Is anyone else seriously worried about the Swans forward line?

RUNVS

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Afew years ago the Swans forward line was very powerful and feared amomst opponents but im really starting to worry about it.

Barry Hall - I dont think he will ever be a dominate as he was in 2005 and 2006. He should get better than he was against the Saints but he best days are behind him.

Michael O'Loughlin - Magic is not a spring chicken anymore and he has lost pace. Also what was worrying against St Kilda when he had a set shot at goal from 50 out and instead of taking it he passed it off.

Ryan O'Keefe - He works very hard but rarely scores a bagload of goals.

Nick Davis - One of the best set shot kickers in the AFL but you can NEVER count on him to win the game for the Swans as he seems to spend large portions of each game completely missing.

What do you all think?
 

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natlovestheswans

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#2
Yeah, i was having this conversation with my Dad and sister this morning. It's very concerning..

Between the 4 of them, how many goals did they get last night? I think 2, or maybe 3? That's pathetic.
 

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#3
I'm not seriously worried although its a little bit of a concern. You can't judge players by the game last night though, the amount of flooding didn't allow any forwards space. The St.Kilda forward line is regarded as one of the best and how many goals did they manage? Not much.
 

nico

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#4
Fair dinkum folks will you please watch the game. It had nothing to do with the 4 mentioned, it was the clowns up the ground he refused to kick to a contest at the top of the square, or apart from Moore, be able to spot up a player on the lead. While we continue that rubbish people will continue to malign our forwards.

What hope did Grundy have coming out of or standing in square. Put it up there a bit more and we might see how he can play. Remember Scott Stevens.
 

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#5
We're still centred around Hall. Is it because he's available, he's strong or he makes us piss our pants when we don't deliver to him. Round 22, no Hall, goal kicking spread out between the forward line.
 

natlovestheswans

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#6
Fair dinkum folks will you please watch the game. It had nothing to do with the 4 mentioned, it was the clowns up the ground he refused to kick to a contest at the top of the square, or apart from Moore, be able to spot up a player on the lead. While we continue that rubbish people will continue to malign our forwards.

What hope did Grundy have coming out of or standing in square. Put it up there a bit more and we might see how he can play. Remember Scott Stevens.
The majority of the game the St Kilda players had completely flooded the forward line, so kicking it to a contest at the top of the square would have been an absolute disaster.. there would have been about 15 bodies all flying at eachother.

I know that this made it hard on the forwards but they need to work around that. As far as i was concerned, there wasn't enough leading from the forwards.. but then again that's hard to tell when you're not at the ground.
 

RUNVS

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Thread starter #7
With Hall and O'Loughlin's ages Paul Roos really must recruit atleast 1 big Forward (sort of like a young Barry Hall) as they will be needed very soon.
 

natlovestheswans

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#8
One more thing about Barry - why did he kick the ball to Bird during the 3rd quarter even though he was probably in a better position for a shot on goal and of course, has 500+ goals more of experience. It didn't make sense. Barry needs to be selfish sometimes.

Oh and crap, what about the moment in the second quarter where Barry pretty much got his neck taken off him and it was play on? That was unbelievable!
 
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#10
One more thing about Barry - why did he kick the ball to Bird during the 3rd quarter even though he was probably in a better position for a shot on goal and of course, has 500+ goals more of experience. It didn't make sense. Barry needs to be selfish sometimes.

Oh and crap, what about the moment in the second quarter where Barry pretty much got his neck taken off him and it was play on? That was unbelievable!
you're right about baz's decision to kick to bird in a pocket AFTER ignoring davo running past him free and directly in front, a bad decision by hall
however, apart from his dropping some marks, at least baz moved better than at any time last season, and he actually jumped for some marks
i think we have to give him the chance to get his confidence and timing back
i AM worried, however, that we have hall and micky o, two ageing forwards who barely make even an aerial contest, let alone grab high marks
i thought davis was okay last night, looked like he was trying to put himself into the game, and he is still probly our most dangerous shot at goal anywhere around the 50m, but he suffers i think from his past reputation for laziness and inconsistency, and is not given much service
o'keefe has not been a true forward for two years, he remains our best marking option on the half forward line, he seems to have great aerobic capacity and keeps running
grundy's hands, supposedly a strong point, continue to be a worry although again, leave him up forward and let him get some confidence
jesse white is the obvious choice as a big marking forward target, but the probolem is how to fit them all in
someone would have to go, apart from maybe picking ROK on the halfback flank or wing and use his running game
 

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#11
The majority of the game the St Kilda players had completely flooded the forward line, so kicking it to a contest at the top of the square would have been an absolute disaster.. there would have been about 15 bodies all flying at eachother.

I know that this made it hard on the forwards but they need to work around that. As far as i was concerned, there wasn't enough leading from the forwards.. but then again that's hard to tell when you're not at the ground.
Were you there in the 2nd Q when we started to go longer into the forward line or the last Q when tried to do the same. 15 bodies, so what, it puts a lot of pressure on their last line of defence and gives our forwards a chance to snap goals from close in. When you have players running back hard to flood you catch them off balance and in STKilda's case their 2 running backs in Fisher and Gram would find themselves deep in defence. Even if a defender takes a mark in that case they are deep in defence, not running off an intercept at half back or outside 50.
 

