Sydney v Geelong match thread - Rd13

[troyjones2525]

Maybe I didn’t explain myself very well. The point of my post wasn’t so much to critique his tap work, though as I said, I thought he was very good last night.

The main point was to praise what he brings to our overall midfield posture and performance. We’ve often lamented on here the defensive set up we’ve deployed in the centre square and at stoppages. But with Grundy’s arrival, we’ve moved to an offensive system that allows us to exploit the elite and explosive mids we have. That’s partly because they have faith that not only will he win a good share of contests, but he’ll halve plenty too and then serve as another big body clearing space, tackling and winning the ball at ground level. That’s before you even account for what he does around the ground. Even look at Rowie this year. He’s gone from a bloke who clung on, tackled and scragged for dear life, to a player who now also has the confidence to hunt the ball. Five centre square clearances last night.

Getting Grundy to the club has been a masterstroke. As our young mids come into their prime and now have the strength and tank to take advantage of their footy ability, Grundy’s presence has given them the added confidence needed to go full bore forward.

Hope that makes better sense.

Totally agree, particularly the comments about Rowy. He was great yesterday and got first hands on it a number of times out of the middle which is fantastic! So underrated!

Wish he had kicked that goal to top his game off! Needs to work on that a bit.

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[troyjones2525]

Amartey really is. Tremendous high contested mark and has become an excellent, clutch goal kicker. He is quick for a big guy and is getting better at consistently applying defensive pressure in the forward 50. Also running out games better.

A little surprised and very impressed. He's clearly worked hard on his game.

Not a bad return for a second round rookie draft pick!

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Spot on! I remember when Amarty first came to the club, he was such a great athlete and already a strong pack mark, but his kicking was 50/50, even at close range.

He has clearly worked really hard on that and his all round game to get where he is now. It's a credit to him and also to Kinnear and team for seeing the potential in him.

Can't wait to see him continue to develop and hope his body stays healthy!

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[i'm-uninformed2]

It might be a tiny thing that I’m overplaying, but I reckon you see little things in great sides that show you how switched on they are.

With Chad’s final goal, Logan veers out to the open side of the ground as soon as he kicks it. Chad was always likely to win the race but there were three or four Cats in the vicinity to sweep it away if the ball bounced their way. And in the event they did, Logan had moved to close off their exit rather than stand back and admire the play.

As I said, a tiny and unrewarded thing but they all add up.

[BRS328]

I’m
Completely agree with everything you said, but there is one thing he also does very well. In the last quarter when Geelong was threatening after kicking successive goals, Grundy’s defensive efforts on the backline were outstanding.

[troyjones2525]

It might be a tiny thing that I’m overplaying, but I reckon you see little things in great sides that show you how switched on they are.

With Chad’s final goal, Logan veers out to the open side of the ground as soon as he kicks it. Chad was always likely to win the race but there were three or four Cats in the vicinity to sweep it away if the ball bounced their way. And in the event they did, Logan had moved to close off their exit rather than stand back and admire the play.

As I said, a tiny and unrewarded thing but they all add up.

Yep, that's fantastic. He's a smart footballer, and I hope he starts getting some reward for his hard work.

They are a well drilled team and seem to have a real focus and hunger. Let's hope they can keep the focus up for the entire year and reward Horse with another flag as he deserves it.

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[SwanSand]

Grundy the most important swan for us to win the game. We haven’t seen our depth in ruck and we don’t want to see it I guess.
Geelong and particularly Cameron got going in the last minute due to Blakeys absence so actually the score flattered them.
Chris scott is not telling the truth and wants to keep his rucks confidence up, Grundy was enormous and probably the best player on ground.

[stevoswan]

So is the 11 goal turnaround and 5 goal win against the third placed team “on the coach”?

Yeah, it amazes me that there are still apparent Horse haters out there who, at the first negative sign, take the chance to knock the man who has coached us to a sustained decade plus period of excellence containing four GF appearances and currently has us on top two games clear of the rest of the competition with a game in hand. It's baffling and frankly annoying.

[stevoswan]

Yes it is... and at the time of posting I stand by my comment... it's easy to scroll through a forum and pick things off after the fact... well done to you...

I would call it 'jumping the gun with frustrated but unwarranted negativity'......which looks embarrassing later.....but that's just me. Relentlessly optimistic about the team I love and the man who has coached them for 13 seasons now.

Having said that, I too was unimpressed and worried by our start and did think the same as you in that this team may have been believing their own hype and getting ahead of themselves....but if that was true, I would put that solely on the players.....besides trying to keep the team grounded the coach has nothing to do with that once the players are out on the ground but boy, the coach got them back on track pretty darn effectively I reckon.

[waswan]

Amartey turned a corner in that Freo game, been a different player since then.

Jumps at the ball instead of worried about body first, makes a huge difference when your that size

[KTigers]

Yes, the first few pages of this thread were pretty funny. Especially when talking about a team that was 10-and-1 at the
time and was coming off a bye. I think it's pretty unrealistic to expect us to play well all of the time. There is another
team out there trying to do their thing and stop us from doing ours. Sometimes they will be good at it. Unfortunately.

[Hotpotato]

A magical day at the footy. You could sense a turnaround , but would it really eventuate (without even mentioning the trip to the 22 Granny).
This group love playing together, its all exuberance and infectious and of course delightful to be there.
Took my daughter and her BF (from San Fran) to his first game of AFL. Hes totally hooked now - astonished as he was with the speed, skills and athleticism.
Explained all the rules, now hes another expert .
Horse goes; theres still improvement to come .
Yeah righto. Just maintain the high quality footy.
Its a joy to watch.

[i'm-uninformed2]

Amartey turned a corner in that Freo game, been a different player since then.

Jumps at the ball instead of worried about body first, makes a huge difference when your that size

As someone who frustrated me early in the year he’s going great guns. Making a bucket of contests. The goal to Chad in Q4 doesn’t happen without him crashing that pack that was a two v one.

[Kafka's Ghost]

As someone who frustrated me early in the year he’s going great guns. Making a bucket of contests. The goal to Chad in Q4 doesn’t happen without him crashing that pack that was a two v one.

Spot on. He’s crashed packs for weeks now, as has McLean and to a lesser extent the still more lightly-built McDonald. Their work is bringing our smaller forwards and smart mids into goal scoring positions. It’s brilliant to watch.


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[Mel_C]

Yeah, it amazes me that there are still apparent Horse haters out there who, at the first negative sign, take the chance to knock the man who has coached us to a sustained decade plus period of excellence containing four GF appearances and currently has us on top two games clear of the rest of the competition with a game in hand. It's baffling and frankly annoying.

On Footy Furnace last night they highlighted that yesterday was Longmire's 200th win as coach and that he has a winning percentage of 63%.

[Scottee]

Exactly - I have been following the Swans for over 50 years and I do believe this is the best Swans team I have ever seen over that period.

Ditto!

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