Changes for Rnd 3 V GWS

[Papernick]

The hindsight thinking here is insane.

Yes we would have liked to have kept Mitchell but at the time we did not know has much the cap would rise by and had we matched the Hawks offer we may have lost Heeney or Mills. I believe we made the right call.

As for Nanka I had a feeling we?d regret that too but at the time he was arguable our fourth ruckman and the only one coming off contract so we really had no hand to keep him.

Don?t let that stop you mindlessly abuse the squad though Cainit

[liz]

I don't particular rate Nankervis as anything other than a solid ruckman. I acknowledge that Naismith's non-availability through injury (not just this year, but the string of niggling injuries that have blighted his career) diminishes his worth but I think he's a far better stoppage ruckman than Nankervis - or would be, if he could stay on the paddock. The club couldn't have foreseen that Naismith would rupture his ACL, nor that Tippett would suffer a career ending ankle injury. There was also a suggestion that Nankervis wanted to move to Melbourne regardless of his place in the pecking order - just to be closer to his family. Given he's from Tasmania, I am not sure how valid this is. It doesn't take that much longer to fly to Sydney than it does to Melbourne but maybe his family likes the ferry!

As for Mitchell, yes, he's a good player and the Swans knew he was a good player. He's gotten better since he moved to Hawthorn, or at least is getting more opportunity in his preferred role. I still wouldn't take him ahead of any of Parker, Kennedy or Hannebery however, regardless of how many touches he racks up. And for salary cap and age profile reasons, it would have had to have been a choice between him and one of those three, not someone like Hewett. On a purely cap basis, it could have been a choice between him and one of Mills or Heeney but I wouldn't choose him over them either.

As for Barrett's piece, we were premiership favourites (without Mitchell) at the start of the season and probably still would be had our skills not deserted us last Sunday. I don't think Mitchell in the team would have changed the result because winning our share of contested ball wasn't the issue. We could well be premiership favourites (without Mitchell) after this weekend if we knock off the Giants.

[grarmy]

Membrey has done nothing yet to suggest to me he will ever be anymore than a slightly upgraded version of Jesse White

Jessie....just when those terrible memories were being put to bed.

[Ludwig]

Agree with Liz on both Nanka and Mitchell. The only argument I have about the Mitchell trade is that we only ended up with a lowish 1st round pick when he was worth a lot more. But we definitely needed to thin out our inside slower mids, which enabled us to add Florent and Hayward. It's more than just saying that we lost a very good player. We have to credit the list management of the club for having the foresight to go hard at transitioning the team to a quicker more agile side, which we have done through the past 2 drafts. We changed the age demographic by 5 years in the Mitchell-Florent exchange. Despite Mitchell having a fantastic year, the game as a whole is clearly moving in the direction we have chosen.

As for Rohan, I didn't think he showed any signs that his mind wasn't on the game. It wasn't that abnormal a game for him. I think if he wasn't mentally fit to play, he wouldn't be selected. He's just be handed a role where it's difficult to rack up possession and harder still when the team has a player like Buddy, who demands the ball so much and is in stellar form. I'm more concerned about Rampe and Reg lifting their games for now.

[Blood Fever]

I agree Swans made a mistake letting Mitchell go. But it's not as simple as you make out. The core of the midfield is/was largely slow - Kennedy, Parker, Hannebery and they couldn't get rid of those players. They had to work out whether to add another slow accumulator to the mix. I'm sure they'd have loved to kept him if they could to take over from Kennedy. The knock on our midfield is not winning the ball, but speed / explosiveness, so the decision makes sense of a sort on a "needs" basis. I'd much rather have Mitchell running around instead of Hewett in the team but they clearly couldn't afford that.

BTW Damian Barrett's sliding doors today: Sliding Doors: round three - AFL.com.au

"If Tom Mitchell was still a Swan... Then this club would be premiership favourite." (We also have a slower midfield)

Nankervis v Naismith epitomises the ruck dilemma. Is a ruckman's job to win hit-outs or do things around the ground. You really want one that can do both. We don't have that ruckman and went for the former. I'm sure we're hoping Naismith will become better around the ground. He's a pretty big unit, so should be able to throw his weight around. Nankervis got badly beaten by Jacobs on the weekend and I think was a major factor in their midfield being thrashed (although clearances are almost identical). Again, if we'd had the opportunity to push one ruckman of our choosing out, it might not have been Nankervis. This was all before Tippett turned into a disaster and 2 ruckmen became unsustainable.

Sliding Doors, although clever, is just a collection of shallow thought bubbles.

[liz]

Sliding Doors, although clever, is just a collection of shallow thought bubbles.

I agree with the main part of your sentence but have issues with the qualifier.

[barry]

Mitchell is a once a generation player you build a midfield around. Swans, in a short term approach, weren't prepared to do that, believing they could extract premierships with the current line up.

Hawthorn were prepared to build a midfield around mitchell, and a now reaping the benefits.

Nankervis v nainsmith was a call the swans got wrong. Nanker is a premiership ruckman who spends a lot on the ground (game time and lack of injuries)

[Ludwig]

Mitchell is a once a generation player

Rohan is a once in a generation player. He gives you something to write about day after day after day. A forum poster's dream.

[liz]

Mitchell is a once a generation player you build a midfield around.

Couldn't agree less with that. Hawthorn won't be a contender while they have a single player capable of winning contested ball. You need a spread, which is what the Swans have. Kennedy is undisputably as good as contested ball winner as Mitchell, and IMO, Hannebery and Parker are just as good players with more strings to their bows. Regardless, a midfield with all four wasn't 4/3 times as good as a midfield with just three of them. Arguably it was less effective due to the lack of variety.

Ablett ran around in the Gold Coast midfield for several years racking up the same kind of numbers and look where that got them.

[707]

We made a decision on Mitchell based on the profile type of our mids and the significant hit to our bursting salary cap. We did a quick trade for unders just so we could do further deals and keeping us out of the subsequent 11th hour quagmire that Hawthorn got into trying to get O'Meara across the line. If we'd held out for more O'Meara may have been done for pick 14 and we would have been stuck with late negotiations.

Mitchell is a ball magnet but he plays a much larger amount of game time at Hawthorn than he would if still with us where he'd be competing for midfield time with our other guns. Get over it I say, we're moving forward with a more dynamic group.

[Blood Fever]

I agree with the main part of your sentence but have issues with the qualifier.

Clever in that a fair number of people read it as meaningful. Clever as opposed to intelligent.

[aardvark]

Couldn't agree less with that. Hawthorn won't be a contender while they have a single player capable of winning contested ball. .

From what I witnessed on the weekend Hawthorn will smash us. Does this mean we won't be contenders?

[barry]

From what I witnessed on the weekend Hawthorn will smash us. Does this mean we won't be contenders?

It's a brave woman who says hawthorn aren't contenders from what we have seen so far.

[liz]

From what I witnessed on the weekend Hawthorn will smash us. Does this mean we won't be contenders?

You can't judge who'll beat who based on single games. We have had a long standing problem with Hawthorn in that their game style directly counters ours and they're good at it. But I don't believe they are genuine contenders this year, and I think we are. Others will have different opinions.

[aardvark]

You can't judge who'll beat who based on single games. We have had a long standing problem with Hawthorn in that their game style directly counters ours and they're good at it. But I don't believe they are genuine contenders this year, and I think we are. Others will have different opinions.

It is true that Horse has only won 5 from 17 V Clarkson. He's Clarkson's bunny but that's another issue. I just think it's a shame we didn't pay Mitch what he's worth and we kept wasting money on Tippett.
Still it's time to move on I suppose.