Autopsy Round 02 Swans defeated by Hawthorn

[SwansProudly]

A hard fought contest against the Hawks at the MCG but we go down by 17-points.

 

[the hypnotoad]

Down our 2 best and most important players, coming off a 5 day break, and we just ran out of gas.

Unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

yeah, that's pretty much it ... hawthorn will play finals and were close to full strength, we came off a short week with major injury disruption, yet (to me) we still looked likely to win into the last quarter ... then, yeah, we just got overrun ... and that was with several players a bit off what they've shown the first two weeks (amartey, mccartin, blakey, bice ... although those last two weren't terrible)
but it was good that we still tried to take the game on and run it as we have been, there's no sign that without gulden and heeney we were going into our shells, it just didn't all click like it has been
rampe and lloyd struggled, and cleary and corey warner just don't seem up to that level yet
chad warner is really trying, working hard, but things just not going right for him
i thought sheldrick was really good again, mcdonald was good in his third game in more than a year
and serong is gonna be a star, a great pick-up
a really frustrating result but definitely not as dire as some will make out

and: commentary was unbearable, i watched on mute for a lot of it ... and regards umpiring, it's not necessarily the decisions that go against us, it's the non-decisions ... i think it was the second quarter but hawthorn ended up with two goals after a series of non-calls that really stifled our momentum ... among other things ...

oh, and i really don't like thursday night football

 

[Wolfgang West]

Poor call on Lloyd he stood up in the last half, when the going gets tough he is there

Can't fault his ability to want to compete, work ethic and professionalism but he like Rampe at this stage of their careers are going to have some really great moments but some pretty ordinary ones as well. Just how it goes.

 

[melbournehammer]

Tbh I picked 20-30 point loss tonight....we couldn't tackle properly in the second half so many times they got a pass away when held. We couldn't take any marks out of defence.if they kicked straight it would have been ugly.
Not that disappointed we stayed in it on the scoreboard for a long time. Heeney back against West Coast should make a big difference.

It doesn’t really matter whether you tackle well in the afl any more. The spectacle is all that matters so long as people get it out of the tackle by pushing it away that’s fine.

Personally I hate the ball always in motion style but that’s where we have got to

 

[Swansujelly]

Rosas jr - not sold yet

not sure if it's deliberate, but he can't/won't pick up a ground ball, keeps paddling iit, kinda frustarting.

 

[Swansujelly]

not going to lose too much sleep over this loss. 5 dy break, away game, missing top 2 players, umpires going in dry, and still only went down by 17.

 

[melbournehammer]

yeah, that's pretty much it ... hawthorn will play finals and were close to full strength, we came off a short week with major injury disruption, yet (to me) we still looked likely to win into the last quarter ... then, yeah, we just got overrun ... and that was with several players a bit off what they've shown the first two weeks (amartey, mccartin, blakey, bice ... although those last two weren't terrible)
but it was good that we still tried to take the game on and run it as we have been, there's no sign that without gulden and heeney we were going into our shells, it just didn't all click like it has been
rampe and lloyd struggled, and cleary and corey warner just don't seem up to that level yet
chad warner is really trying, working hard, but things just not going right for him
i thought sheldrick was really good again, mcdonald was good in his third game in more than a year
and serong is gonna be a star, a great pick-up
a really frustrating result but definitely not as dire as some will make out

and: commentary was unbearable, i watched on mute for a lot of it ... and regards umpiring, it's not necessarily the decisions that go against us, it's the non-decisions ... i think it was the second quarter but hawthorn ended up with two goals after a series of non-calls that really stifled our momentum ... among other things ...

oh, and i really don't like thursday night football

The umpiring was one sided to the home team but it always is down here.
reckon a lot of people don’t like Thursday night football - that crowd I reckon was 15000 less than what they might have anticipated.

 

[Membling]

Not the worst loss but frustrating as hell.

If Hawks kicked straight would have been a lot worse.

Same time, was inconsistently adjudacated on the umpires end.

Gripes and whinging aside...

Man our talls kinda sucked in the category of "being a target up the line". All three of our key sometimes did it. We need them to consistently do it. There are three of you. Sort it out. Take turns.

Plan B down the line does not work. Hasn't worked for us for awhile. Need to sharpen up some lateral ball movement to break open play and then look for corridor kick. Poor coaching as seems a really simple fix considering how we play.

Two players (although phenomenal) should not kill our ball movement and fluency as much as they did last night. The fact we do not have four or five players able to take aspects of their game is baffling and shows a very soft underbelly if a team can take advantage.

Defence was all out to see last night. Likely on the back of poor midfield defensive running and... well disorganisation.

Anyway, onwards to the bye

 

[Membling]

The umpiring was one sided to the home team but it always is down here.
reckon a lot of people don’t like Thursday night football - that crowd I reckon was 15000 less than what they might have anticipated.

Thursday is a shit house time slot for interstate away teams. Hard to get a crowd unlike Fridays

 

[Donza]

March madness.
Lots of learnings.

 

[ScrewInStuds]

A bit of a frustrating game as it was there be to be won, although it would have been us pinching it.

