#AFL Round 5, Sydney Swans v Adelaide Crows, 7:50pm 20/04 SCG @sydneyswans #AFLSwansCrows

[stevoswan]

The boys have to fine tune their kicking to a moving target, one of the most critical skills of the game . Many of them are all over the shop often gifting it straight back .

Agree. Our foot skills at the moment are atrocious. Not elite at all.....

[Cainit]

My veiw on the game was that we lost it before thee first bounce.
Football is also a mental game and they belived they were in for an easy win. In saying that this is not the end of the world we will bounce back but really need another target in the forward 50 and I think mcviegh or grundy are the men. Until Reid gets back lets try these two guys out give them 15min a game to try and unsettle opposition defenders.

[Hotpotato]

Agree. Our foot skills at the moment are atrocious. Not elite at all.....

The best players in the game at this skill like Gary Ablett, Chris Judd, Macca etc make contact with the ball very low to the ground .

I play kick to kick with my mate Jose Rodriegas , a maniacal South Sydney tragic in his small Bicycle shop .
You only score if you don?t hit any any of his assorted paraphernalia.
I have corrected taking out his fluorescent lights by kicking it low and I currently have a commanding lead against him in this years comp.
It is a bit dark at his end as two lights are still deficient.
We play for a fine meal at one of Sydney?s best eateries at seasons end .

[Meg]

#AFL Round 5, Sydney Swans v Adelaide Crows, 7:50pm 20/04 SCG @sydneyswans #AFLSwansCrows

Hotpotato, are you suggesting the Swans should change their training venue?

[Ludwig]

The best players in the game at this skill like Gary Ablett, Chris Judd, Macca etc make contact with the ball very low to the ground .

I play kick to kick with my mate Jose Rodriegas , a maniacal South Sydney tragic in his small Bicycle shop .
You only score if you don?t hit any any of his assorted paraphernalia.
I have corrected taking out his fluorescent lights by kicking it low and I currently have a commanding lead against him in this years comp.
It is a bit dark at his end as two lights are still deficient.
We play for a fine meal at one of Sydney?s best eateries at seasons end .

Have you thought about joining the Swans Academy?

[Hotpotato]

Agree. Our foot skills at the moment are atrocious. Not elite at all.....

Hotpotato, are you suggesting the Swans should change their training venue?

Let me seek an audience with Horse!

[Hotpotato]

Agree. Our foot skills at the moment are atrocious. Not elite at all.....

Hotpotato, are you suggesting the Swans should change their training venue?

Have you thought about joining the Swans Academy?

Well, by my next birthday I?ll be 73 NO (I hope), however I believe my school coach earmarked me as a handy half forward flanker . I believe my skills are superior now , so I?m up for it .

[stevoswan]

My veiw on the game was that we lost it before thee first bounce.
Football is also a mental game and they belived they were in for an easy win. In saying that this is not the end of the world we will bounce back but really need another target in the forward 50 and I think mcviegh or grundy are the men. Until Reid gets back lets try these two guys out give them 15min a game to try and unsettle opposition defenders.

I was thinking the same thing leading into the game. The 'Hun' tipsters went for the Swans 29-1, the one being 'The Village Idiot' or is it 'Kiss of Death'......not sure, anyway I was thinking 'I hope the players don't see that.' I do think it's a definite possibility that there was a level of over confidence among the playing group pre-game.

[The Runner]

Firstly, foot sills are relative to the pressure from the opposition. Secondly, Judd was never an elite user. He was one of the worst elite midfielders when moving at pace - he never had a steadying step.

There was a moment Friday night when Seedsman was on a wing at a centre clearance, and had 30m to himself. Rohan was 30m away from him on the attacking side. Rohan gave chase and will get the stat for a pressure act (which he rated 2nd worst).
While they smashed is in the clearances, the Crows top 3 possession getters were defenders, running defenders. Which means Rohan, Hayward, Parker, Florent were well beaten as half forwards who are rated firstly on pressure.

The backline covered up what was one of our worst performances for some time.

[Foreign Legion]

Reid and Naismith not in your best 22? Post edit....I think I missed some sarcasm there.....ignore first question.

No worries stevo - I just got sick of the endless lists of Adelaide's injured players - some of whom I had never heard of. We are only down our 2 first choice Ruckmen.

