Unofficial Preview Bloods v CarlCrims

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Mick Oxlong

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You can produce all the stats you like, I had Rose in our bottom four performers against the Suns (not that he was bad, the whole team was just very good), and Florent and Hayward somewhere in the middle ranks. We may have to agree to disagree on that one.

Where Florent and Hayward have earned faith is that they have had some very good games, and quite recently in fact. Hayward has the yips in front of goal at the minute, but the yips are the only thing between his current output and him being our leading goalkicker this year. Yes it's the most important part of his game and he's struggling with it at the moment, but he's doing nearly everything else right. He's working his arse off up and down the ground better than most Swans (after that label was unfairly hurled against him earlier this year), he's getting himself into positions to have multiple scoring opportunities every week and just robbing himself of the rewards for it. None of that constitutes being dropped.

And Florent has earned faith because he's had some very good games for us this year. His game against West Coast was the exemplary Florent game that we had all hoped to see. The bye comes along and robs him of any potential momentum, and that was only a month ago, so unless we've all collectively been diagnosed with dementia, he deserves the chance to find that form back. But it wasn't even just that one. I liked his game down in Geelong, where I thought he had his best game pressure-wise for us. Down in Tassie against North he worked hard to cover the ground and was a key component of our midfield on a night when we fielded the youngest Swans side in years and needed the youngsters to stand up - he did. Against the Tigers he had 31 possessions and along with Dawson really set the tone for us early in the match 9 first-quarter possessions. The Melbourne debacle in round 4 he was one of the only reasons we were even in with a chance in that match after he was a clear BOG in the first half when we established a healthy lead.

I've just named five games this year alone where Florent was better than Rose has ever been in any match. That's less a knock on Rose and more praise of Florent. That's earning faith and showing he's worth persevering with. But if they aren't enough, I can also go into last year where he produced a string of games that were better than any Rose has ever played. That would be counter-productive since I don't think 2018 form should count for much in 2019, but then again, you're going back to 2015 and 2016 to mount your argument for Rose, so maybe the rules have changed..
Did Goodes earn faith when he was dropped? I’ll mount that argument!
 
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Sep 25, 2011
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Agreed. Coming 7th or 8th would almost be useless when we aren’t ready let’s be honest.
Why would making the finals be almost useless? The dogs didn't look ready after round 23 in 2016.. I think a fit buddy and some other vets like kennedy and parker could achieve something with this group of youngsters.. Scrape in and you never know.
 
Why would making the finals be almost useless? The dogs didn't look ready after round 23 in 2016.. I think a fit buddy and some other vets like kennedy and parker could achieve something with this group of youngsters.. Scrape in and you never know.

We aren’t winning this year. Sometimes you have to be realistic. Let’s use this year for what it is. Get some games into our kids, get a top 8 draft selection. We will be better next year and beyond.
 
We aren’t winning this year. Sometimes you have to be realistic. Let’s use this year for what it is. Get some games into our kids, get a top 8 draft selection. We will be better next year and beyond.

hey if you make the finals you never know
 
Define form.

Three matches ago Florent was one of our best on ground.

Imagine if you dropped every player who had ever played 3 down games in a row


i dunno , rose was good and you had him in the bottom few before so makes form hard to define

im not saying drop either, but they dont have massive credits in the bank

florent is a reasonable young player, but his gap between good and bad is too wide

18 touches a game is pretty average and easily replaced, goes at mid 60 efficiency

no one had him BOG recently really


good form in the ressies would knock him out of the side, people his draft are out performing, he shows promise, but is droppable and this year has been dissapointing in the sense he hasnt really made any jump
 
I dont think we can scrape in North and Port winning has stuffed us, not to mention we still have GWS and Geelong to come.

We are 2 games and ~10% away from 8th.

we probably cant, most likely wont

but may as well try to win as many as we can
 
i dunno , rose was good and you had him in the bottom few before so makes form hard to define

im not saying drop either, but they dont have massive credits in the bank

florent is a reasonable young player, but his gap between good and bad is too wide

18 touches a game is pretty average and easily replaced, goes at mid 60 efficiency

no one had him BOG recently really


good form in the ressies would knock him out of the side, people his draft are out performing, he shows promise, but is droppable and this year has been dissapointing in the sense he hasnt really made any jump

Not disagreeing with any of that except the droppable part. Florent would be droppable if his poor form was constant. But he's going at a few good games, then a few down ones, then a really great one, then a really poor one. It's very up and down, but it's not consistently poor like say Ronke, who put together about two months worth of very average footy at the start of the year. You can't really excuse that. But Florent is standing up at times and proving his worth every time he's had a few down games. His next step is to do it consistently so those down games are less frequent.

But IMO if you have a young player who shows the promise he does, and delivers most of the time (if not all the time) then you persist with him. It's not like we're contending for a flag. We should be fielding as many players as possible who will be part of our next flag-contending team. He's part of the next generation of our midfield, he needs to be playing with Hewett, Heeney, Jones, Rowbottom etc. Just like Hayward needs to continue working in his forward line with Blakey, McCartin, Papley etc. Won't always be pretty but we have to ride these ups and downs for the long term benefit.
 
Sep 25, 2011
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Agree its highly unlikely, we'd probably have to win every game from here to take us to 13 wins.. But I'm not giving up just yet, i generally leave that to the melbourne media who write us off nearly every year.
 
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