Toast Defenders do it better

[Ticky009]

Massive shout out to our defenders, who are currently heading towards a best in 50 year effort for the club.

At the start of the season the majority of us here would have said our defensive stocks were a concern. A huge effort by the team to make us the stingiest defense in the AFL.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...n/news-story/c87eadd8a191ad6dedf94c61a748ffd1

Credit given when due. Fantastic effort Swans! From coaching to players

Feel free to call out your Favourite Defensive effort of the year...

 

[Nool Carpenna]

Hear, hear!
I love the way they have gone about it too... a pleasure to watch them every week.

As an aside, the cover pic with Hanners and Jude inset.... the handshake at the end of that interview was great

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Massive shout out to our defenders, who are currently heading towards a best in 50 year effort for the club.

At the start of the season the majority of us here would have said our defensive stocks were a concern. A huge effort by the team to make us the stingiest defense in the AFL.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...n/news-story/c87eadd8a191ad6dedf94c61a748ffd1

Credit given when due. Fantastic effort Swans! From coaching to players

Feel free to call out your Favourite Defensive effort of the year...

Yep, whenever anyone bags my beloved Swannies I get all defensive...

The revelation that "the Swans are installed as $4.50 equal TAB favourites with Adelaide, Sydney and Geelong to lift the 2016 premiership cup" gives me enormous heart, but does cause me to question the reasoning behind the old truism that the bookies always have the most expensive cars in the racecourse parking lot.

All jokes aside, totally agree, and great to read such awe-inspiring stats, particularly when, as you say, it was looking like one of our weak spots at the beginning of the year.

I love our defensive focus. It goes back to Roosy at least. Defense wins premierships.

Spectacular stuff from Buddy, BBBH, Plugger, Mickey O and all our other great forwards over the years will always provoke that fist-punching-the-air response, but for quiet, f**-I-just-love-this-team warm inner glow, week-in, week-out, I can't top the way the modern Swans have prioritised getting the defenders of the day working as a team.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

In all fairness, might it be the case that our wonderfully low Points Against stat has been helped a bit by the ridiculous number of games we've had to play during cyclones this year?

 

[CD__]

I love the way our defenders all back themselves to mark the ball when the opportunity presents rather than just spoil it every time...intercept marks are a criminally underrated stat given how many goals are kicked on turnover these days and Reg, Ramps, Cal and AA do it as well as any defensive group in the league.

 

[Punts]

Playfair must be a better Defence coach than forward I guess

 

[swansfan51]

Defense wins premierships.

That is demonstrably untrue. In almost all years it is attack that wins premierships

http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/08/1...k-is-the-best-method-of-winning-premierships/
http://maxbarry.com/squiggle/#
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...premiership-with-defence-20160322-gnokkd.html

 

[The King!]

Playfair must be a better Defence coach than forward I guess

better coach than player at the very least

 

[The King!]

the swans defence does a great job, however they only goes as far as the midfield allows them to, if they dont work back or if they do not control possession in the middle our defence can be opened up.

there are actually not a lot of sides than can exploit our weak defensive areas IMO

Hawks with no Roughead is good, but they have those bloody small forwards when the ball hits the deck
and GWS I think they are an awful match up for our defence, good size and agile,stretches us big time

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

That is demonstrably untrue. In almost all years it is attack that wins premierships

http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/08/1...k-is-the-best-method-of-winning-premierships/
http://maxbarry.com/squiggle/#
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...premiership-with-defence-20160322-gnokkd.html

Why do you have to ruin a perfectly happy celebration with... y'know, facts and stuff?

But seriously, even if those stats (which quickly made my brain start hurting so I closed the page) show that defense doesn't win premierships, I think there's a case to be made that inculcating a belief in Swans players that defense wins premierships, wins Swans premierships.

Stats are great for showing the reality of a situation; not so good for showing what brought that reality into being.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

And there's no denying that the '05 flag was won by one particular act by one L. Barry, defender, with 4 seconds to go!

 

[The King!]

Why do you have to ruin a perfectly happy celebration with... y'know, facts and stuff?

But seriously, even if those stats (which quickly made my brain start hurting so I closed the page) show that defense doesn't win premierships, I think there's a case to be made that inculcating a belief in Swans players that defense wins premierships, wins Swans premierships.

Stats are great for showing the reality of a situation; not so good for showing what brought that reality into being.

Good teams are built on good defence, name a side who leaked goals and won a flag

Stats dont tell all, sometimes people need to watch the game

 

[swansfan51]

sometimes people need to watch the game

Ah so that's what I've been forgetting to do this whole time, what colours do we wear btw?

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Ah so that's what I've been forgetting to do this whole time, what colours do we wear btw?

If you're red/green colourblind like about 10% of the population, we're the ones in half-tone grey and white.

 

[vonn]

Rampe has gone to another level. Aliir insane debut.

 

[RW]

Defence can get you to the finals but you need to attack to win them. Sydney are the exception rather than the rule, but even in 2005 we had Hall, O'Loughlin and Davis in the forward line. In 2012 we had a weaker forward line, but made up for this with a career-best season from Jetta and our midfield regularly kicking goals.

 

[caesar88]

My favourite defensive moment was easily Sir Dane's intercept mark against Port. Which resulted directly in a goal ironically. Such a God

 

[Ticky009]

Rampe has gone to another level. Aliir insane debut.

Rampe's diving effort to try and stop a goal when we were like 50 points up on Saturday was a standout.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Defence can get you to the finals but you need to attack to win them. Sydney are the exception rather than the rule, but even in 2005 we had Hall, O'Loughlin and Davis in the forward line. In 2012 we had a weaker forward line, but made up for this with a career-best season from Jetta and our midfield regularly kicking goals.

Yeah but.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

My favourite defensive moment was easily Sir Dane's intercept mark against Port. Which resulted directly in a goal ironically. Such a God

The sort of lairising (sheesh, showing my age with that one!) act that when it succeeds, is utterly demoralising to an opposition.

 

[BlueRoses]

Rampe's diving effort to try and stop a goal when we were like 50 points up on Saturday was a standout.

I saw that happen, it was almost funny because based on his reaction you'd think he'd just let in the goal that won port the game at the final siren or something. He was on his haunches with his head in his hands.

 

[GotTheGoodes]

I saw that happen, it was almost funny because based on his reaction you'd think he'd just let in the goal that won port the game at the final siren or something. He was on his haunches with his head in his hands.

That kind of effort lifts the team. It makes the midfield and forwards play that little bit harder IMO. That is the real value of solid hard working defense. Stop the other teams momentum to allow you're team to take control.

I suppose each team is different but IMO defense does win premierships. That's not just the back 6 but defense across the ground including things like "forward pressure" and midfielders gut running both ways. Without a strong reliable rock solid defense you can easily lose momentum & I reckon momentum is the biggest risk come finals. You get a team that is "on" and can put in 2 quarters of season best footy, you need to be able to absorb that to then attempt to counterattack.

 

[caesar88]

Rampe will go down as one of the greatest defenders in our clubs history.

 

[Kennedy Parker]

Grundy's been resolute as always, Aliir's been a revelation, Rampe's improved out of sight in terms of his disposal and intercept ability. Very encouraging to see the defence holding up so well again, consider that Jones, Laidler and Marsh are still out with injury all of a sudden we have a bit of depth in our back line.

 

[SBD Gonzalez]

Rampe will go down as one of the greatest defenders in our clubs history.

I like you. You tell it like it is, and never descend into hyperbole.