#AFL Rd19 Bombers v Swans, Docklands, 27 July 2018

[stevoswan]

While we aren't playing good right now, we are still top 8 just outside the four. We managed to turn it around from worse than this last year. We got some injures, and our kicking in the forward half has been ordinary all year, but I'll back the players to tutn it around. A few of those fringe players like Fox Newman and Towers are out of form, but we know how well they can play if they can find a bit of form add in the progress of young guys like Dawson, Ronke, O'Roidan and Allir, I think there's alot reasons to think we can make a good run at. Not sure we can drop too many as we've only half dozen odd players in the 2s.

At this time last year, we were in an infinitely better position than we are now, especially considering our 0-6 start. We were firing this time last year with the only worry being will we eventually wilt after having played a final virtually every week. This year we've stumbled along winning ugly but never really playing great footy and now the wheels are just falling off. Our stumble has become a drunken crawl and the unrelenting umpire battering, which shows no sign of abating, is also taking it's toll. The old adage, "there's always next year" has never been more apt. I love your optimism and I'm usually pretty optimistic and keep the faith but frankly, if we make the finals, it will be a 'Bloods' miracle........

[stevoswan]

Edit: Wrong thread.....

[Nico]

Harsh penalty even if he goes over the top too often. Walker got one week for a worse hit against Toohey.

Agree. At the game it looked like a solid side bump that got him high. When I saw the replay I thought the same and it wasn't as if the player had his head over the ball. I didn't think a bump was inappropriate in the situation.

[Nico]

The only 2 players last night who could hit a player on the chest, lace out, were Allir and Cunningham. That is saying a lot about our skill level. The Grundy to the forward line move seems to have been answered, but why did O'Riordan go to the wing so early. The back line played well for almost 3 quarters. How in the hell is a player to learn and get experience under pressure. Agree on Dawson. If he got his big stats in the 2's on the ball then why wasn't he put in there.

My hobby horse; centre clearances. How bad were we. They took it out with regular monotony with little or no contest and secondary ball ups because we were so noncompetitive. "No idea Hewett" was intent on holding or blocking his opponent so he is a waste of time in there. The one clearance he got fell in to his hands, a scrappy round the corner kick. They went with Parker, Kennedy, Hewett and Heeney almost every time, yet they were getting flogged. No wonder we are so down on forward entries and a forward structure that falls down. We don't give our forwards the quick opportunity to beat their opponent. We don't get that chaos ball into the forward line to unsettle a defence. Papley, Ronke and Hayward would be much better players with these opportunities.

[waswan]

Alir needs to be allowed ro play on as its the only way we offer anything different out of defence
Ramps needs to be more a run off backmen is a waste as a lockdown defender
And our young boys need to be told how to seperate and then spread
The amount of times we went forward and they did 3 handballs covering 8m was easy pickings for any AFL tackler
Look at GWS spread across the ground and run we run almost single file

[goswannies]

Past few losses of ours, the footy Gods still smiled on us with other results. Even they are abandoning us now

Stinking Crows

[Hotpotato]

From 4th to 9th, if Dees hang on.
Wow, you wouldn’t see that very often.

[Blood Fever]

Agree. At the game it looked like a solid side bump that got him high. When I saw the replay I thought the same and it wasn't as if the player had his head over the ball. I didn't think a bump was inappropriate in the situation.

He was trying to force the ball our way.Head contact was not intentional.

[0918330512]

From 4th to 9th, if Dees hang on.
Wow, you wouldn’t see that very often.

The previous losses other results mostly fell our way. Not so much this weekend

[YvonneH]

We are where we deserve to be this season.
We have been spoilt for the last decade and a bit.

[Matty10]

I don’t really understand why Jones is offered a penalty at all for the hit on Langford.

I also don’t understand why he cops so much criticism here.

[Markwebbos]

My hobby horse; centre clearances. How bad were we. They took it out with regular monotony with little or no contest and secondary ball ups because we were so noncompetitive. "No idea Hewett" was intent on holding or blocking his opponent so he is a waste of time in there. The one clearance he got fell in to his hands, a scrappy round the corner kick. They went with Parker, Kennedy, Hewett and Heeney almost every time, yet they were getting flogged. No wonder we are so down on forward entries and a forward structure that falls down. We don't give our forwards the quick opportunity to beat their opponent. We don't get that chaos ball into the forward line to unsettle a defence. Papley, Ronke and Hayward would be much better players with these opportunities.

