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Autopsy Started off 2024 in style terrific hard fought win against Melbourne by 22 points
- Thread starter Heeney2Franklin
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May and Lever remind me of Reg and Ted performing the Dark Arts.
Any truth to the rumour that Horse is considering including Blue bottle sessions before all major matches?!?
I'm certainly not writing off Amartey yet (not that I think that's what you're suggesting), probably one of his biggest supporters on here. Maybe because I take into account his injury history and logical impact on fitness, that he has produced periods of dominance at reserves level (moreso than Logan or McLean tbh), and in some games at senior level before, can do it again. Neither of the other KPFs, barring McLean as backup ruck, had done much at the time of his subbing either (not that we could fairly expect much in the conditions and with some of the delivery).
I'd like to think we'd take oppo and conditions into account though, and Amartey is the 3rd in line at this point, so would be the one to miss if we re-structured. That's about it.
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Selecting three talls doesn't mean you have three talls in the forward line at any given time all that often. Example:
Forward Bench Ruck
55 20. 25
80. 20
80. 20
So total Forward time is 2.35 ie one third of the time you have three talls playing forward, two thirds two.
If you select two talls total Forward time is 1.35. Two thirds of the time you have one tall in the forward line. IMO that's way too easy to defend.
The real problem was that Amartey was ineffective in both attack and defence. So far his good performances have come against weaker sides (eg Hawthorn). After Collingwood we have a (relatively) easy run. If he doesn't cut it and Buller is going OK it might be time to make a change. Just please not Ladhams.
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Our midfield group with the addition of Grundy has 'scary good' written all over it when we get it right. It's going to be a real fight for spots in there once we have back Adams/Parker/Mills. You need deep midfield groups to win flags though, but was lovely to see a glimpse of how effective we may become. I suspect, things going well on the injury front, we are going to give some of the poorer midfield group/teams an absolute bath in some games this year.
A lot of people writing the Swans off for season 2024 have taken the easy route of - no Buddy = no forward line, and they were garbage for half of last year = must fall. They'll wake up pretty quickly if we get back to a fully fit list and Grundy is regularly feeding Heeney, Rowbottom, Mills, Parker, Adams, Gulden + the rest on a rolling rotation. And our forward line is definitely a work in progress, but I take comfort from the fact we had 10 different goal kickers last night. A hallmark of our 2012 team was how much the load was shared across the team in goalkicking - and I hope we see that spread regularly this year as well.
Surely it's time that selectors choose the side based on conditions. A warm night in March is always going to produce a slippery, dewey night. Why on earth do they then select three talls when marking the ball is almost impossible.
I blame the selectors even more than Amartey.
Next week in Melbourne will be a fairer test when there will not be the dew that there was last night.
Early call against Pies with their structure:
Out: Amartey
In: Wicks
Sub: Sheldrick
Jordon gets another opportunity despite being quieter early. Fox keeps acting as a spoiler up forward.
Out: Amartey
In: Wicks
Sub: Sheldrick
Jordon gets another opportunity despite being quieter early. Fox keeps acting as a spoiler up forward.
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I suspect it is to do with stopping May/Lever intercepting and rebounding.
While I'm ok with talls not marking I just want to see then stopping the opposition marking and not getting easily pushed around
We were also outnumbered in our fwd line on numerous occasions sometime 6v4 or 7v5 or 6v5. Imo when that occurs we need to ensure we have adequate smalls to provide ground ball coverage. Imo we were too tall when that occurred.
TheMase
Brownlow Medallist
Pretty sure Fox didn’t come to us as a forward. He was playing as mid, wing, half back
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Behind the Banner: Opening Round
Did you see our banner last night? There's a bigger story.www.sydneyswans.com.au
Which club will we use this classic against?
DeathlyAccurate
Club Legend
- Mar 28, 2023
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We can argue until the cows come home about whether or not an elite ruckman matters but, in our case, it does. League-wide it varies team to team, not every team requires a top tier ruckman to thrive but you only have to go back to Hickey in his prime to see the impact it had on this particular team and Grundy will prove even more effective.
The potential is there for a dynamic synergy between Grundy and Heeney but I do worry that Heeney will barely see midfield time when a couple of the injured trio return. I hope I’m wrong. We need to keep playing him in the middle at least 90% of the time.
On Amartey, I don’t think he’s a player that can be judged in the first game or two. Especially given the conditions. He seems like a rhythm player but he also offers the least of the three key forwards. McLean can help out in the ruck or at least clunk some big marks if he’s not kicking goals and Logan can be a tall goal sneak of sorts or a link up player. They both add more than Amartey who doesn’t really have a plan B to fall back on.
While it’s way too early to make a judgement on how the season will end, this is the most well rounded Sydney team I’ve seen in a while. It’s exciting that Gulden will play better than last night, Warner will play more complete games, Blakey will only grow his already burgeoning confidence and the chemistry between Grundy and the midfield will gel even more so over the coming weeks.
An additional point on Blakey, but bloody hell is he impressive. Some of the best teams have a player who can’t be matched, for whom there’s no like for like opponent. Blakey is one of the few players in the league who doesn’t have a comparable peer.
