Do the impossible

[yoshi2284]

walsh could end up our key position defender. aka grundy and richards before him.. take over from richards in 2 years time.

 

[RUNVS]

walsh could end up our key position defender. aka grundy and richards before him.. take over from richards in 2 years time.

It wouldn't surprise me to be honest. Walsh was actually pretty good before he got injured yesterday, he was much better than Essendon's key forwards who were playing a similar role and who are much more highly rated than Walsh is.

 

[db swannie]

This is so tough but what the last few weeks have proven is that when our older guys retire we are not going to go down the ladder as we have the cattle to replace them.

Anyway the top 7 players in terms of age are

1. Adam Goodes - 33 years, 4 months
2. Jude Bolton - 33 years, 2 months
3. Ryan O'Keefe - 32 years, 4 months
4. Rhyce Shaw - 31 years, 7 months
5. Martin Mattner - 30 years, 9 months
6. Ted Richards - 30 years, 4 months
7. Lewis Roberts-Thomson - 29 years, 8 months

Now I am of the opinion that this will be Jude's last year and I suspect it might be Mattner's as well or at least Mattner's second last year as he seems to have hit a small brick wall in form. Shaw is still playing really well (at least he was when he was playing) but with guys that age they can drop in form suddenly and unexpectedly, same with O'Keefe who has been great this year but could hit an unexpected form drop any time really. Richards still has a few years but we need to make sure Johnson develops the way he should as Johnson will be very important once Richards retires.

I would've thought that was mainly down to injury rather than form?

 

[RUNVS]

I would've thought that was mainly down to injury rather than form?

I am talking about before he was injured.

 

[db swannie]

I am talking about before he was injured.

Cool, but unless I'm wrong I don't think he's been 100% this season, which was probably more my point. The hip thing has been a hangover from the finals I thought? I'm only guessing, but if Shaw, LRT and AJ had all been available I'm wondering if he would've been given more time to get his body right at the start of the year?

I'm merely speculating though...

 

[The King!]

This is so tough but what the last few weeks have proven is that when our older guys retire we are not going to go down the ladder as we have the cattle to replace them.

Anyway the top 7 players in terms of age are

1. Adam Goodes - 33 years, 4 months
2. Jude Bolton - 33 years, 2 months
3. Ryan O'Keefe - 32 years, 4 months
4. Rhyce Shaw - 31 years, 7 months
5. Martin Mattner - 30 years, 9 months
6. Ted Richards - 30 years, 4 months
7. Lewis Roberts-Thomson - 29 years, 8 months

Now I am of the opinion that this will be Jude's last year and I suspect it might be Mattner's as well or at least Mattner's second last year as he seems to have hit a small brick wall in form. Shaw is still playing really well (at least he was when he was playing) but with guys that age they can drop in form suddenly and unexpectedly, same with O'Keefe who has been great this year but could hit an unexpected form drop any time really. Richards still has a few years but we need to make sure Johnson develops the way he should as Johnson will be very important once Richards retires.

Frees up some cap space too so we can go shopping.


Had an arrogant thought, could we pick from outside the weekends 22 a side that would beat melbourne?

 

[The Swans Blog]

We need to be keenly aware of our huge lack of tall depth, particularly in defence, but otherwise things are not too worrying.

Good chance with Tippet coming on board that Reid could be shifted down back. We've never really played like the Hawks with 2 or 3 talls, it's always been 1 tall & a resting ruckman up front.

 

[RUNVS]

Frees up some cap space too so we can go shopping.


Had an arrogant thought, could we pick from outside the weekends 22 a side that would beat melbourne?

To be honest I think we could drop our best 12 players (assuming everyone is fit) and go with a team that consists of our 13th to 34th best players and we would still beat Melbourne.

 

[Tippett2Goal]

To be honest I think we could drop our best 12 players (assuming everyone is fit) and go with a team that consists of our 13th to 34th best players and we would still beat Melbourne.

