R11 Sydney v Carlton at the SCG, The Marn Grook Game - Match Thread

[i'm-uninformed2]

How lucky we were and are to have Micky O associated with our club - great seeing him singing the song with the team last night. Watching him progress from scrawny slightly-lost draft pick in early reserves games through to being a champion player and now on to being a Board member and founder of indigenous organisations has been a highlight of my footy supporting time.

Agree. We’ve had (slightly) better players but you ask me to nominate my all time, love kinda in the way our dearly missed friend The Bloods loved Chad, player in 30 years of cheering on the Swans, and it’s Micky O. Just pure joy watching him.

It saddens me that there is a risk when Bud retires at the end of the year that we could the only club in the AFL without an Indigenous player on our list. I get you can only trade or draft what’s in front of you, and that may yet be rectified at end of season, but for a club with a history of having some of the great Indigenous players in the AFL’s history on their list, it’s not great. And I suspect it’d get some scrutiny.

[Nico]

I reckon that had be to Hayward's best career game. He got up the ground and presented and spread and had almost double his average disposals with 20. Hopefully he can now become a consistent contributor.
That's more like it from JMac. He was consistent across 4 quarters and not just an outside player. Another who had strong 2 way running and ran to space and created.
After watching the replay I thing Chad was BOG. If Blakey hadn't turned over 3 of his dashes then he gets the chocolates.
Hickey made a huge difference at centre clearances and mostly tapped to the advantage of our players.
Finally our mids went straight for the footy at centre bounces. Parker made a concerted effort to be in front of his opponent.
Wicks played like his life depended on it and found the form he showed when he first came into the side. Looks like he has weaned himself off the angry pills.
From a team perspective they turned around almost all the deficiencies of last week on the back of super pressure on their opponents.
We constantly closed down on Carlton and forced errors.
We were better at forward pressure but they still took the ball out of our forward too easily too often.
We were far better at handballing to a moving target and our kicking was way more efficient.
Did Isaac put himself front and centre to be an onballer?
Forgot to mention Melican. Another who had an almost career best game. Hardly made a mistake and was very disciplined. I thought he would be all at sea against their talls.
Onwards and upwards.

[i'm-uninformed2]

Also something is seriously wrong within Carlton. I think they have a list that could be challenging for the flag but they’re all playing without confidence.

Personally doubt Voss will see out the season.

I’ve always thought the opposite of Carlton - that they completely overrate their list. They’ve got some elite players in Curnow, McKay, Cripps and Weitering when they’re at their best. But they’ve also got a lot of plodders. They’ve got a one paced midfield, poor small forwards (though I think Motlop has potential) and bar Weitering, average defenders. Even Saad, I think is a lot of flurry for not much meaningful damage.

[AB Swannie]

Had the blues key forwards kicked straight we actually don’t win that match

FWIW, the expected score gurus had us winning…. albeit by only 0.3 points.

Expected score

[i'm-uninformed2]

Just out of interest how many minutes did everyone think Heeney matched up on Cripps?

I saw Parker, Warner, Heeney continually swapping on their run with on Cripps

But I did think the addition of a Heeney is that rotation was super important

Yep. Posted during the game they were rotating on him. It seemed Heeney took more as the game wore on, but the rotation had the benefit of both easing the load on the two players, as well as giving Cripps differing things to have to adjust to. It was great coaching.

As for Parker (and Cerra), the one week suspension is tough, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the Swans try to challenge the medium impact element, but it seems very consistent with how they’ve ruled this year and the tribunal will probably uphold the ban.