Dane Swan

[eskimo]

Gday Pies fans, sorry for the intrusion


This is a genuine question I have, and is not a troll.


Been thinking about this since Swan won his 3rd Copeland Trophy in a row. He is in very highly esteemed company after winning his 3rd Copeland on the trot and could very well end up with 4 at the end of 2011.

My question is - Will Dane Swan be remembered in the same vein as the other 3 consecutive winners? He certainly didn't have a great start to his career and took a while to really switch on to AFL footy and the demands, but his last 3-4 seasons have been great. Do you think he will be remembered as being as good as Buckley and Bob Rose (as well as the other guy who slips my mind at the moment, sorry)?

I'm interested to hear Collingwood fans opinions, because as an outsider, even though he has been fantastic in the last 3 years, I certainly wouldn't have considered him to be on the same level as Nathan Buckley, even though Swanny has won his 3 in pretty good times for the Pies.

Cheers, and good luck for 2011 (except Queens B'day )

 

[JG13]

i think people will always remember swanny for his tats and awkward running still aswell as his supposedly bad kicking. His kicking efficiency is up there with the elite midfielders and this 'image' will put him below rose and buckley imo. Buckley (never saw rose play haha) carried and sense of power about him and that stuck with the viewers whilst swan seems to have a different way about him. They are both excellent players but im afraid the perception of swan will hamper the way people view him in the future. not that he would care, he got a flag!

 

[Ed D]

I doubt Swan will be seen in the same light as Buckley or Rose but he has a few more years to go. If he can keep playing like this for another 3+ years and win awards/premierships he'll be seen as a legend of the club, but in saying that he's not going to be captain or a great leader of the club either, just a great player. Total games might be on his side if he manages to play 300+.

In saying that I never saw Rose play but considering he was/is regarded as Collingwood's best player ever and his career was cut short by injuries, it's pretty hard to compare anyone to him, especially after being inducted into the AFL hall of fame.

To be compared to them IMO Swan would have to win maybe another 3 or 4 Copeland tophies, which isn't exactly easy.

 

[jonbe54]

I saw Bobby Rose play, was gifted, strong and quick. A true champion but IMHO Bucks shaded him with those incredible passes of his which could cut through opposition zones like a knife through butter.

As for Dane, not the same mould of player at all. He's poised for champion and legend status if he can maintain current form but simply doesn't have the psychological impact of a Rose or Buckley, which I suppose is one reason why he doesn't poll as well in the Charlie as you would think.

 

[shawthing09]

Gotta agree with the above and TBH if Pendles continues his upward development I don't think Swanny will be even remembered in the same light as him.

I think it's a similar sort of thing to the way R Harvey is often not remembered in the same light as the Buckley, Hird and Voss trio. Despite being a superstar in his own right the other three had the ability to almost change a game single handedly, they could do it all and be truely unstoppable.

Whilst a fantastic player who has always added to his game Swan's biggest strength has always been his footy brain and power running. He is an accumulator of the ball. He certainly just lacks a tiny bit of hurt factor about his playing. It feels like blasphemy to pick wholes in his game because he is such a good player but when compared to the true champions I think that's where he will lack. As for the mention of KE% that is a horribly inaccurate stat.

As for Pendles the kids is early 20's and is already a AA, Premiership player, Norm Smith medalist and IMO our most important player. He has a huge chance to be a multiple premiership player, a chance of even being a premiership captain, is likely to be one of those guys who recieves a huge number of AA's and is a potential brownlow medalist. He is someone who could end up one of the more decorated pies.

 

[gravy1]

Gotta agree with the above and TBH if Pendles continues his upward development I don't think Swanny will be even remembered in the same light as him.

I think it's a similar sort of thing to the way R Harvey is often not remembered in the same light as the Buckley, Hird and Voss trio. Despite being a superstar in his own right the other three had the ability to almost change a game single handedly, they could do it all and be truely unstoppable.

Whilst a fantastic player who has always added to his game Swan's biggest strength has always been his footy brain and power running. He is an accumulator of the ball. He certainly just lacks a tiny bit of hurt factor about his playing. It feels like blasphemy to pick wholes in his game because he is such a good player but when compared to the true champions I think that's where he will lack. As for the mention of KE% that is a horribly inaccurate stat.

