#AFL Round 4 Swans vs Dees Thur 11-Apr at SCG #AFLSwansDees @sydneyswans

[stevoswan]

Buddy’s kicks don’t travel as far as they did. Never seen so many fall short. That one when he got the handball from Parker was on line but didn’t make the distance. He must have missed at least 5 he used to kick. In the last quarter he gave one off he would normally have taken. End of an era?

Man recovering from groin surgery......he'll be back to his best, as long as he doesn't tweak it.

[Agent 86]

Lacklustre effort. We are better than that. Far too many passengers. And a poor crowd too.

Crowd knew better , I guess. I stayed home with a cold - glad I did. That was the worst game I’ve seen for a while.

Was good to see Ollie having a crack early - best half of footy I’ve seen from him. Beyond that, I liked Aliir’s efforts - would like to see that run out of defence a bit more. A shepherd or two would help. Not a lot else to be positive about. 5 scoring shots after half time is saying we’re in for a long painful year.

Looking at the draw, & with that display, I can’t see more than 4-5 wins this year - perhaps a #1 draft pick?

[Markwebbos]

Yeah we’ll be getting a pick in the top ten this year. Fo sho

[Agent 86]

I'm sure the AFL are regretting their decision to give us so many crappy night games. We haven't played well at night for a while now.

Don’t think so. Reckon they’re happy to see us at the bottom of the ladder.

[Plugger46]

They’ve turned on Buddy. Comical.

[Ludwig]

The expectations of what the Swans' can do this year are way too high. I've been on it for a while that we shouldn't be thinking about ladder position for the next couple of years.

We all got used to having a winning team year after year. I'm hoping for the best like the rest of us, but I can't see how we do it before more of our kids grow up and can compete with more mature players.

As I said earlier, I'm disappointed with Thurlow and not sure if he should be dropped. We probably need Melican and COR in the back line, even if they're not in the greatest form.

Rose and Cameron should probably be given a go. Sinclair has been great, under the circumstances, but we have to develop another ruckman, especially with the uncertainty surrounding Naismith. We need a ruckman who can compete better in ruck.

I'm happy to try different things. I've taken some positives out of the game. Dawson looked good at times, but a bit clueless at other times. He should improve to become a very good player in time. Florent had a great 1st half, but faded in the 2nd.

Aliir was very good, but should not be our fullback. He's much better playing looser in defence and being part of the counterattack.

Let's relax about the season and just let it happen. I think we are on the right path going forward. It will just take time. Chill out and enjoy.

[chalbilto]

I don't understand why they can't dominate on our home deck. The last couple of years the have won more away than at home. What's happened to the SCG "fortress"?

[Agent 86]

They’ve turned on Buddy. Comical.

Haha! Was thinking that.

[Agent 86]

I don't understand why they can't dominate on our home deck. The last couple of years the have won more away than at home. What's happened to the SCG "fortress"?

Dominate? I’d settle for “competitive “.

[Markwebbos]

They’ve turned on Buddy. Comical.

Who’s turned on Buddy?

He can’t kick it like he could. That’s a fact.

Really hoping Stevoswan is right and it’s a post surgery thing that will improve.

[neilfws]

Brief chat with fans on our train home. "Very disappointing" and "going to be a long season" came up more than once.

Has everyone already forgotten the two thumping beauties Buddy kicked here just 2 weeks ago. He just wasn't connecting tonight. Could well be the post-surgery. He'll be back. Does plenty of physical contest stuff round the ground that rarely gets a mention.

Looking for more positives...Heeney never gives up. I only hope he doesn't decide his career would be better served elsewhere when that time comes.

I liked Florent's run too, also Lloyd and Jones. Thought Hewett's tagging was OK for the first 1-2 quarters, but seemed like his targets really got away from him after that.

Have to feel for McInerney, didn't see him touch the ball all night, but plenty of good players have had a horror debut. And Sinclair just got monstered by Gawn.

Thursday losses, really set you up for the weekend don't they.

[liz]

Who’s turned on Buddy?

He can’t kick it like he could. That’s a fact.

Really hoping Stevoswan is right and it’s a post surgery thing that will improve.

It's not a fact - yet. He hasn't been able to so far this season. That's not enough evidence to confirm he's lost the ability for good. He's playing catch-up with his pre-season, after barely being able to train at all last year. After a while that takes its toll. It has to. He has been just a smidgeon slower this year, and he doesn't yet have the timing in his kicking but I'll back him to get it back.

As for the rest of the game/team, I thought our boys more than matched the very good midfield of Melbourne in the first half. We were wasteful in front of goal (and two goals we did get were from very soft - or non-existent -free kicks, while the Dees scored a few arsey ones to keep closer on the scoreboard than they should.

Clearly Melbourne were the better side in the second half and deserved their win in the end. Despite their poor start to the year, they are a pretty good side.

We can't know for sure, but I suspect part of the reason for the second half fade-out was fatigue, coming off a five day break. Five day breaks are pretty brutal on all sides. I'd be more concerned had we been shown up for skill/run in the first half and then staged a second half comeback, since it would be harder to attribute that to fatigue. Even the very poor skills in the second half were probably at least partly due to fatigue. Buddy looked shot towards the end. A couple of times the ball was loose in his zone and he just stood and watched it. That's very un-Buddy like.

