Incorrect. You need to be uninjured, unimpeded and have a good engine.
Incorrect. Spitta never had trouble finding the pill. The guys body was wrecked last year and he just couldn't run. Or do you think Gibson is a better runner than anyone else because he has better instruction?
Come one mate, you're better than that.
At last, the truth comes out.
You have a simplistic view on things. Swallow just isn't suited for this style of footy, it may sound absurd, because he is an in and under nut, but he isn't built for the game to be a grind to the extent that it is now.
Let me wind back the clock to the halcyon days under the junk yard dog, Swallow was bog average. So average in fact that the bible banished him to purgatory, otherwise known as the VFL for almost all of 2008. He came back better, but first cracked a 20 disposal average in 2010, the year after the bloodletting of the old guard and the retirement of guys like Simpson and the ousting of Harris, Power and the stodge machine.
In our Dear Leader's first year as reign as coach Swallow had a lot more freedom, not just because he was the only permanent inside midfielder, but because he had a lot more running players around him. Brad saw the direction the game was going and we played a faster transition game which troubled a lot of sides, the problem was we had a lot of players like Anthony, Gibson, Harper, Boomer, Campbell, etc who weren't exactly the hardest two way running and tackling players, so it was kind of problematic when we couldn't get our hands on enough of the ball.
In this environment, Swallow thrived and it wasn't because of his inside numbers, those have been pretty static over the years, what has been different is his uncontested work rate, he had a lot more uncontested possessions in 2011, 2012 and 2013. He had 8 bounces in 2011, 6 in 2012 and 8 in 2013. He has had 4 bounces total since 2013 from 62 games, that is once bounce for every 15 and a half games... as a midfielder.
He also ran a lot more aggressively, in 2010 he kicked 16.11 and had 14 goal assists. In 2011 it was 11.7 and 13 assists, in 2012 it was 9.12 and 17 assists. His contribution the last three years combined is 9.14 and 23 assists. The more permanent time Cunnington and Ziebell have been given and the the slower we have moved the ball by design and stopped using the corridor it has severely hampered his ability, we have had more stoppage numbers, so much more that Swallow has been able to maintain his inside numbers despite the permanent additions of Cunnington and Ziebell to the midfield group.
I don't think he has fully recovered from his Achilles and I think that is going to impact his ability to do endurance running, particularly early in the pre-season, however, JB approaching Scott after the disastrous end to 2012 had probably torpedoed any chance our club had of winning a flag during the reign of the older generation. Brad had the right idea, what he lacked was the cattle.
Swallow was always going to slow down with age, but he was never that quick to begin with, while he wasn't slow he was never a player that relied on speed. Our run and carry game was instinctive, the spread was instinctive, it got the best out of numerous players, Thompson was an AA defender during this era, he has degenerated into a bit of a buffoon with this ultra defensive nobody pick up anybody type of gameplan.
There is no synergy with our midfield unit, the only time they seem to pass the ball to each other is with a point blank hot potato hand pass under the pump. Ziebell had a pretty good year statistically, but seemed to fair a bit better when he used to push up the ground, in the middle he was hit and miss and the entire midfield group struggled to get involved.
I love Ben, he is one of my favourite players but he has racked up nearly 150 games and has put ball to turf a total of 8 times in his career as a midfielder.
None of our assistants have made it as a coach, I don't even know of anyone who has been asked to do an interview. You don't need to be a brilliant footy strategist to see there is something fundamentally wrong with how we structure up at stoppages and how we move the ball.
We can piss, fart and moan about it, but guys like Petrie and Wells have played the bulk of their career at our club with nothing to show for it and will have regrets of never being good enough to win a flag. We haven't really given them a chance to, we haven't been good enough at enough of the basics to give ourselves a chance and we have let down players who have given everything to the club. I don't want the younger players who are now in their mid 20s now to become the next generation of not-good-enoughs. They deserve better than that.