Changes for Rnd 3 V GWS

[stevoswan]

He's been playing mostly midfield

Paps obviously has footy smarts, which is why he finds himself in the mid field a lot these days. While I'm all for having a bevy of 'versatile' players, a couple of seasons ago we were crying out for some quick damaging small forwards....we get one of the best and now we're wasting him in a mid field that really doesn't need boosting. The other recent small forward acquisition in Hayward seems to be spending some time in the midfield as well. I say, just leave where they can be most damaging and can help out Bud as well.......!!

[stevoswan]

Conversely why would you spit the dummy when omitted from the team for a week?

I think it was mystifying and barring anything we're not aware of, he should be back soon.

Do you know something we don't? Because whenever I got dropped from the seniors (didn't happen much I must say), while I may have been confident of quickly regaining my place, I was never thinking 'oh, it'll just be for a week'. No one knows what the future holds.....or what the coach is thinking. I agree he should be back soon.....this week (!) but, barring adverse disciplinary reasons, he wouldn't know that for sure.

[Ludwig]

I'd say there's close to zero chance that Aliir gets a run in the seniors this week. His only chance would be an injury to one of the incumbent taller defenders but even then, I suspect Marsh would be preferred to Aliir.

I like Aliir but he's a bit of a confidence player and he's also still inexperienced at senior level. I don't think it would do him any good to come into the senior team without a few weeks of solid NEAFL under his belt. He's not played any football for around a month now.

I was thinking the same. As much as I would like to see Aliir back in the side, he's missed a lot of footy the past month. I was hoping we would get a report on the NEAFL practice match, because he was listed as 'test' on last week's injury report, so there was a chance of him playing, and if he did play and play well, he would be some chance of senior selection, especially given the tall GWS lineup. It's hard to read into Tom Harley's injury update this week, but it sounds like he didn't play on the weekend.

Also sounds like Hanners and Reid will play but Jones is doubtful. Again, just trying to read Harley's mind. So maybe just Reid in. Perhaps for Hayward, but very hard to guess selection these days.

[Auntie.Gerald]

As we all know there are so many layers to achieve peak performance.

We saw Ollie and Heeney featuring in our transitions a lot first half / getting us forward to control the game in the opposition arc

It was clever coaching by the Swans to be less macca and Lloyd dependent and caught Port our a little first half by using our running wingers really well on such a small field

I truly believe one of the top priorities right now is still getting our transitions right for the 4 qtrs and obviously we didn?t capitalise on our entries first half

I?m going to do my best to move my attention away from arguing about this player and that and more so focus on our tactics and flexibility of transitions and entries against GWS

I think this area leads to greater opportunities or concerns vs a focus on players just the minute as we have depth and we have players who can play a role in our evolving style of footy

[Flying South]

I don?t understand the logic behind people calling for Aliir to replace Grundy.

A modern defensive unit performs many roles these days. And I agree a very important part of the modern game is your rebounding defender. A role played to mixed success by the likes Lloyd, Newman, Jones, McVeigh, Mills, Aliir, etc. But the primary function of any defensive unit is to defend against opposition forward attacks. And there aren?t many better pure defenders in the league than our core defensive unit of Grundy, Rampe, Melican and Smith. They may not be ?sexy? like those flashy running defenders, but you can?t win a game without them. Whilst Grundy may getting into the twilight of his career, 2017 was one of his better years and he was widely regarded as very unlucky to have missed All Australian nomination. Other highlights;
- 3rd in Bob Skilton Medal,
- played all 24 matches
- ranked 1st in club for 1%?s
- 4th for marks and contested marks
- shared the Paul Roos Award for Player of the Finals
- his stats were mostly up on his career averages.

Not a bad year. What were the highlights of Aliir?s year? Look I agree Aliir has potential. But at the moment that?s all it is. Potential that may or may not develop. Grundy has the runs on the board. Aliir doesn?t. The thought of him going up against likes of Walker, Cameron, Jenkins, Hawkins, Lynch, etc scares me. Ludwigs intuition about him may prove to be well founded in the future. And I will applaud him if correct. But until then, he needs to get on the park in the reserves, put in some good consistent games together and force the coaches to promote him. I will be cheering him when he does.

[ernie koala]

To me the team while our team is very talented it has two major weaknesses this year. 1. An over-reliance on Buddy (I saw a stat suggesting that they went to him 45% on the weekend) 2. A ruck division well below many others. I think that 1. can be overcome with the addition of Reid. 2. Is much harder to address. Neither Sinclair or Cameron look likely to evolve into a topline ruckman so I?m not hopeful on that one. Our best bet is to shark tap outs as best we can. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with most of this.

But I don't think it's the tap outs that are the problem, Sinclair did OK in that department...

It's the lack of a big hard body, ala Mummy or dare I say it...Nankervis, that's what we lack and it's not something the coaches can manufacture.

It was no more obvious than when the big bodied Dickson went into the ruck and just through his physical presence helped turn the game in Ports favour....

I see this as our achilles heal at present.

[CureTheSane]

I don't have much to say about the list at this point of the season.
Coaching staff always know better than us, but right now they know far better than us.

