#AFL Round 4 Swans vs Bulldogs Thur 25-Jun at SCG #AFLSwansDogs

[Ludwig]

Your intense lobbying of Horse and the entire swans leadership team has finally born fruit. I dont know how many all-expenses trips to Thailand and visits to some less than scrupulous establishments in Bangkok it took, and to be honest, I dont want to know.

I think we saw the consequences of that in the coaches box last night when ruck-coach Dean Cox said to Horse in an animated way: "Why am I even here?"

Horse had no response. We are down the rabbit burrow, and there is no turning back now. Keep digging

Poor Horse. He looked so forlorn in his presser.

We have wasted so much time and effort the past half dozen years on building a team around a ruckman only to be left with an empty bag. Look at the NBA. Teams used to be built around a Center, like Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar. You don't see that any more. The Golden State Warriors played mostly without a Center in their championship years. And we are talking about a game with only 5 men on the court. AFL has 18; are we really going to place our hopes on one 18th of the team? It's make or break around this one player? It's a historical anomaly. We need to move past it.

We have a club stocked with a lot of fine young talent. I don't know what the right combination of players will be, but let's play them and find out.

The time has come for the Swans to go from Luckless to Ruckless. Let the new era begin.

[snajik]

Its understandable getting emotional after a loss, but hopefully just an aberration. They turned it on last week, last night they were off, yet showed signs of what they are capable of, and still in the game with 5-10 mins to go even though they played poorly for most of it. There's a number of factors at play, young side, short turnaround, a backline that is now without three of its stars. I think we'll need some patience. There's some good things going on too though.

Awful news about Sam. Some players have no luck.

[goswannies]

There was rumour on twitter before his press conference too. It may have been a leak or it may have been an astute observer of the tv coverage

Surely the opposition have someone watching the Swans bench? That’s one way they can tell if there’s an interchange error. And if that guy saw the Swans Doc go to Naismith, surely it’s not inconceivable that they would alert their own frizzy headed doc who could very easily see that our Doc was performing a Lachman’s test (that’s the only one they televised but I expect for due diligence they would have done an anterior draw and a pivot shift), but from the Lachman’s alone it’s a dead giveaway that they suspect a knee. Body language might give away any suspicions.

[707]

I'll repeat in the hope it filters to the coaches, Dawson forward, Mills to middle, Hayward back, get Gould in

[chuckie]

I think Horse is very concerned about Sam's mental health.

[MattW]

I think Horse is very concerned about Sam's mental health.

Yes. I'm sure the club will get around him.

[Blood Fever]

I didn’t take it that way - more that Longmire was surprised and perhaps annoyed that an opposition coach took it upon himself to announce an injury to a Swans player.

I don’t think it was appropriate that Beveridge did that (even Sam’s family might not have known at that stage) but I accept that it was a spontaneous comment made sympathetically.

Beveridge mentioned it with compassion for the player and the Swans.

[bloodspirit]

I am amazed that no one on this thread has mentioned contested marks. Our inability to do this is concerning. At half time it was 9 to zero and at the end it was 7 to 16. You cannot always deliver the ball perfectly up forward when you are under pressure, so that is why Contested marks are so important. I think this is a real problem for Horse.

Good point but has to be at least in part attributable to our three first choice KPFs being out injured as well as having a lack of KPDs since the departure of Teddy and Reg. Brand injured, Melican? Maibaum? Gould?

[stevoswan]

Game day threads are a cathartic way to vent your frustrations - everything said here is the equivalent of what you shouted at the TV while you were watching.

True, but I was replying to someone who said we have 'no future'......I actually think we have a bright future.

[waswan]

Naismith did his knee 15min mark of the 4th Qtr, the centre clearance for Papleys goal.
Kept on rucking, non jumping leg

[aguy]

Naismith did his knee 15min mark of the 4th Qtr, the centre clearance for Papleys goal.
Kept on rucking, non jumping leg

Wow. That is amazing from the big fella

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Just finished reading this thread and I'd like to welcome Markwebbos, gazza, gloveski, Melbourne_Blood, caj23 and AB Swannie to the Mcinerney bandwagon.
Please move towards the back of the vehicle so that other can climb aboard.

I'd like to officially announce that Mills to the midfield experiment is definitely worth persisting with. I don't think I'll take a seat at the moment, I'll just strap hang for now.

I really feel for Joey, especially after reading the article in the Herald Sun where he spoke about his grandfather's influence and how he wasn't able to see him recently because of the virus.

Does anyone else remember his actions on the ground after the 2012 granny? I hope he eventually got around to congratulating Joey

[Nico]

Nice summary of what I was just saying re Allir. I would however say our onballers didn't look slow against North or Crows so unless it was a 5 days break thing (which it could have been), we were just outplayed by their quality mids (plus an extra in English).

We play better in the afternoon.

[Nico]

I am amazed that no one on this thread has mentioned contested marks. Our inability to do this is concerning. At half time it was 9 to zero and at the end it was 7 to 16. You cannot always deliver the ball perfectly up forward when you are under pressure, so that is why Contested marks are so important. I think this is a real problem for Horse.

Hard to get a chance at a contested mark when players constantly kick it over their heads. Why is it when we have clean ball coming out of defence we then chip it 20 metres, our player stands with the ball looking for the next short kick until after about 5 tries we turn it over. Dawson is one of the biggest culprits. As I have said he plays to his weaknesses.

[Velour&Ruffles]

T

Plus we have a lot of our players in poor form and out of position - Dawson into HF, Blakey to wing, Brand to FB, Melican to CHB, Rampe loose defence, Hayward HBF, Alir into ruck with Sinkers, Mills into centre, Heeney to CHF, McCartin to FF.

10/10
Actually, 11/11