Round 11 v Richmond Friday 7:50 pm SCG Pre Game Thread.

[liz]

Reid played much better than Amartey in the magoos last week.

Not in the game I watched.

They were both good and each took a lot of marks but Reid’s kicking was ordinary.

[Ludwig]

I agree with Liz that both Reid and Amartey were good, but Reid's goal kicking was woeful. Perhaps if the ruckman out was Ladhams and not Hickey we might have gone with Amartey, but Longmire is conservative and Reid brings the security of experience. It might have been too many unknowns and not enough stoppage practice together to carry both Ladhams and Amartey in the ruck. I would have still gone with Amartey, but I'm a bigger risk taker than the coach. I don't think this selection will be a game changer and surely Amartey will get his chance if he continues with his recent form.

The time has come where the whole team needs to put in a committed 4 quarter effort, especially at the SCG. It may be Dreamtime, but for the Swans, DoTime has arrived.

[TheBloods]

The time has come where the whole team needs to put in a committed 4 quarter effort, especially at the SCG. It may be Dreamtime, but for the Swans, DoTime has arrived.

Dont mean this as a negative but i dont reckon we are capable of it . We have young players up and down , even our best ones.

We are still carrying too much dead weight in the team who arent good enough to pick up slack and shouldnt be getting games so often for us

Teams are stopping us from using corridor , we are turning it over in that part of the ground more than last yr and its not just because Dawson is gone .They know we are going there.

Lots to work on . Kids need more time in the gym over off season , more talent needs to be added to our list improve our depth , coaches need to be less predictable with the corridor . Busy off season needed for everyone employed at the Swans . Reason to panic , i dont think so. You look at rabble like NMFC and we are just fine .

[KSAS]

Hoping Tom Hickey's toe issue isn't serious and that he'll able to resume the following week against Melbourne, where he'll be so much needed. The MC might have taken this into consideration and possibly explains Tom's less than usual influence last few weeks.

They may've also thought it might not be in Armatey's best interest to play just one game to make way for Hickey the following the week. He is likely to replace Ladhams should injury/form curtail him.

Horse did comment earlier in the year when Logan McDonald was dropped, that he had to find sustained form in the reserve's so that he doesn't find himself getting dropped from the seniors every 2nd week and impact his confidence. The same thinking might being applied to Armatey so that he can enjoy a longer party when he's selected.

[bloodspirit]

Longmire is conservative ... I'm a bigger risk taker than the coach.

The time has come where the whole team needs to put in a committed 4 quarter effort, especially at the SCG. It may be Dreamtime, but for the Swans, DoTime has arrived.

Two comments about this:

1. John Longmire is not solely (or even principally) responsible for selection - there is a whole match committee for that, and it includes Pyke, Cox, Macca and Gardiner.

2. Horse is not that conservative. While he may not be as big a risk taker as you, he tries his best to win every week (hence selection of Reid over Amartey) and he has blooded a lot of youth in recent seasons. In fact I think he used to be more conservative, until about 5 years ago. 10 years ago not that many draftees were getting their debut in their first season at the Swans. In the past few years, it's been a deluge. Last year all three new draftees were squeezed into the R1 team. In the three years before that we had debuted something like the equal most players of any team. Tonight we have a second debutant in an already young team. That is not conservative selection. I don't know where our team ranks for age currently but I reckon if you left Bud out we'd be one of the younger teams, possibly youngest in the top 8? Impressively, our games played/age ratio is very good. Again, good evidence of not overly conservative selection.

I do agree that the responsibility for the results lies more with our players than our coaches and the emphasis has to be on the players giving a strong 4 quarter effort.

[RogueSwan]

... I don't know where our team ranks for age currently but I reckon if you left Bud out we'd be one of the younger teams, possibly youngest in the top 8? ...

I think I heard a few rounds ago we were the third youngest team but about the middle of the pack for games experience. Neilfws would probably love to run a spreadsheet on those stats

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/...tics?mid=10625 shows that we were considerably older and more experienced than the Blues
and then it swings the other way this weekend

https://www.footywire.com/afl/footy/afl_team_selections#10639

[ugg]

Fox and O'Riordan sitting out the VFL game being played now.

[Roadrunner]

Dont mean this as a negative but i dont reckon we are capable of it . We have young players up and down , even our best ones.

We are still carrying too much dead weight in the team who arent good enough to pick up slack and shouldnt be getting games so often for us

Teams are stopping us from using corridor , we are turning it over in that part of the ground more than last yr and its not just because Dawson is gone .They know we are going there.

Lots to work on . Kids need more time in the gym over off season , more talent needs to be added to our list improve our depth , coaches need to be less predictable with the corridor . Busy off season needed for everyone employed at the Swans . Reason to panic , i dont think so. You look at rabble like NMFC and we are just fine .

Fair observations TB, but please tell us just who the”too much dead weight” players are? For me, it’s Wicks but then many hold that he plays a team role. Of course there’s you know who but we all know that. So who else? Ollie and Wilbur? They can drift a bit but you can’t call them dead weight. They would get a game in all but the top 4, and even there they would be ok. Both on 100 games. So who else are you talking about?

[MattW]

Ah, ffs Jon Ralph on Twitter: "Nick Blakey out as a late change for Sydney with flu @FOXFOOTY"

[neilfws]

I think I heard a few rounds ago we were the third youngest team but about the middle of the pack for games experience. Neilfws would probably love to run a spreadsheet on those stats

Yes, I thought that would be fun but it turned out to be quite challenging! Games is easy, but joining players to date of birth is surprisingly tricky. Especially when several share names.

There's also the question of how to define things.

"Team" could be defined several ways. I've gone with all players who have played a game in 2022 (to the end of Round 10).
Age - we can try average (mean), but that is skewed by much older players, so we can try median too.
"Games experience" - well that could be total, or mean, or median, let's try them all.

The table below is sorted by total games and indeed the Swans are about "middle of the pack", 9th. If you sort by average games, 6th. By median games, 10th.

Sorted by average age the Swans are 11th and by median age, 14th (or 5th youngest so yes, not far off third).
I guess it would look a little different if we looked at the entire squad, or just the seniors, or whatever.

Team	mean_age	median_age	mean_games	median_games	total_games	n_players
Geelong	26.57	26.36	129.84	110	4155	32
Richmond	25.83	25.84	103.41	81.5	3516	34
West Coast	25.32	24.62	80.67	40	3469	43
Port Adelaide	25.04	24.75	92.41	84.5	3142	34
Brisbane Lions	25.15	24.32	94.06	88	3104	33
Western Bulldogs	25.1	25.1	83.44	75	3004	36
Melbourne	25.08	25.9	99.37	116.5	2981	30
Collingwood	24.9	24.66	87.03	58	2959	34
Sydney	24.68	23.72	92.19	59	2950	32
Greater Western Sydney	24.92	23.94	79.49	44	2782	35
Hawthorn	24.5	23.34	84.15	56	2777	33
St Kilda	25.35	25.81	84.25	73.5	2696	32
Carlton	24.05	23.98	69.64	70	2507	36
Gold Coast	24.57	24.94	74.24	66	2450	33
Essendon	23.92	24.4	66.83	54	2339	35
North Melbourne	23.91	22.82	69.48	44	2293	33
Fremantle	24.09	23.71	71	51	2201	31
Adelaide	23.73	22.82	62.5	36	2125	34

[Markwebbos]

The Mongrel Punt awarded votes thus:

5 – Liam Baker
4 – Lance Franklin
3 – James Rowbottom
2 – Chad Warner
1 – Trent Cotchin