I would like to see Allir play.

Also, haven't seen much said about McVeigh, and I don't believe that players should be congratulated for doing their jobs, but he surprised me on Sunday.
Big issues with his lack of chase, but I saw a 50+m kick from him which really surprised me.
For me he locks down his role for next week and the week after if he can pull it out like that.

[liz]

It's the lack of a big hard body, ala Mummy or dare I say it...Nankervis, that's what we lack and it's not something the coaches can manufacture.

It was no more obvious than when the big bodied Dickson went into the ruck and just through his physical presence helped turn the game in Ports favour....

I see this as our achilles heal at present.

Maybe we should play Buddy in the ruck.




(Not serious, in case anyone is wondering).

[Ludwig]

I don?t understand the logic behind people calling for Aliir to replace Grundy.

I think it's only me FS.

I actually agree with everything you say about Reg. He's a great defender, particularly in the air. The problem is that the traditional key forward that Reg matches up well on is going out of the game. I really like Melican, but he's more of a quicker version of Reg. I think he's already AFL level and could be a top notch defender. It's really Melican that replaces Reg, and this will be the case when Reg does hang up the boots. The matchups for Reg and Melican are becoming increasingly difficult with the way the forward line structures are evolving. Sometimes there's not even one good matchup let alone two. I think we should be proactive in our adjustments and not let the game overtake us and force us into these decisions. But I understand those who want to wait to get more data from future games. It's also a hard call given that Reg has generally started seasons slowly then builds to a very high level.

Aliir could be a flop, but barring injury, this is unlikely. It's rare to have an athletic tall defender who takes the game on the way Aliir does. His disposal is very good as well. He is prone to error, but probably no more than Zak Jones, who has a similar disposition toward the game and a lot more life experience with footy. The thing about Aliir is that he is the kind of inclusion in the side that can substantially raise our level of play because he brings an attacking weapon into our defence and this is something we lack at present. We may not be good enough to win a premiership unless he clicks. Our next best hope is AJ.

[Scottee]

We keep talking about Aliir for the back line but we have no idea what Maibaum has been doing in the 2s as a potential third tall. It's a bit like the sound of one hand clapping with the information vacuum on the 2s.

Sent from my SM-T805Y using Tapatalk

[Blood Fever]

Maybe we should play Buddy in the ruck.




(Not serious, in case anyone is wondering).

When he gets the ball 80 metres out, especially, on the run, he is our most creative player. Creates heaps of goals. Need two of him! Buddy to Buddy.

[Ludwig]

Maybe we should play Buddy in the ruck.

(Not serious, in case anyone is wondering).

I know you're not serious, but no need to say so. If I said it, people would think I'm serious, even though I wouldn't be either. But I would leave everyone wondering. One has so much more latitude when adopting the madman theory.

It's a good suggestion in that I'm sure if Buddy were a ruckman he'd be the best ruckman ever, bar none. But he just might end up being the best ever to have played the game in any case. If Buddy were a ruckman, he'd have 5 Brownlows by now. It's a shame it's such an injury prone position.

[MattW]

I was thinking the same. As much as I would like to see Aliir back in the side, he's missed a lot of footy the past month. I was hoping we would get a report on the NEAFL practice match, because he was listed as 'test' on last week's injury report, so there was a chance of him playing, and if he did play and play well, he would be some chance of senior selection, especially given the tall GWS lineup. It's hard to read into Tom Harley's injury update this week, but it sounds like he didn't play on the weekend.

Also sounds like Hanners and Reid will play but Jones is doubtful. Again, just trying to read Harley's mind. So maybe just Reid in. Perhaps for Hayward, but very hard to guess selection these days.

Yep, that's pretty much my read on Harley and Longmire's pressers today. That is:
- Hanners plays
- Reid plays seniors
- Jones doesn't play, possibly next week
- Aliir plays reserves (for some weeks until he builds up form).

Hayward is the obvious out for Reid, unless Fox is out and the likes of Cunningham and Florent play a little more off halfback.

[dejavoodoo44]

Maybe we should play Buddy in the ruck.




(Not serious, in case anyone is wondering).

I was thinking Rohan in the ruck. What could possibly go wrong?

[The Runner]

Rohan was a clear Worst on Ground last week, and showed no signs of turning around his poor showing in big, tough games of footy in his career.

There is no point debating Cameron v Sinclair in the ruck. You'll get the same outcome. The only way to really mix things up would be to put Aliir in. we aren't going to win the majority of taps, and that does not matter. What matters is winning the clearances. We got beaten on the weekend because a) our skills were poor under pressure; b) Ollie Wines was the best midfielder on the ground.

The backline had a forgettable night, but it was a one-off. How often will you see Reg, Rampe and Melican all make basic errors that directly lead to a goal, all in the one night?

In terms of 'what we need to fix'... we are missing Papley up front, and are robbing Peter to pay Paul by playing him in the middle. But it's the right move. Reid will give us another target, but won't fix our lack of pressure in the front half to create repeat turnovers (looking at you Gary)