[Sandrevan]

Thought I should calm down and get some perspective before I wrote on here. The lack of basic skills made it very frustrating to watch. The 50 m penalty that Hannebery gave away was just inexcusable.
Q1 - we couldn't get our hands on the ball and Sinclair got towelled up badly by Jacobs. Our goals in Q1 was against the run of play but the crows inaccuracy kept us in the game. We were lucky to be only 12 points down at quarter time.
Q2 - more of the same but we went into half time only 16 points down. I doubted the Crows would be able to keep up their frenetic pressure as the game wore on.
Q3 - we started to get some momentum. We got to within 3 points when Hewett marked and missed a very gettable goal. To me, that was a significant miss
Q4 - the reversal of Q1 where we were doing all the attacking but our poor kicking kept the crows in the game.

At the end of the game I thought the score flattered the Swans. I thought the crows were easily the better team on the night

I looked at the stats of the game. Overall it was very even which I found strange. The surprising stat was inside 50s where we had a lot more than the Crows by the end of the game. The free kick count was 17-16. Sinclair was beaten early but never gave up and had squared the ledger by the end.

The commentators like to talk about Sydneys stingy defence. Maybe our defence is good because they get so much practice during a game. There was a lot of desperate defensive work and we struggled to clear the D50 for most of the game. Conversely, the crows were able to rebound quite easily for most of the game. Lack of forward pressure by the swans.

What is going on with JPK? He doesn't look injured. There's no indication he had an interrupted pre-season. Is this the beginning of the end for JPK? The mid-field bull, the clearance king. He is just not the same player as last year.

We play Geelong next and have an extra day to recover. We sure need it.

[Meg]

JPK has had too much Swisse?

[Sandrevan]

There is lots of anger directed at the umpires but the free kick count was very close by the end. I can hear some of you saying it's the timing and field position of the frees that make a difference, not just the number.
We've all heard the saying 'Who dares wins', 'luck favours the brave', 'persistence beats resistance', etc. The AFL wants positive, fast, open footy. We hear the term 'the rub of the green'. My observation from watching AFL games is that 'the rub of the green' changes over the course of the game. I have a theory that the umpires are 'encouraged' to favour the team that is taking the game on and playing attacking footy. This may account for what we think of as inconsistent umpiring.
If the Swans basic footy style is contested/congested/ stoppage based play then we may be always complaining about the umpires. IMO we are always going to get a raw deal if we continue to play this way.
A while back Al Clarkson said 'we don't give a stuff about contested possessions'. But it's what he didn't say that might be more important. They care a lot about uncontested marks and possessions. The team that controls the ball controls the game.
The swans spend way to much energy playing contested footy. There is way too much 'kick it long to a contest' or 'just kick it towards Buddy even if he is double tagged'. We give up control of the ball too easily. This was so obvious against the crows.

[AB Swannie]

we may be always complaining about the umpires.

I think some people on RWO have hit this point some time ago.

[The Runner]

There is lots of anger directed at the umpires but the free kick count was very close by the end. I can hear some of you saying it's the timing and field position of the frees that make a difference, not just the number.
We've all heard the saying 'Who dares wins', 'luck favours the brave', 'persistence beats resistance', etc. The AFL wants positive, fast, open footy. We hear the term 'the rub of the green'. My observation from watching AFL games is that 'the rub of the green' changes over the course of the game. I have a theory that the umpires are 'encouraged' to favour the team that is taking the game on and playing attacking footy. This may account for what we think of as inconsistent umpiring.
If the Swans basic footy style is contested/congested/ stoppage based play then we may be always complaining about the umpires. IMO we are always going to get a raw deal if we continue to play this way.
A while back Al Clarkson said 'we don't give a stuff about contested possessions'. But it's what he didn't say that might be more important. They care a lot about uncontested marks and possessions. The team that controls the ball controls the game.
The swans spend way to much energy playing contested footy. There is way too much 'kick it long to a contest' or 'just kick it towards Buddy even if he is double tagged'. We give up control of the ball too easily. This was so obvious against the crows.

Clarkson said that at a time when the Hawks were down the bottom of the ladder and had won 5 of 40 contested ball counts. The metric itself is deceptive, which was his main point, as it's similar to hit outs - it doesn't indicate effectiveness.

The simple read on Friday night - we didn't get first hands on the pill and our forward line was unaccountable.