No we couldn't, lets be realistic

 

[RUNVS]

No we couldn't, lets be realistic

I'm not so sure. I do know that when everyone is fit we have nearly 30 players who are at the very least decent AFL players.

Remember we played on Saturday and we were missing

Tippett
Rohan
LRT
Johnson
Shaw
Mattner
Reid

so add that to our best 22 against Essendon and that is 29 AFL players.

 

[bungee]

I have a feeling it's ongoing to get harder by the week.

That's what I said when the Doc asked me how the course of Viagra was coming along.

 

[doona]

Name who you would drop from the current team for:

Reid
Tippett
LRT
Shaw
Mattner

Rohan
AJ

great problem to have

I dont think I could do it, but there is no love for craig bird in this thread. Fully fit, I think he is an important member of the midfield rotations.

I think the mission impossible will be keeping all the players!!!!

 

[RUNVS]

Alright lets be reasonable and only drop our 10 best players (dictated by the 2012 B&F results).

Those are

Kennedy
Richards
O'Keefe
Jack
McVeigh
Smith
Grundy
Jetta
Bird
Hannebery

Now lets try and make a team without those players

B N.Malceski, Johnson, Armstrong
HB Shaw, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Lamb, Bolton
HF , A.Goodes, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Rohan
I/C , Walsh, , M.Morton, White, Cunningham

Now I am not good at making those things so I am sure there will be plenty of guys out of position but in that list there is only 1 guy who has never played a game before and I honestly wonder if it could beat Melbourne.

 

[swansfan51]

Now lets try and make a team without those players

B N.Malceski, Johnson, Armstrong
HB Shaw, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Lamb, Bolton
HF , A.Goodes, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Rohan
I/C , Walsh, , M.Morton, White, Cunningham

Now I am not good at making those things so I am sure there will be plenty of guys out of position but in that list there is only 1 guy who has never played a game before and I honestly wonder if it could beat Melbourne.

Backline looks very weak, but if we swapped Brown for LRT and Armstrong for Mattner I think we would give a good account of ourselves. The midfield is awful but so is Melbourne's, should be an even contest there

I'd line us up like this:

B Malceski, Roberts-Thomson, Mattner
HB Cunningham, Johnson, Rampe
C Mitchell, Lamb, Shaw
HF Goodes, Reid, Everitt
F Morton, Tippett, Rohan
Foll Pyke, L.Parker, McGlynn
I/C Mumford, White, Bolton, Lloyd

Emg: Brown, Armstrong, Walsh

 

[RUNVS]

Backline looks very weak, but if we swapped Brown for LRT and Armstrong for Mattner I think we would give a good account of ourselves. The midfield is awful but so is Melbourne's, should be an even contest there

I completely forgot about LRT and Mattner.

Revised is

B N.Malceski, Johnson, Armstrong
HB Shaw, LRT, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Mattner, Bolton
HF , A.Goodes, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Rohan
I/C , Walsh, M.Morton, Lamb, Cunningham

 

[doona]

Alright lets be reasonable and only drop our 10 best players (dictated by the 2012 B&F results).

Those are

Kennedy
Richards
O'Keefe
Jack
McVeigh
Smith
Grundy
Jetta
Bird
Hannebery

Now lets try and make a team without those players

B N.Malceski, Johnson, Armstrong
HB Shaw, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Lamb, Bolton
HF , A.Goodes, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Rohan
I/C , Walsh, , M.Morton, White, Cunningham

Now I am not good at making those things so I am sure there will be plenty of guys out of position but in that list there is only 1 guy who has never played a game before and I honestly wonder if it could beat Melbourne.

Easily beat Melbourne.

 

[Tippett2Goal]

I'm not so sure. I do know that when everyone is fit we have nearly 30 players who are at the very least decent AFL players.

