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

[lwjoyner]

We will be lucky to win another game on that performance. Worst since last year under eade v St Kilda, maybe ? Longmire, why isnt Blakey sitting in the box, who sits next to him now and is the sounding board.
At last r&w's are catching up to me regarding Lloyd as I said before how he won the B&F, worst kick in the side hits opposition more times than team mates. Need a real think on how and who we play
get thrashed next week against the tiges.

[caj23]

Unfortunately McInerney had possibly one of the worsed debut performances by a player from any club tonight! 1 disposal is almost un-heard of in modern footy! He is a far better player than that and I really hope they give him another chance next week, if for nothing else than to give him a bit of confidence as I'm sure he'll do much better 2nd time around.

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I'm sure he'll be fine in time but he clearly isn't ready yet, we basically played 1 short last night (2 if you include Blakey)

Blokes like COR, Rose and even Rowbottom would have every right to feel aggrieved about not getting a gig

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Interesting about Parker. Is he a player who stars when he has a good team around him, who is now unable to impose himself on a game. Leadership is sorely lacking. On Kennedy; I can't knock him because he always has a go, but his kicking has gone right off.

Parker is a 3rd -4th banana, not a second that he is currently being asked to play

Kennedy isn't the player he used to be but he's still being asked to be the main man, its a complete failure on the part of the club that they haven't planned for this

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They’ve turned on Buddy. Comical.

Agreed, we've got plenty of other issues, he's clearly still not right the way he kicked last night though

I can see why there is frustration though as when he is off, he is bad.

[ScottH]

I hope the real game is tonight and last night was just a warm up.

[AnnieH]

Are we tanking for priority draft picks?
Basic skills just aren't there. The AUSKICK KIDS were better at manning up, playing the ball, handballing out of traffic, taking easy marks and kicking goals.

Can someone tell me what the point of kicking it to no-one in particular is?

[RogueSwan]

Cut out most of the unforced errors and it could/would have been a different result last night.
Zac Jones is showing McVeigh like poise in traffic. Most improved so far this year.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

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

Players don't often reach their peak in their thirties, but perhaps he's the exception, that would be great for the club because we've still got 3 more seasons of Buddy to go after this one.
I wonder if the glamour will last to the very end?

[Blood Fever]

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.

Great post Liz with one exception. We've been spoilt for over TWO decades.

[mcs]

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.

While I agree Liz, I think what is frustrating is that we are playing what, at the moment is proving to be a very 'poor style' of footy.

Its one thing to play some decent, good to watch footy but still get beat because we are a group of younger players developing, that need patience. We have had moments where we have turned on some really good footy, but they have been few and far between so far. Too much of the football we have shown in the first 4 months has been, for want of a better term, pretty turgid. And that in part is being driven by what some might consider a tactical approach that is struggling to keep up with the times.

I too will enjoy watching the younger players develop, and hopefully seeing some more improved patches of football as the season goes on. But that doesn't mean I will find our 'bad' footy at times particularly enjoyable to watch, and I think that is why some in broad terms feel like it will be a long year. But you are right - we have been very spoilt for a long time.

I'm hoping this year will be like 2009 - disappointing as an overall season, but one in which the path forward begins to clearly emerge.

[Merdo5555]

Retention and recruitment is always difficult but have we made huge mistakes in letting Mitchell and Toby Nankervis. Can't recall that many players we have let go that have become crucial to their teams. I know salary cap roulette is difficult but I feel we erred big time letting these two go.

Hindsight is wonderful but I always thought we needed to keep both of them even if we had to sacrifice other top line players.

[Merdo5555]

Biggest worry for me is that our young players are going backwards. Development & coaching are not currently up to scratch. Time for Longmire to step aside, I would keep him at the club as a great resource for a new coaching group. Since we are sliding down the ladder I would like to see an inventive new coach come in, someone who is building the side towards the next evolution.

[liz]

While I agree Liz, I think what is frustrating is that we are playing what, at the moment is proving to be a very 'poor style' of footy.

