFL preseason game, you would think he'll be off the pace and his minutes would have to be managed...

Which means others will have to take up the slack while he spends a fair bit of time on the bench.

[Ludwig]

I hope they do play him.

Firstly, because he's always fun to watch. He'll no doubt provide some highlights but......

Secondly, after 19 months on the sideline and only 1 WAFL preseason game, you would think he'll be off the pace and his minutes would have to be managed...

Which means others will have to take up the slack while he spends a fair bit of time on the bench.

I agree.

It would seem an unusual management of your star player to bring him back to AFL with such little preparation, but I too think it would be to our advantage if they did, especially since neither NicNat nor Lycett do particular much around the ground.

[CureTheSane]

Any talk of NicNat coming back is just mind games.
If it happens it would be crazy and ill conceived...

[Ludwig]

This is my round 1 selection using my own categories which doesn't use and interchange bench, but is a 7 x 3 table plus ruckman with new lines for Centre Backs, Midfield, Centre Forwards. I left out Reg in order to give all the other players who had good preseasons a go in round 1 and still have room for Sinclair. This puts off the harder selection decisions for later rounds.

	Player	Player	Player
FB	Melican	Aliir	Rampe
HB	Lloyd	Smith	Newman
CB	Jones	Mills	Harrry-C
MI	Hewett	Kennedy	Parker
CF	Fox	Jack	Heeney
HF	Florent	Papley	Towers
FF	Reid	Rohan	Franklin
Ruck	Sinclair

[Ludwig]

We need to go into round 1 with a view of how we will play the following 2 rounds v PA and GWS. Both these sides are likely to play a 3 tall forward line, with Dixon, Westhoff and Watts for PA and Cameron, Patton and Himmelberg for GWS. They both have dangerous ruckmen who can go forward and kick goals in Ryder and Lobb, respectively.

Whatever we do in round 1, we will need Reg, Melican and Aliir to play rounds 2 and 3 if we're not to be seriously outmatched for height. We may have won the JLT game v GWS, but they did take 15 marks inside 50, which if way too much.

Rounds 2 and 3 will be tough going against 2 teams that are strong all over the ground, with both pace and height. Not dismissing WCE, especially in Perth, but we need this game to sort our the selections for the following weeks. It won't be easy, especially with Hanners and McVeigh a good chance to be fit to play.

It's true that we have a stingy defence, but we did have 2 weaknesses last year: Rebound from defence and height mismatches, especially picking up tall opposition players following the play through the midfield. We've added some more speed and kicking ability from defence and some line breaking run if Cunningham plays. We looked as though we were doing much better in this regard in the JLT. There's not much to do about the height mismatches except to play taller. Playing the 3 talls seems the only viable solution to this problem.

[giant]

I hope they do play him.

Firstly, because he's always fun to watch. He'll no doubt provide some highlights but......

Secondly, after 19 months on the sideline and only 1 WAFL preseason game, you would think he'll be off the pace and his minutes would have to be managed...

Which means others will have to take up the slack while he spends a fair bit of time on the bench.

Agree with both sentiments - love watching him play: can't see how (barring Ben Cousins style assistance program) he could come back with that level of preparation and be AFL ready.

[Markwebbos]

We need to go into round 1 with a view of how we will play the following 2 rounds v PA and GWS. Both these sides are likely to play a 3 tall forward line, with Dixon, Westhoff and Watts for PA and Cameron, Patton and Himmelberg for GWS. They both have dangerous ruckmen who can go forward and kick goals in Ryder and Lobb, respectively.

Whatever we do in round 1, we will need Reg, Melican and Aliir to play rounds 2 and 3 if we're not to be seriously outmatched for height. We may have won the JLT game v GWS, but they did take 15 marks inside 50, which if way too much.

Rounds 2 and 3 will be tough going against 2 teams that are strong all over the ground, with both pace and height. Not dismissing WCE, especially in Perth, but we need this game to sort our the selections for the following weeks. It won't be easy, especially with Hanners and McVeigh a good chance to be fit to play.

It's true that we have a stingy defence, but we did have 2 weaknesses last year: Rebound from defence and height mismatches, especially picking up tall opposition players following the play through the midfield. We've added some more speed and kicking ability from defence and some line breaking run if Cunningham plays. We looked as though we were doing much better in this regard in the JLT. There's not much to do about the height mismatches except to play taller. Playing the 3 talls seems the only viable solution to this problem.

I don't think you can really get away with insisting that "we will need Reg, Melican and Aliir to play rounds 2 and 3 ..." given that Rampe plays tall. And given we went OK (admittedly we conceded 15 marks inside 50, of which 10 were to tall players) against GWS last week without 3 of those 4 "tall" defenders - Rampe, Reg or Aliir. If you put Reg and Rampe into last week's side, I think it would go OK v GWS.

I'm really no clearer at all on the Aliir conundrum. There's been a lot of talk about finding a role for him in the team this year, but it's still not clear where it is. I'm more inclined toward your suggestion of playing AA and Deano in the ruck and leaving out Sinkers that playing him in defence.

After the Freo shellacking I'm probably feeling overconfident of our chances v WCE first up. It's definitely a game we need to win.