As for Pendles the kids is early 20's and is already a AA, Premiership player, Norm Smith medalist and IMO our most important player. He has a huge chance to be a multiple premiership player, a chance of even being a premiership captain, is likely to be one of those guys who recieves a huge number of AA's and is a potential brownlow medalist. He is someone who could end up one of the more decorated pies.

This really sums it up.

A side note about Pendles. A lot of Collingwood supports and outside people like to bring up the point of what would happen if Jolly went down with an injury, being our sole ruck, and whether this would destroy the team's chances. Well, we lost Pendlebury for the 2009 finals campaign and never had a chance. Is our most most important player. I'd also make another point that elite inside midfielders are more important and valuable than key position players, in general (though nothing to do with this thread )

 

[Ed D]

A side note about Pendles. A lot of Collingwood supports and outside people like to bring up the point of what would happen if Jolly went down with an injury, being our sole ruck, and whether this would destroy the team's chances. Well, we lost Pendlebury for the 2009 finals campaign and never had a chance. Is our most most important player. I'd also make another point that elite inside midfielders are more important and valuable than key position players, in general (though nothing to do with this thread )

While I love Pendles and rate him and his impact right up there for the Pies, we had a fair few injuries going into the 2009 finals including Swan and Thomas which added to Pendles being out. On top of that our rucks were shot and our forwards weren't playing well at all with Cloke having a stressful year and Dawes not even playing finals. Ball and Jolly would have made a huge impact back then, which was why it was a massive bonus when we recruited both of them.

Anyway, I really rate Pendles, and I agree with shawthing09, Pendles has huge potential and he's already starting to fill it at 22-23 years of age. If he keeps it up he could well become the greatest/most decorated player for the Pies period.

 

[shanman]

I think Swans long term stature in the game will go hand in hand with Mick Malthouses legacy. Namely, unprecedented team focus and getting the most out of individuals in the process.

Hard to see Swan becoming the player he has under any other coach currently going around. And when MM is remembered for his patient building of a formidable powerhouse in his final years as a head coach, the name Dane Swan will come up again and again. Sounds a bit dramatic on the reread..

Having said that, being the best player in a premiership team is something that never gets forgotten in its own right.

Also, if the focus on his unstoppable impact on games that occurred in the latter part of 2010 continues for another couple of seasons he will be a hard player to disregard when considering this generations great players.

Buckleys impact on the game will always be more dramatic for three reasons.
1.He played head and shoulders above any of his team mates at his peak.
2. He was a legendary on field leader.
3. His skills were the type that even the uninitiated took notice of.

 

[Cousin of Daicos]

Buckley will be the best Collingwood player of all time.

The only modern player who may dethrone him is Pendlebury.

 

[mattys123]

Buckley will be the best Collingwood player of all time.

The only modern player who may dethrone him is Pendlebury.

Wrong Ed, sorry, but Buckley may well be regarded by modern day supporters as the greatest player we have ever had, but he simply isn't.

On stats, on premierships, you would have to pick either Gordon Coventry or Harry Collier as the 2 standouts when it comes to the "greatest ever Collingwood player".

Harry Collier won a Brownlow, and played in 6 premierships, while Coventry played 306 games (2nd most for the club), and kicked 1299 goals (2nd all time), and played in 5 premierships (missed the 36 one due to injury).

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

Bucks was great, but Pendlebury may over take Bucks if he wins a few more flags, but IMO, no one will ever touch the greats of the ""Machine era".

 

[magman29]

Not exactly on topic , but John Greening was the best Pies player I have seen

 

[DaVe86]

The Robert Harvey and Dane Swan comparison is very accurate. Harvey will be held in higher esteem because of the 2 Brownlows...but Swanny broke through for the premiership and was a key factor in it.


He'll never be held up in the same light as Buckley....but that's only because Bucks was a captain and a prettier player to watch. Swan is ugly to watch, he is introverted publicly and also has the criminal record with a shady past. He is a true football success story in the way he turned his life around and is a credit to the system and the positives it can have on young guys as opposed to all the negatives you always hear.



What probably stops guys like Harvey or Swan from been held in the esteem of Voss or Hird or Buckley is that they don't have public leadership qualities. They lead by the way they play...and it does boost their team-mates...but they are not vocal, they don't have positive body language, they keep to themselves and they don't possess the extreme skill-level.