Its one thing to play some decent, good to watch footy but still get beat because we are a group of younger players developing, that need patience. We have had moments where we have turned on some really good footy, but they have been few and far between so far. Too much of the football we have shown in the first 4 months has been, for want of a better term, pretty turgid. And that in part is being driven by what some might consider a tactical approach that is struggling to keep up with the times.

I too will enjoy watching the younger players develop, and hopefully seeing some more improved patches of football as the season goes on. But that doesn't mean I will find our 'bad' footy at times particularly enjoyable to watch, and I think that is why some in broad terms feel like it will be a long year. But you are right - we have been very spoilt for a long time.

I'm hoping this year will be like 2009 - disappointing as an overall season, but one in which the path forward begins to clearly emerge.

I actually found yesterday's game quite entertaining if you put the result aside. The first half they matched the Dees in the middle and won probably more than their share of the ground ball. They moved the ball reasonably quickly but weren't able to create as many easy (or flukey) shoring shots as the Dees.

Sure, they dropped off in both ball winning and skills in the second half, but when they did have the ball, there were attempts at fast ball movement. It's just that the skills had come unstuck and so it was turned over too easily. But they were trying to take some risks and move the ball quickly. The best movement of the game (from the Swans) came in the final quarter and resulted in Jack's second goal.

I think it was much better than what we served up in the first couple of weeks.

[liz]

Biggest worry for me is that our young players are going backwards. Development & coaching are not currently up to scratch. Time for Longmire to step aside, I would keep him at the club as a great resource for a new coaching group. Since we are sliding down the ladder I would like to see an inventive new coach come in, someone who is building the side towards the next evolution.

There are some on here who will find fault in literally everything the coaches try. During the week people wanted some new young players selected, but when the coaches obliged, they made a blue by picking a guy not ready for a game (according to comments on here). Had they picked Rose, they'd have made a blue too.

In the first half, when we were played some good footy, Florent and Heeney were very good. Jones continued to be a prime mover in the middle. Dawson played probably his best half of senior footy so far. Aliir was one of our best (all game, for me at least).

Papley was just so-so yesterday, but last week he played a pretty good game. As did Mills.

McCartin has been thrown into a new position but he's made some reasonable contributions down back over the past two weeks. I thought he was better yesterday than last week.

Who are these younger players who are going backwards? Sure, Ronke has struggled to have much impact this year but on the whole our younger (or less experienced) players are showing decent progression.

[caj23]

Great post Liz with one exception. We've been spoilt for over TWO decades.

No the Hawks and Cats have been spoilt

We've had a couple of great years but failed to fully capitalise on our talent over that period

[caj23]

There are some on here who will find fault in literally everything the coaches try. During the week people wanted some new young players selected, but when the coaches obliged, they made a blue by picking a guy not ready for a game (according to comments on here). Had they picked Rose, they'd have made a blue too.

In the first half, when we were played some good footy, Florent and Heeney were very good. Jones continued to be a prime mover in the middle. Dawson played probably his best half of senior footy so far. Aliir was one of our best (all game, for me at least).

Papley was just so-so yesterday, but last week he played a pretty good game. As did Mills.

McCartin has been thrown into a new position but he's made some reasonable contributions down back over the past two weeks. I thought he was better yesterday than last week.

Who are these younger players who are going backwards? Sure, Ronke has struggled to have much impact this year but on the whole our younger (or less experienced) players are showing decent progression.

I don't necessarily agree with Merdo's post but there are others who will blindly defend our coaches regardless of what they do.

I think most of us were surprised that Mcierney (sp) was selected ahead of others that had performed at a higher level to earn their spot (i.e. COR and Rose). I don't think he's a bust by any stretch of the imagination, but he clearly isn't ready for AFL senior level and we effectively played one man down last night.

[caj23]

I don't necessarily agree with Merdo's post but there are others who will blindly defend our coaches regardless of what they do.

I think most of us were surprised that Mcierney (sp) was selected ahead of others that had performed at a higher level to earn their spot (i.e. COR and Rose). I don't think he's a bust by any stretch of the imagination, but he clearly isn't ready for AFL senior level and we effectively played one man down last night.

I think Blakey probably needs to drop back to the NEAFL for a bit as while, I know he's agile but while he's not getting much of the ball he's making us top heavy up forward as well