When we're in possession and have a 2 on 1 in the middle of the ground what do we do? Draw the defender then give a handball to create overlap.

When we've got a 2 on 1 on the edge of the attacking 50 what do we do? Bomb it in to nobody's advantage even though we've been destroyed in the air all night. I have to put some of the decision making down to exhaustion I guess.

Hope the last lot of draftees come on in the VFL (once back from injury) as our game plan demands precision as well as effort.

 

[Swans007]

Like the 2024 GF I think Taylor Adams

3

Taylor Adams

Age

32

Ht

181cm

Wt

85kg

Pos.

M/F

Career

Season

Last 5

D

24.9

5star

K

13.5

5star

HB

11.4

5star

M

4.0

4star

T

4.8

5star

CL

5.0

5star

D

20.4

5star

K

12.4

5star

HB

8.0

4star

M

4.0

4star

T

5.9

5star

CL

5.9

5star

D

18.2

5star

K

11.0

4star

HB

7.2

5star

M

4.4

4star

T

3.0

5star

CL

2.2

4star

needed to play. We destroyed Cleary. Even Cunningham would have been handy second half.

 

[kickthething]

Bang on with all of that. When pressure comes on juzzy goes missing. Happens time and time again.

Rowy must be carrying something??

I think there are times where JMac needs to put his head over the ball and stays out of the fray, happened a couple of times last night….

 

[McRobie]

Is this actually a joke? Jesus Christ, that’s either an indictment on Charlie or Dean Cox

Dean Cox

Age

44

Ht

203cm

Wt

107kg

Pos.

F/R

Career

Season

Last 5

D

15.9

4star

K

8.9

3star

HB

6.9

4star

M

5.3

5star

T

1.5

3star

G

0.6

4star

No current season stats available

D

13.0

4star

K

5.8

3star

HB

7.2

5star

M

4.8

5star

T

1.4

4star

G

0.0

1star

or both.

 

[Swansujelly]

March madness.
Lots of lessons.

Better.

 

[strauchanie59]

Is there anything Papley does well at the moment, apart from screaming from the bench?

Doesn't pressure, barely tackles and doesn't compete for the ball in the air in a 1v1 or 2v1, instead waits at ground level but he's always in the wrong spot. At least Rosas is kicking a goal a game and applying some (minimal) pressure).

 

[anotherletdown]

Is this actually a joke? Jesus Christ, that’s either an indictment on Charlie or Dean Cox or both.

Easiest 50k you could ever earn

 

[mcs095]

The AFL's fixturing is ****ing garbage sometimes. If you're going to dish out 5 day breaks on Thursday, both teams should be coming off the Saturday games. Like how hard is that. Could've easily had tonight's and tomorrows game the other way around and had 2 teams 5 day break teams going at each other.

Only sometimes? It is always garbage. They can't do basic things right (like play each team once before you play someone again, give teams an equal break etc, come up with stupid setups like Round Zero). It is an absolute frigging mess.

 

[mcs095]

All Rowbottom can do is tackle. Absolutely worthless going back the other way. Waste of time, you can’t win a flag when he’s one of your main center bounce midfielders, 12 touches all game from one of your prime mids is just a fail.

You can get away with it if you have the right mix of midfielders around a player like that. But we don't, and his early season form is a significant concern. To be frank, I can fully understand why we were open (by all reports) to entertaining a trade for him. I maintain we don't really play him in a way that plays to his strengths, but equally we need a lot more from him now. He is no longer a junior in our midfield group.

 

[mcs095]

Some of our decisions when the pressure is on are baffling eg I think Bice and Warner both just kicked off the ground at different times straight to hawthorn, Melican doing a long dumb floating handball into the centre that was a turnover , spoiling back into play

Let alone the 357 times when we had two (or even three a couple of times) defenders go for the same ball and take each other out. Do they think its silent football or something..... we do it week in, week out and it invariably costs us a couple of goals every week.

Cleary’s 0% TOG in the first quarter has been brought up a few times but not accompanied by the fact he played 100% TOG in the second. As Liz said teams are still trying to work out how to use the 23rd man, and Cleary’s usage in the first half seems to be one of those experiments.

Other teams like the Hawks tonight (Meek 53% Reeves 47%) and the Crows last week have used it exclusively on the second ruck. There was talk that Ladhams or McLean would fill this role last night but didn’t eventuate. I think in hindsight we may regret not doing this against two strong rucks

We will have to try it at some point or we will break Grundy a long time before the finals. Amartey and McDonald are not the answers in the ruck at the best of times, let alone against two genuine rucks.

Can't fault his ability to want to compete, work ethic and professionalism but he like Rampe at this stage of their careers are going to have some really great moments but some pretty ordinary ones as well. Just how it goes.

The end is coming quick for both of them sadly. I think Rampe playing the right role in the back 6 still has enough to give, but I just don't see it with Lloyd in this wing/half forward flank sort of role. He isn't a goal threat, he hasn't got the pace to provide significant pressure act, has never been a particularly amazing tackler.

