Game Day Round 5 - Sydney Swans v Fremantle Dockers - 240 pm WST SCG

Remove this Banner Ad

strobe00

Norm Smith Medallist
Nov 18, 2010
5,080
2,496
AFL Club
Fremantle
Couldn't tell if that beauty was provided by umpire 7 but I reckon that bloke screwed us with non calls on quite a few occasions in the first few quarters.

he was sh!t. Worse than margetts last week.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

caterina

Cancelled
Jul 5, 2011
3,037
3,186
AFL Club
Fremantle
In what way?

I think the opposite to be honest, but would be interested to know what made the hawks game preferable.

Just a few things off the top of my head
a. Hawthorn have our measure, we haven't come close to them in years, and we were never going to beat them with Dawson, Barlow and Fyfe out. I think we played accordingly.
b. We had 20 of the 22 on the park that beat Sydney in the prelim, and they are on exposed form not the same side they were last year, but now they have beaten us. That is more concerning about where we are placed than losing to the best team in the comp
c. The way Sydney picked apart our game plan shows it's not just one team that can do it
d. So therefore, I am worried that a trend is emerging, it's early days and it's hopefully just a blip on the radar but this is ringing alarm bells for me. We'll beat north but the Eagles and Port are going to test us out big time, and then we have Geelong. If you think Sydney wanted revenge, wait until we see the Cats. On our current form, three 50-50 games after North. We could be going into the bye outside the eight if we continue to play like we did yesterday.
 

jusjoshin

Club Legend
Oct 22, 2008
2,483
2,103
Gosnells
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
Perth Scorchers, East Side Hawks
Settle down everyone. We have just come off a 6 day break from a game played in 35 degree heat. We lost because we couldn't run. Everybody was dead on their feet.

Our skills were shyte. Our pressure was shyte. We looked slow. It was fatigue.
 

strobe00

Norm Smith Medallist
Nov 18, 2010
5,080
2,496
AFL Club
Fremantle
Settle down everyone. We have just come off a 6 day break from a game played in 35 degree heat. We lost because we couldn't run. Everybody was dead on their feet.

Our skills were shyte. Our pressure was shyte. We looked slow. It was fatigue.

it did look like there were issues with how we were defending clearances. They kept doing the same thing. We had to scrap like hell to get it free. When they got the ball they'd typically make a couple of quick handballs back and to the side, then a long one outside to a player that wasn't manned up.

Happened over and over.

The number of times we tried to handball our way out of trouble, or tried a dinky short kick, and turned it over was worrying. Can understand why, as they annihilated us when we bombed inside 50.

but we seemed to structure up less effectively when spreading than they did.
 

couldhavebeen

Premiership Player
Jun 6, 2012
3,947
3,856
success
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
Perth lyncs
Hill's easily been one of our best players this year and was good again tonight. He was one of few players who could actually hit a target. He didn't dominate tonight but was still one of our better players. You make a good point about Silvagni, just don't think we can play four tall defenders.
Silvagni can and has played at both ends of the ground . If you play him off the bench you can insert him into the game where ever we are being hurt .
He is strong and loves a contest so he can be used in the midfield just like Pav .
 

Dead Weight

Debutant
Apr 19, 2014
55
37
AFL Club
Fremantle
Mayne and De Boer more so, but we can't afford to have all three of those players down in the one game. With Walters out, there goes all our forward pressure.

I don't know that Balla is out of form per ce. I think with the emergence of Walters he's now being asked to be more defensive. He does seem to get to the right spots for a crumber and he still has that x factor around goal. In saying that he probably needs to work on keeping his feet and his contested marking has slipped a little, IMO.
 

slicedndiced

Premiership Player
Feb 4, 2014
4,860
6,009
still sinking
AFL Club
Fremantle
I don't know that Balla is out of form per ce. I think with the emergence of Walters he's now being asked to be more defensive. He does seem to get to the right spots for a crumber and he still has that x factor around goal. In saying that he probably needs to work on keeping his feet and his contested marking has slipped a little, IMO.

Five foot nothing FP/HFF's shouldn't be involved in contested marking though.

He has been keeping his feet far better than in the past.
 

Dead Weight

Debutant
Apr 19, 2014
55
37
AFL Club
Fremantle
Five foot nothing FP/HFF's shouldn't be involved in contested marking though.

He has been keeping his feet far better than in the past.

Agreed. Although he has been involved in several marking contests of late and I can't remember a single one where he took the grab. Lyons gamestyle dictates that the smaller guys like Balla and Walters will be targets inside 50 at times. Walters seems to grab them more often than not. Overall though, I feel Balla does his job and isn't/shouldn't be in the firing line. He's certainly not our worst, by a long margin.

As for keeping his feet, agreed it's better, but he does slip from time to time. I think his ability to accelerate probably contributes a bit - His legs are too quick for his body!
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

slicedndiced

Premiership Player
Feb 4, 2014
4,860
6,009
still sinking
AFL Club
Fremantle
Agreed. Although he has been involved in several marking contests of late and I can't remember a single one where he took the grab. Lyons gamestyle dictates that the smaller guys like Balla and Walters will be targets inside 50 at times. Walters seems to grab them more often than not. Overall though, I feel Balla does his job and isn't/shouldn't be in the firing line. He's certainly not our worst, by a long margin.