That’s how it looked to me too re: clearances. Yet the stats are 35-34. Admittedly centre 16-10. Hewett was much more effective early in the year. Seems to have lost his way the last 3-4 weeks.

[liz]

That’s how it looked to me too re: clearances. Yet the stats are 35-34. Admittedly centre 16-10. Hewett was much more effective early in the year. Seems to have lost his way the last 3-4 weeks.

Agree with your observation on Hewett. Early in the season he looked like one of the clear improvers on the list and was contributing significantly to contested ball wins. Then he started getting close tagging roles and performed many of them admirably while still getting plenty of the ball. But in the last few weeks he is not managing to shut anyone out of the game and nor is he generating clearances of any note.

We may well miss the finals from here, which might disappoint us (and the team) because we've gotten so used to it. But it won't be a complete disaster. The coaches still need to get something out of the last four games. We play Collingwood, Melbourne, GWS and Hawthorn - all teams still in the finals race and probably more likely than not to make it (especially with Adelaide seemingly now out of the race, North faltering and us looking very shaky). That's four good opponents.

Player availability and physical condition of those in the team may be having a significant effect on how the team is functioning but it doesn't completely explain how badly the team's performances have dropped away since the Richmond loss (which we went into with many commentators tipping us to win). Apart from the North game - which now looks like an anomaly - confidence has taken a huge battering. Collingwood are still playing pretty good football (even with their loss yesterday to Richmond) despite a worse injury situation than us.

So Horse has to find a way to mentally free up the players we do have out there, and one thing he could do is to relieve Hewett of run-with obligations and get him to go out there and play a primarily offensive role, especially at centre clearances.

[Scottee]

I think our performances are to a great extent determined by key injuries, in particular Buddy, JK, Hanners and Reid and to a lesser extent Naismith and Mills.

The situation highlights the ability of the assistant coaches the get the best out of their players.

Backs are doing well, mids are a disaster and the forwards have been OK at times.To be fair the mids and the forwards have been worst hit by injuries.

It's hard to attribute how much of the performance can be attributed to the coaches , however I noticed that in the Suns game, an attribute that we used to have nailed, tackling and being able to stand up in a tackle, has diminished, whilst the Suns were looking very Swans like in their tackling. So was Stewey Dew the key to that aspect of our game and his loss the reason we are falling away?

If you were told at that both Buddy and KJ were going be playing injured all year and that Reid would hardly play any games you would write off our chances. Add to that Hanners and Mills and you definitely wouldn't back them.Horse can't be blamed for that.

The positives are the unearthing of McCartin, and Ronke and the resurrection of Aliir. But that just doesn't make up for the losses.

Time to think about next year.

Sent from my SM-T805Y using Tapatalk

[Ralph Dawg]

All this talk about taking the game on, using speed and running through the corridor is all fine - if you have the cattle. We dont at the moment, pure and simple. The safety first game plan, with extras at the contests (which we are still losing) and flooding back into defence allowing our opposition to double / triple team an injured buddy along with kicking long down the line and bombing into forward 50 all reflect the composition of the fit players on our list. People talking about plan B's and sacking the coaching staff would be the first to jump up and down too if we were getting flogged due to an attempt to implement a fast, high risk footy which our list is not suited to. The other issue is all the injuries we have had and the subsequent dependence on alot of players who normally would've been support acts. These guys did well for a while but it is clear that they are now running out of steam. The expectation wouldve been for these guys to become elite players, week in, week out in a few years time, not now and it is really starting to show. What highlights this in particular is that we have an 18 year old key forward, who wouldnt have even been expected to play AFL this year (mind you he has done pretty well). On top of this, our genuine superstars Kennedy and Franklin are both clearly playing injured but there is no way they can be rested unless we decide to give up on the finals this year. It was so sad to see Franklin continually get beaten by first Thompson then Hurley over the last fortnight when we all know, if fully fit, he would've smashed both of them. So where to? My personal feeling is we need to rest our injured stars. If we fluke it into the finals, then they can come back fully fit and do some damage. If we don't then so be it and we can move ahead to 2019, aiming for a fully fit list. We also need to keep the fringe players in the team, no more chopping and changing unless for injury, make it clear that they are playing for their futures, and see what they can do.