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That was a spanking today. I was left shaking my head at the result. How the tables have turned since GWS first entered the competition. They don't really have a weakness and with excellent list management, are not likely to in the foreseeable future. We've got a lot of work to do and we need to build confidence and experience into our youngsters. I hope we can keep our list together long-term, but I can't see us winning a lot out of the middle this year. I'm with the Swans to the end, and I don't think I'm being pessimistic, but it would be miraculous if we play finals.
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We need to go hard after Hately and / or Caldwell come seasons end. Just can't win a clean clearance to save ourselves. Shows how dependent we are on the JPK / Parker show.Comment
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Parker and Kennedy look pretty average. Am worried the game has gone past them as they aren’t superstars anymore. Would love to see Parker play forward this year.
Naismith is far from the saviour. Smashed in the hit outs by Jacobs. Sinclair no better mind you.
I liked Dawson, Colin O, Cunningham and Gray.
GWS were missing a lot more (and better) players than us, not even including Taranto. Greene, Cameron, Whitfield, Coniglio, Williams, Haynes, Ward, Kelly etc. They had their entire midfield missing and we had Longmires first choice mids (Parker, Kennedy, Hewett, Rowbottom, Florent). Very concerning!Comment
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Our midfield coaches are Kennelly (a former defender) and McVeigh (first year of coaching.) We need to go back to the old ways where our coaches were experienced and had coached at multiple clubs over a number of years. Our midfielders look as though they have no idea what they are doing, and how can they? We don't know if their coaches know what they're doing either!Comment
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Didn’t watch it , glad reading these reports !
Common theme seems to be ‘smashed in the midfield’.
Hmmm If only we had a player rated as an elite inside midfielder , the best in his draft year, that we could try running through there....
Oh No, he’s an elite third tall defender, we’ll just get smashed out the middle and hope he can repel all 200 entries we concede instead...
obviously some sarcasm here and Mills to the middle may not work but, but we desperately need to try Something and this seems as good as an idea as any at this point. I’d happily rob our defence to shore up our midfield, we have more defensive depth and improving our midfield will ease the enormous pressure on our defence.
Whether Mills prefers playing defence or not ( and yes he was great the other night in the all star game ) he is required to play midfield for us this year. That is what we need from him, we need a reliable, composed, inside ball winner. Time to step up and be the match winner we recruited. Time for our coaches to step up and make the bloody call !
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In some ways I did not mind it.
I would rather this happen 3 weeks out from the season so we get an idea where we are really at and get a chance to work on our potential deficiencies. Rather than win an easy trial game that gives a false sense of optimism.
It was also good to see how individual players react under adversity when things are going against us. And also getting the chance to try things we have been working on in preseason and see whether it is effective.
The main similarity with the intra club game was the lack of fluency in the ball movement through midfield. Last week our best attacking play came from Papley, Blakey and Haywood creating it themselves when they got the ball on the counter attack.Comment
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Having never even played a game of footy, let alone at the elite level, how long would it take Mills to adjust to the midfield at an AFL level given he was only played defence? Could we afford to have him finding his feet there for a few months? (Genuine questions, would be interested in others thoughts)Comment
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I think they should play Dawson in the middle. We have others who can play off hbfHe had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.Comment
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Hopefully they use the next preseason game to try out things. Like playing Mills in midfield for a quarter or pushing Dawson further forward for part of the game. Late in the GWS game Blakey and Haywood seemed to be playing midfield to get them more involved.Comment
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Why is it that there are so many more calls for Mills to go into the midfield than Heeney?Comment
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I really liked what I saw of Mills in the Allies for the first three quarters at least. I would leave him in defence. The player who I believe looks more like a midfielder is Rampe. If Aliir, Brand, Mills, Melican and Maibaum can handle the tall defence positions I would like to see Rampe trialled at least in the midfield. I know people will say that is robbing Peter to pay Paul but the midfield is where we are desparate for a strong inside player. Rampe is strong and an elite kick. Main concern is his back standing up to it.
It is an even year. Going on historical data do not expect Sam Reid to even get on the park. I don't even know what his multiple injuries are but he only needs one injury to be out for a very significant amount of time.
Have not given up on the Swans yet as they are notoriously poor pre season but yesterdays performance was hitting a new low for them.Comment
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Heeney has played a fair bit of midfield time already and will continue to do so. All his best work has been forward of centre, or playing between mid and forward. His on ball work had been just ok. Mills could be better, or worse but we’ll never know if he keeps playing as a medium defender.Comment
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I’ve said the same before re : Rampe. However he is a far better defender than Mills, he’s an AA ( should be a dual AA , robbed last year ). If the consensus is Mills is too valuable to move out of defence than good luck getting Rampe out of there !
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