As for keeping his feet, agreed it's better, but he does slip from time to time. I think his ability to accelerate probably contributes a bit - His legs are too quick for his body!


I was annoyed to see him streaming on a lead through true CHF on a number of occasions last night .

No doubt that it was to try and relieve the double team/floater working on Pav and to make up for Maynes presently dismal form, but the smallest bloke on the ground shouldn't be doing that.

And yes, his bloody legs go too quick for his body, so he doesn't check sufficiently to take those marks on the lead. You need mitts like Stewart Loewe or Araldite on your fingers to stick grabs like that at full speed.
 

ROYISHUNGRY

Team Captain
Mar 6, 2012
389
242
Perth
AFL Club
Fremantle
It's gonna be a long week after that performance........back to watching re-runs of the pies and the bombers.......

Sent from my HTC_PN071 using Tapatalk
 

mike91

Brownlow Medallist
Mar 13, 2011
11,783
18,527
Melbourne
AFL Club
Fremantle
Balla is copping the number one small defender now that Walters is out.
Life is suddenly a lot tougher for him.
Doesn't have much help either. Saturday proved that he needs another small forward there to help him. Ballas was good, but he can't do it all and he can't push up the ground too much if hes the only small forward. Really hoping Crozier takes his opportunity, it's his spot if hes good enough.
 

Carnthedockers

Premiership Player
Aug 31, 2010
4,285
9,851
Perth
AFL Club
Fremantle
Was anyone else critical of our setups around the stoppages? The Swans players seemed to man the permiter of every contest and simply flick the ball out the back to unmarked team mate. Even if we won the ball first they simply applied enough pressure to cause a spillage. I thought our endeavor was pretty good generally but we just didn't seem to have guys positioned in the right spots around the packs..
 
Sep 11, 2008
12,350
9,147
Adelaide
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
Man Utd
Was anyone else critical of our setups around the stoppages? The Swans players seemed to man the permiter of every contest and simply flick the ball out the back to unmarked team mate. Even if we won the ball first they simply applied enough pressure to cause a spillage. I thought our endeavor was pretty good generally but we just didn't seem to have guys positioned in the right spots around the packs..

I agree, I wonder if we are letting teams have an extra person through the middle with us having a loose man in defense. This could allow the opposition to simply have a man 10m away from the pack for the easy hand ball and then bi-pass our loose man by accurately passing the ball.
 

E Shed

Fremantle Obsessive
Sep 10, 2006
21,556
42,120
Perth WA
AFL Club
Fremantle
Was anyone else critical of our setups around the stoppages? The Swans players seemed to man the permiter of every contest and simply flick the ball out the back to unmarked team mate. Even if we won the ball first they simply applied enough pressure to cause a spillage. I thought our endeavor was pretty good generally but we just didn't seem to have guys positioned in the right spots around the packs..
Hawks did the same thing. Waltzed it out to someone out the back from the stoppage & then kicked to the spread. We looked flat footed, a day late & a dollar short.
 

The Anchorite

Club Legend
Sep 24, 2010
1,723
2,532
The Desert
AFL Club
Fremantle
I agree, I wonder if we are letting teams have an extra person through the middle with us having a loose man in defense. This could allow the opposition to simply have a man 10m away from the pack for the easy hand ball and then bi-pass our loose man by accurately passing the ball.

We are allowing it by setting up Johnson behind play, and betting on interception at half back outweighing reduced clearances. Not everyone is putting their +1 in the middle though. Essendon tried it and we creamed them. Not that you could always tell on the telly with the awful camera work, but it seemed to me Sydney were like us actually playing their extra at half back most of the time. They just had better numbers around the ball because they were working harder and smarter, aided by the ridiculously small size of the ground. (Reminds me of nothing more than when the U18s had to play on the U12s oval once. Wasn't even the same game.)
 
Sep 11, 2008
12,350
9,147
Adelaide
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
Man Utd
We are allowing it by setting up Johnson behind play, and betting on interception at half back outweighing reduced clearances. Not everyone is putting their +1 in the middle though. Essendon tried it and we creamed them. Not that you could always tell on the telly with the awful camera work, but it seemed to me Sydney were like us actually playing their extra at half back most of the time. They just had better numbers around the ball because they were working harder and smarter, aided by the ridiculously small size of the ground. (Reminds me of nothing more than when the U18s had to play on the U12s oval once. Wasn't even the same game.)

I was at the game, so didn't get the perfect view of it. What was clear was the loose man was not working. I think the hawks and Sydney have worked out that if you kick it short and quickly do another kick the loose man is useless.

I agree this may just be a case of us not working hard enough, I am not sure.
 

The Anchorite

Club Legend
Sep 24, 2010
1,723
2,532
The Desert
AFL Club
Fremantle
I was at the game, so didn't get the perfect view of it. What was clear was the loose man was not working. I think the hawks and Sydney have worked out that if you kick it short and quickly do another kick the loose man is useless.

I agree this may just be a case of us not working hard enough, I am not sure.

Yeah, I think every coach is going to be well aware that if you can bypass Johnson you will cause us a lot of trouble. He can only mop up effectively if there's pressure on the kicks coming in, so we're going to have to work out how to respond to these short passes back and sideways. May actually involve setting up more offensively at stoppages.
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Back