There will always be complaints about selection, it seems. Sure, McInerney probably wasn't ready for a game, but I can guarantee there would have been lots of moaning had Rose been selected instead. Or Clarke. And it's likely that Rowbottom wouldn't have fared any better than McInerney. He was actually a lot better than a one-possession game suggests. There were a few times he cracked in and made a contest when it looked like the Dees were about to swoop away with the ball. I hope he gets one more go next week since there isn't really a ready player knocking down the door (if you exclude our NEAFL stand-out in Rose). Even if he doesn't do much more than he did today, he'll be better for the experience and I hate players getting dropped after just one game unless there's an experienced player returning from injury who pushes them out.

Blakey isn't yet able to contribute much during a game, but it's great getting glimpses of what he can do. That contest where he won himself a free kick, sandwiched between two Dees players, but didn't need it because he won the ball cleanly once it hit the deck was pretty impressive.

I really liked Dawson's first half. He finally started to look as if he believed he belongs. He faded in the second half, but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Heeney was another who was quietish in the second half, but early on he looked like he was going to tear the game apart. I wonder how much effect that (blatant in the back) tackle towards the end of the first half had on him. He was very slow to get up and must have been sore after it.

I thought Aliir was one of our shining lights. Ludwig reckons he's better value playing loose, but he's providing a lot of value as a close checking defender. Sure, he was beaten in a few contests, but he won far more than he lost. And he made ONE really bad disposal blue during the game. I doubt there were any team mates who made fewer. Rampe, possibly.

I thought Jack was really lively. He's unlikely to ever recapture his form of a few years ago, but he offered a lot tonight. If this is to be his last season, I hope he can make it a good one.

Mills was uncharacteristically poor overhead tonight, but last week he was one of our best. Maybe he's realised that if he's ever going to get a go in the midfield he needs to stop playing well in defence. Sadly, with McVeigh out, his chances of an imminent move have probably taken a dive.

Parker is a bit of a puzzle. He's one of the few we have in the middle with oodles of experience (along with Kennedy) but he's only played one really good quarter so far this season. We need him to refind his mojo and give a bit of support to Kennedy if we're to become more competitive this year. If he's carrying something of an injury, maybe he should be spending more time in the forward line to release Heeney to play further up the ground (assuming Heeney is fully over his ankle issue - last week he certainly seemed to be).

A few posters have bemoaned that "this is going to be a long year". That depends entirely on how you view this season. We've been utterly spoilt as Swans fans for more than a decade, expecting our team to qualify for the finals. I certainly hope the team has improvement in it this year but if we don't make the finals, it's not the end of the world. It's not like we have a team of ageing journeymen out there, performing poorly. Rather, we have a team with a lot of young and youngish players and I'm willing to be patient and enjoy watching them develop as the year goes on, even if the results aren't always as we'd like.

[Markwebbos]

Wonder if Parker is struggling with the additional responsibilities of captaincy? Some do.

[Plugger1300]

i was very impressed with the first half. Demons stayed in it by kicking some incredibly fluky/lucky goals.
However as soon as we started to lose the centre clearances John went straight back to being overly defensive.
Hence we have no one up forward.
It's excruciating to watch

I was bemused by the Melican bashing. I would have him in the side.
Especially in front of Thurlow who turned it over continually

[Auntie.Gerald]

I don’t think the sky is falling in despite the game last night so frustrating in the 3rd qtr in particular

A few comments :

1. We need a strong ruckman that can win 50% and negate the influence of the grundys , Gawn’s etc that destroy us in the centre. Naismiths tap work is so needed as a minimum to give us a chance in the middle. We have zero capacity to tap to our midfield players - which is such a disadvantage

2. We are so experienced player dependant this season more then ever ie Menzel, macca, Smith, Grundy when missing really exposes where we are at as a squad -we can even add Naismith and Hayward to that list now

3. In the season 2018 we had the most debutants in the competition and 2019 appears a development year also ie the players of the future are being brought in ahead of their time to experience AFL footy and that means some weeks we will look terrible due to inexperience

4. The long term upside for backing the players for the future is high but the short term pain will hurt.....COR, Blakey, McInerney, Thurlow, MCartin, Rowbottom, Dawson, Melican, Ling, Cameron etc will be up and down in 2019/20

I don’t think we can keep playing musical chairs looking for answers as we are without doubt on a very real development pathway in 2018/19 and if we want to be competitive again ASAP we need AFL continuity for our young guys go the future

Let’s respond not react - we need to back the players of the future now and provide them some consistent game time in AFL footy just like other clubs have endured such as the dogs, tigers, Melbourne, Carlton, Giants, bombers etc

We have the following teams to play next five rounds and it will be hard to watch but I have decided to refocus on what I am looking for given the cycle we are in

There is no point bashing my eyes against a scene I can’t control .....I’m looking forward to seeing small improvements in our young guys and as a team more flexibility in adapting to the game

Richmond
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