They may well still be there all season, but equally it would not surprise me if both drop out of the team by about the mid point of the season either.

 

[TasSixer]

All Rowbottom can do is tackle. Absolutely worthless going back the other way. Waste of time, you can’t win a flag when he’s one of your main center bounce midfielders, 12 touches all game from one of your prime mids is just a fail.

I don't know what was wrong, there was a Hawks goal early that resulted from a missed tackle from Rowbottom. His attack on that player wasn't AFL standard.

 

[ErrolisGoldun]

Not the worst loss but frustrating as hell.

If Hawks kicked straight would have been a lot worse.

Same time, was inconsistently adjudacated on the umpires end.

Gripes and whinging aside...

Man our talls kinda sucked in the category of "being a target up the line". All three of our key sometimes did it. We need them to consistently do it. There are three of you. Sort it out. Take turns.

Plan B down the line does not work. Hasn't worked for us for awhile. Need to sharpen up some lateral ball movement to break open play and then look for corridor kick. Poor coaching as seems a really simple fix considering how we play.

Two players (although phenomenal) should not kill our ball movement and fluency as much as they did last night. The fact we do not have four or five players able to take aspects of their game is baffling and shows a very soft underbelly if a team can take advantage.

Defence was all out to see last night. Likely on the back of poor midfield defensive running and... well disorganisation.

Anyway, onwards to the bye

The movement of our forwards was concerning last night.

The lack of movement encourages the dump kick, one of the big boys needs to lead at the ball.

We are not a contested marking team and Mitchell coached well last night, Cox not so much.

We ended up playing into Hawks strength, battle, Sicily, Barrass taking intercept marks or taking possession from our exits.

Curnow will take time, us to learn his strengths and him to work out how best to lead to our strengths.

 

[mcs095]

The movement of our forwards was concerning last night.

The lack of movement encourages the dump kick, one of the big boys needs to lead at the ball.

We are not a contested marking team and Mitchell coached well last night, Cox not so much.

We ended up playing into Hawks strength, battle, Sicily, Barrass taking intercept marks or taking possession from our exits.

Curnow will take time, us to learn his strengths and him to work out how best to lead to our strengths.

Excellent points on the forwards. When you play against teams stacked with tall defenders like that, you have to create separation, and get them moving. Even if it may be relatively 'fruitless' for that particular piece of play - you need to move a lot, lead a lot and wear them out. They did it to us at the other end well, and it was only their poor kicking that didn't see it result in several more goals. But a lot of that came from the hard work done in earlier quarters moving our defenders around. We were so stagnant in the forward line and concentrated the Hawks defenders could have had a picnic for 10 minutes and not missed anything in terms of players trying to drag them around the forward line.

With the current group, it should be McDonald and Curnow getting on their bike to push up and lead, and probably Amartey/Grundy when resting being the tall that stays back towards the goal square as the key tall target.

Curnow couldn't clunk one for love or money last night - but 5 pluggers down front would have struggled last night given the quality of ball coming in from our preferred 'high long and dump' kick style of forward entry.

 

[Millky95]

The umpiring was one sided to the home team but it always is down here.
reckon a lot of people don’t like Thursday night football - that crowd I reckon was 15000 less than what they might have anticipated.

Knew the crowd was bad when we got the offer to bring a friend for free as members

 

[melbournehammer]

It’s too early to tell whether that heat map presages some deeper concerns.

But it is evidence of some confusion with our list which may really burn us.

It’s interesting to me that they concluded after 2022 that what they needed was midfield support so they looked at Adams as best available and then after 2024 they decided what was going wrong was their tall forwards so they moved mccartin forward. It also seems to me that Paddy's perhaps inevitable second set of concussions has led to Mills being sent back to defence because we dont really have another intercept marker (other than perhaps blakey).

We are constantly trying to replace the previous issue that emerged instead of (perhaps) accepting that
the actual issue is that they just dont have enough depth and we keep trying to cover this by buying players. I genuinely think this reflects a really bad patch of drafting (not entirely the clubs fault - the covid drafts were difficult) and an inability to improve by getting the marty mattner type.

Ultimately I think we have launched the spend everything on another tall forward in the age of speed and skill through the midfield - Ive been on record many times as thinking the curnow decision was a bad one not because curnow is a bad player but because i dont think that was what was needed. Watching last night I still think its the absence of any meaningful depth which is what is going to hurt us, while acknowledging that any team that loses players 1 and 2 and replaces them with 27 and 28 is likely going to lose a lot

 

[mcs095]

Is there anything Papley does well at the moment, apart from screaming from the bench?

Doesn't pressure, barely tackles and doesn't compete for the ball in the air in a 1v1 or 2v1, instead waits at ground level but he's always in the wrong spot. At least Rosas is kicking a goal a game and applying some (minimal) pressure).

In an ideal world, he would be playing ressies at the moment imho. I know he is working his way back from fitness, but he looks a very long way short of a gallop still, and his kicking at the moment has been ordinary at best. Adding very, very little. Hopefully will work into it over next few weeks, but the sooner the better please. Game 200 against Wet Toast might get him going perhaps.