You wouldn't want Swan any other way. The more low key the better I reckon. He'll always be remembered as an all-time Collingwood great but he'll never have the same stature of a Nathan Buckley. The pure sight of Bucks instilled passion. He had his chest out, he was clean-cut and looked like superman.

However, it would be a serious debate as to who was the more influential player.

 

[DaVe86]

Wrong Ed, sorry, but Buckley may well be regarded by modern day supporters as the greatest player we have ever had, but he simply isn't.

On stats, on premierships, you would have to pick either Gordon Coventry or Harry Collier as the 2 standouts when it comes to the "greatest ever Collingwood player".

Harry Collier won a Brownlow, and played in 6 premierships, while Coventry played 306 games (2nd most for the club), and kicked 1299 goals (2nd all time), and played in 5 premierships (missed the 36 one due to injury).

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

Bucks was great, but Pendlebury may over take Bucks if he wins a few more flags, but IMO, no one will ever touch the greats of the ""Machine era".

I wouldn't say that you can only be a great if you win a premiership. Buckley was the sole reason i went to the football as a kid between 1996-2000. We had nothing to chear about other than Buckley possessions during this time. He kept a club alive. Then he made himself an even better player under Malthouse...and nearly single-handedly carried a young developing team to a premiership in 2002,2003.

He didn't taste ultimate success, but that's through no fault of his own. We just didn't have the team around him. However, individually, I don't think we've ever seen a player as talented as Nathan Buckley. He was the full package. There has never been a greater and more precise kick, nor a player who prepared themselves as well as Bucks.

If you went to a machine and designed the ultimate footballer, Bucks would come out.


However, a good team is better than a team with a great player...as Carlton are finding out. Dane Swan's impact on Collingwood is just as much as Buckley's...he'll just never get the same credit.

 

[jonbe54]

Wrong Ed, sorry, but Buckley may well be regarded by modern day supporters as the greatest player we have ever had, but he simply isn't.

On stats, on premierships, you would have to pick either Gordon Coventry or Harry Collier as the 2 standouts when it comes to the "greatest ever Collingwood player".

Harry Collier won a Brownlow, and played in 6 premierships, while Coventry played 306 games (2nd most for the club), and kicked 1299 goals (2nd all time), and played in 5 premierships (missed the 36 one due to injury).

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

Bucks was great, but Pendlebury may over take Bucks if he wins a few more flags, but IMO, no one will ever touch the greats of the ""Machine era".

Couldn't agree more matty Harry was a fearsome opponent and even his team mates were in total awe of him. Even Jack Dyer - a renowned Pie hater - called him god on one occasion. Probably the most renowned, feared and respected member of the greatest premiership machine ever to exist.

 

[HFF]

What ST09 said was fairly accurate.

IMO, Dane Swan will still reach champion status at our club if his elevation continues but he probably won't ever be regarded in the same light as say Buckley or Rose or Coventry etc.

As for Pendles, he could well become the greatest Pie of the modern era and dethrone Bucks. What he has achieved thus far has been incredible. He is set for a much decorated career.

 

[Jelly Bean]

Wrong Ed, sorry, but Buckley may well be regarded by modern day supporters as the greatest player we have ever had, but he simply isn't.

On stats, on premierships, you would have to pick either Gordon Coventry or Harry Collier as the 2 standouts when it comes to the "greatest ever Collingwood player".

Harry Collier won a Brownlow, and played in 6 premierships, while Coventry played 306 games (2nd most for the club), and kicked 1299 goals (2nd all time), and played in 5 premierships (missed the 36 one due to injury).

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

Bucks was great, but Pendlebury may over take Bucks if he wins a few more flags, but IMO, no one will ever touch the greats of the ""Machine era".

It frustrates me when people say Bucks can't be the best because his team never played in a premiership. That is mixing up a team performance with a personal rating.

This mix up is sometimes suggested as a way of assessing a players performance under pressure of finals football - and Bucks did win a Norm Smith medal. Is it right that if Coll had have somehow scrapped those 9 points in 2002, that Bucks would all of a sudden be a far better player? That doesn't make any sense.

It is hard to compare across eras, but the fact is that McHale said that Bob Rose was the best Magpie he had ever seen (covering the period including the Colliers and Coventrys) and Kevin Rose said that Bucks was equal to Bob (covering the period from then on).