Yeah but counting injured players isn't really realistic.
If we were to drop our best 12 players currently, we could not field a side that would beat Melbourne.
I'll take the top 10 from BF + Adam Goodes (2011 winner) and Shaw (top 3 2011)

1st Josh Kennedy 877​

2nd Ted Richards 705​

3rd Ryan O’Keefe 701​

4th Kieren Jack 686​

5th Jarrad McVeigh 600​

6th Nick Smith 551​

7th Heath Grundy 536​

8th Lewis Jetta 521​

9th Craig Bird 517​

10th Dan Hannebery 471​

​

If we then remove the players who are unavailable due to injury long term (ie can have Reid, but noone who is out for season)
We are left with the following team

B N.Malceski, Lockyer, Armstrong
HB Marsh, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Cunningham, Bolton
HF Membrey, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Lamb
I/C M.Morton, White, Towers, Brandon Jack

There is literally only 1 senior listed player not in this team who is not currently injured (and would be 0 if i included him ahead of Brandon Jack)

Midfield is very weak, back line is dubious, forward line actually looks decent.

So ill compare that side, to Melbourne's lineup from this weekend.

B Dunn, Frawley, Terlich
HB Watts Pederson Garland
C Trengove Evans Jones
HF Tapscott Howe Bell
F Rodan Dawes Davey
Foll Jamar McKenzie Jones
I/C Kent, Fitzpatrick, Strauss, Macdonald


Their forwardline would likely monster our backline, and whilst on paper the midfield doesn't look terrible there is a real lack of rotations there for our hard running both ways. I must say before I started this I thought we were 0 chance with 12 dropped, but i'd give us a 20 - 30% crack at winning with that team vs Melb.

 

[RUNVS]

Yeah but counting injured players isn't really realistic.
If we were to drop our best 12 players currently, we could not field a side that would beat Melbourne.
I'll take the top 10 from BF + Adam Goodes (2011 winner) and Shaw (top 3 2011)


1st Josh Kennedy 877

2nd Ted Richards 705
3rd Ryan O’Keefe 701
4th Kieren Jack 686
5th Jarrad McVeigh 600
6th Nick Smith 551
7th Heath Grundy 536
8th Lewis Jetta 521
9th Craig Bird 517
10th Dan Hannebery 471

If we then remove the players who are unavailable due to injury long term (ie can have Reid, but noone who is out for season)

We are left with the following team

B N.Malceski, Lockyer, Armstrong
HB Marsh, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Cunningham, Bolton
HF Membrey, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Lamb
I/C M.Morton, White, Towers, Brandon Jack

That is fair though if we go with that team I would move Reid to defence along with Everitt as at least with them they would be able to more easily stop Dawes. Tippett and guys like Morton and McGlynn should be able to hold down the forward line at least somewhat.

Still this is a really interesting discussion.

 

[doona]

B N.Malceski, Lockyer, Armstrong
HB Marsh, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Cunningham, Bolton
HF Membrey, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Lamb
I/C M.Morton, White, Towers, Brandon Jack

I woul play x.richards in defence, from his ressies form, he has potential and along with brown, the best KPD's outside of the 22.

The forward line is quality. The midfield maybe lacking rotations, like you pointed out the defence is the biggest weakness.

It is a sign of a quality team to have depth.

I actually think defenders play a huge part in AFL, and to have both KPD's, grundy and ted in our top 10 best and fairest, i respect. not often that would happen in the AFL. especially in a premiership year.

 

[The King!]

Im thinking lrt stays out.... I should be shot for saying it i know

 

[SM]

B N.Malceski, Lockyer, Armstrong
HB Marsh, Brown, D.Rampe
C Mitchell, Cunningham, Bolton
HF Membrey, Reid, Everitt
F S.Mumford, Tippett, B.McGlynn
Foll M.Pyke, , L.Parker, Lamb
I/C M.Morton, White, Towers, Brandon Jack

I actually think that team would beat Melbourne, but take Lockyer out and put X. Richards in. That midfield with the context of the form Mitchell showed, and Jack now getting a run around isn't actually horrible. That both our ruckmen are able to play is also a bonus.

 

[Punts]

Im thinking lrt stays out.... I should be shot for saying it i know

No way

 

[The King!]

No way

Well when is he back and how match fit is? Who are we dropping for him?