Yes, it’s only one game, but if we maintain that or improve on it against Collingwood then we have a lot to look forward to as supporters this year.
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The potential is there for a dynamic synergy between Grundy and Heeney but I do worry that Heeney will barely see midfield time when a couple of the injured trio return. I hope I’m wrong. We need to keep playing him in the middle at least 90% of the time.
On Amartey, I don’t think he’s a player that can be judged in the first game or two. Especially given the conditions. He seems like a rhythm player but he also offers the least of the three key forwards. McLean can help out in the ruck or at least clunk some big marks if he’s not kicking goals and Logan can be a tall goal sneak of sorts or a link up player. They both add more than Amartey who doesn’t really have a plan B to fall back on.
While it’s way too early to make a judgement on how the season will end, this is the most well rounded Sydney team I’ve seen in a while. It’s exciting that Gulden will play better than last night, Warner will play more complete games, Blakey will only grow his already burgeoning confidence and the chemistry between Grundy and the midfield will gel even more so over the coming weeks.
An additional point on Blakey, but bloody hell is he impressive. Some of the best teams have a player who can’t be matched, for whom there’s no like for like opponent. Blakey is one of the few players in the league who doesn’t have a comparable peer.
Yes, it’s only one game, but if we maintain that or improve on it against Collingwood then we have a lot to look forward to as supporters this year.
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Thanks. Must have misremembered. Big fan. Some of his games in 2022, esp the GF, were terrific.
Love it!
With regards Armatey - we all tend to remember the good games, where he's kicked a bag. And its exciting when it happens. The "Armatey Party" banners fly and its good times all round.
But those games are (very) few and far between.
More often than not, he plays limited game time & gets subbed off (as evidenced by his very low career ToG average).
So whilst he's capable of a lot - he's often occupying a place on the ground that could be more effectively filled by another player.
And yes, we're only 1 game in .... but the trend goes back years.
wolftone57
Club Legend
just a little note to those who constantly knock Lewis Melican. He was very good last night. He has always been good barring injury. He is a player who gives 100% every time. His efforts paid off last night & he was again that player who was previously a very consistent player. If it weren't for injury I don't think the conversation about him would ever have come up. He had been a consistent performer. But injury killed his form & his confidence.
DeathlyAccurate
Club Legend
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In a sense I agree. While I do want to see one or two games in more suitable conditions, I also won’t be disappointed if he’s dropped after the Collingwood game if he puts in another disappointing performance.
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We are far too quick to drop Amartey. It was not a good game for him, but it was a tough night for any big forward. Give him another few weeks in the main team before anyone even considers dropping him.
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caesar88
Hall of Famer
- Apr 26, 2016
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My hope with the midfield was that it wasn't a one-off. I think it bodes really well that the game kinda ended up on the terms that should've suited Melbourne's mids more (tight, stoppage-based) but we beat them at their own game. With a fairly light midfield in terms of size & grunt.
There was a bit of form in regards to Heeney & Rowbottom. They were part of both the most successful centre break combination we had in the GF disaster in 2022 and the most successful centre break combination we ran all year in 2023. (Parker was the third in both cases.) Could be because they're as good defensively as they are offensively, so if they're not winning the ball themselves they're making you work for yours, but it's probably too small a sample size to know.
Throw in Grundy and it felt like a full-scale offensive at the contest, where WE were the guys bullying opposition mids, not the other way round. Petracca getting dragged in commentary for getting his hands on the ball but being completely ineffective with it was unheard of. Gawn looking completely dejected and like he was ageing by the minute (though that was arguably more a self-inflicted wound from Melbourne not providing a 32 year old champion any help.) And Oliver... well, I'll probably go easy on him as I reckon he was always going to get worse as the game went on given his well-documented fitness issues.
I'm rambling now.
the hypnotoad
Norm Smith Medallist
- Mar 7, 2021
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it does seem a lot of the media "preview" coverage of the swans was based on speculation that grundy was past his best and us signing him had an element of desperation about it, from the club's perspective and grundy's as well ...
i think most media, particularly the mainstream vic footy media, would've been quite startled to see the way he kept building through last night's game and, in the end, how convincingly he beat the league's no.1 ruck
add to that how heeney played in the midfield (without parker, adams and mills) and i'd imagine there'll be some hasty re-evaluation of the sydney team going into the game against collingwood
wolftone57
Club Legend
Grundy is the difference between having first use & always being on the backfoot.
All the mids were wonderful. Rowbottom kept pressure on the likes of Petracca, Oliver & Viney. Gulden, Jordan (after half time), Papley, Chad, Heens were all great. They kept huge pressure, not only on Gawn, but on all their experienced mids. poor Max will be very sore today. But so will Petracca, Oliver & Viney. Our young boys mauled them.
As for the tall forwards. It was not a night suited to big marking, too slippery due to the humidity. The other thing is it wasn't a particularly good night for finesse. On slippery nights there is one slogan; KISS. That is exactly what we did. We were better than them in the last half but history will say they kicked 5 goals. From how many entries? But we only managed 3 goals & wasted the ball by kicking 7 behinds. We had more than double the forward entries & looked like blowing them away but did not put it on the scoreboard. In thelast we did.
caesar88
Hall of Famer
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