Aaron Shattock has won two premierships... That doesn't mean he will be remembered as a great player, does it?

 

[Ed D]

It frustrates me when people say Bucks can't be the best because his team never played in a premiership. That is mixing up a team performance with a personal rating.

This mix up is sometimes suggested as a way of assessing a players performance under pressure of finals football - and Bucks did win a Norm Smith medal. Is it right that if Coll had have somehow scrapped those 9 points in 2002, that Bucks would all of a sudden be a far better player? That doesn't make any sense.

It is hard to compare across eras, but the fact is that McHale said that Bob Rose was the best Magpie he had ever seen (covering the period including the Colliers and Coventrys) and Kevin Rose said that Bucks was equal to Bob (covering the period from then on).

Aaron Shattock has won two premierships... That doesn't mean he will be remembered as a great player, does it?

I agree. For individual performances I'd rather look at best & fairests, Brownlow votes, individual awards and placings, game ratings etc.

Winning premierships means you'll get remembered for that, but it doesn't make someone a better player just because they played in a different team. Buckley probably played in the worst of the Pies history and still came out on top.

 

[shawthing09]

I think another thing to add when comparing Bucks and Swan as a player is the amount of pressure on each of them and the amount of quality suppourt each had in their side.

Swan is playing alongside some serious Class players. Whether you agree the Pendles is better or more important or not the fact is it's clearly debateable, on top of that you have had (especially this year) the likes of Didak, Ball, Jolly running through the unit is dominate. Bucks didn't have that luxury.

Oh also think it is completely unfair to look at premierships when considering an individuals career. Fact is footy is a team sport and now matter how good your best player is they can't carry another 21 blokes to victory. In fact I think playing in really succesful teams often flatters some of the more average players. The best case I can make for that being the way guys like Fletcher, Nickoski and Embely fell away after the loss of Judd and Cousins. All those names where rated reasonably highly and where found out to be far more average then people had thought.

 

[mdc]

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

The VFL in those years was a joke. I'm happy for people to hang on to the number of 15 premierships as if it means something, but when you use those premierships to argue individual brilliance you're really struggling.

Dane Swan's impact on Collingwood is just as much as Buckley's...he'll just never get the same credit.

Crazy talk. Without Buckley in 2002-2003 we would have struggled to make the finals. He was a better player than Swan in every single way, bar maybe winning one-on-ones on the wing.

 

[Lockyer24]

Swan won't be remembered as a classical footballer but those who have had the pleasure of watching him every week the last 5 years will remember the little things he did so well to put him at the top of the tree.

Put a loose ball in front of Bucks and Swanny and I'd back Swan. His uncanny ability to keep his feet, outbody and outsmart players whilst running his guts out is as good as you will ever see.

 

[soreplums]

Buckley made the game easier for his team mates with his exceptional kicking skills. His possessions were worth 2 because you knew that he wasn't going to turn it over and that his team mate who he gave it to would be in a threatening position.

 

[TradeDraft]

Pendles is Closer to Bucks then Swan is

 

[Puddy]

Wrong Ed, sorry, but Buckley may well be regarded by modern day supporters as the greatest player we have ever had, but he simply isn't.

On stats, on premierships, you would have to pick either Gordon Coventry or Harry Collier as the 2 standouts when it comes to the "greatest ever Collingwood player".

Harry Collier won a Brownlow, and played in 6 premierships, while Coventry played 306 games (2nd most for the club), and kicked 1299 goals (2nd all time), and played in 5 premierships (missed the 36 one due to injury).

As Buckley never played in a premiership, he simply can not be in their class or category, no matter how good he was IMO.

Bucks was great, but Pendlebury may over take Bucks if he wins a few more flags, but IMO, no one will ever touch the greats of the ""Machine era".

How is it Buck's fault that Collingwood were so shit during his playing years? Even the 02/03 Grand Final teams were average. Buckley is easily Collingwoods best ever player regardless of no flags to his name

 

[Jedi01]

There will only ever be one Bucks.

As much as I enjoy watching Swan go about his footy, he will never be held in the same regard.

 

[Smoky]

There will only ever be one Bucks.

As much as I enjoy watching Swan go about his footy, he will never be held in the same regard.

He'll be held in his own regard... just he way he wants it. We are watching a legend in the making. 3 Copelands in a row... the third being in a Premiership year. Buckley never did that.