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CAS79

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#12
There were a combination of factors last night that contributed to the look of the forward line. Yes the St Kilda flooding, some average delivery as has been pointed out all had an impact.

What cannot be ignored though is the lack of presentation from our forwards or their ability to get into even-winnable contests. Late in the game i heard some swans fans for bagging Davis for taking a kick from outside 50, but no one made leads and even when he took his kick no Hall, O'Loughlan or Goodes were in the square trying to mark or bring the ball to ground, I think only Grundy in a contest with 3 saints and the ball was rushed for a behind.

I don’t Include O'Keefe as much because he is given more license to play up the ground and as such is not going to have as many shots. We also missed a few shots. I'm loath to write any part of our game off after only round 1 but our forwards were not playing there best last night.
 

natlovestheswans

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#13
Were you there in the 2nd Q when we started to go longer into the forward line or the last Q when tried to do the same. 15 bodies, so what, it puts a lot of pressure on their last line of defence and gives our forwards a chance to snap goals from close in.
Yes, there's a chance that someone could have been lucky and got a quick snap in but i would have prefered for the forwards to playing with a bit more intent and actually all clustering together and then breaking out seperately and leading. They weren't doing that though. They were just all over the place.. just standing around waiting for something to happen. Where was the leading?
 

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#14
I'm with Nico in that I think it's impossible to make any judgement on the forward line based on yesterday. The uber-flood and slow, hestitant (or even complete lack of) forward delivery meant they always had their work cut out.

Hall didn't have a great game but he wasn't out worst either. At least their was some intensity about him and he did look to be moving well.

I thought Micky's hands looked pretty good, though his inability to kick much more than 30m does limit him a bit nowadays.

And far from criticising Davo for having a shot from outside 50m, I wish he'd do it more often. He almost always at least makes the distance (and halfway up the goalposts, too) and even if he only nails 50% of them, we're likely to kick a darned sight more goals than with much of the crap we saw yesterday.

My main criticism of the forwards was that their defensive pressure wasn't crash hot. The Saints had a lot less trouble getting the ball out of our zone than we were having at the other end of the ground. This is definitely one area where Grundy needs to lift. If you compare his efforts once the ball hits the deck with the likes of O'Loughlin, there isn't a gulf, there's a whole bloody ocean.
 

RUNVS

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In creating this thread i wasnt just thinking about yesterday's game but also quite afew games from last year aswell. There is a HUGE difference between our forward line of 2005 compared to our forward line now even though in terms of personell nothing has changed.

A intersting question. What other AFL teams havent changed their forward lines at all in 4 years?
 
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#17
Fair dinkum folks will you please watch the game. It had nothing to do with the 4 mentioned, it was the clowns up the ground he refused to kick to a contest at the top of the square, or apart from Moore, be able to spot up a player on the lead. While we continue that rubbish people will continue to malign our forwards.

What hope did Grundy have coming out of or standing in square. Put it up there a bit more and we might see how he can play. Remember Scott Stevens.

I put the blame squarely on Roosy. Roosy should have addressed those issues during the pre season. The sort of BS that we saw against the saints was not foreign. It was all too evident last season and until Roosy himself adds a new dimension to his game plan, we shouldnt really blame the players who were simply following orders.

If teams decide to flood, then the best way to minimise that is to get it to the forwards as quickly as possible even if it means sacrifcing accuracy.
 
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#18
I put the blame squarely on Roosy. Roosy should have addressed those issues during the pre season. The sort of BS that we saw against the saints was not foreign. It was all too evident last season and until Roosy himself adds a new dimension to his game plan, we shouldnt really blame the players who were simply following orders.

If teams decide to flood, then the best way to minimise that is to get it to the forwards as quickly as possible even if it means sacrifcing accuracy.
or maybe also doing what we tried late in the last quarter ... finding nick davis somewhere about the 50m arc and let him have the shot
it worked once, it almost worked a coupla other times
and it completely nullifies flooding
it'd work better with davis and someone else, and i'm thinking luke ablett, who could kick a cow 50-odd metres, but having two options on the 50m arc would seriously start to test a team with 17 or 18 players crammed inside their defensive 50m
 

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#19
This is why you needed to

a) draft a forward in the 06' draft (why you didn't draft a forward with your fisrt pick in that draft was very silly)

b) play goalkicking midfielders. I know Roos has this love of not playing 1st year players, but Vezpremi MUST play as soon as he is match fit as he fits that criteria.

IMO you Swans will be fine, and remember you always start slow, BUT I just wonder if Roos continues to play average up of the mill midfielders, then how far can you go.

Brendan Murphy hopefully gets a run soon as well!
 

RUNVS

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b) play goalkicking midfielders. I know Roos has this love of not playing 1st year players, but Vezpremi MUST play as soon as he is match fit as he fits that criteria.
Paul Roos has always been a fan of midfielders who can kick goals. Most of our midfielders can kick goals on a semi regular basis. Its nice to have midfielders who can score goals but our forwards are still expected to do most of the scoring and unfortunately im not sure they are up to it.


IMO you Swans will be fine, and remember you always start slow, BUT I just wonder if Roos continues to play average up of the mill midfielders, then how far can you go.
Really it wouldnt take much to turn the Swans into a top 4 side. Most of the ingredients are already there.
 

LukeParkerno1

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#21
Paul Roos has always been a fan of midfielders who can kick goals. Most of our midfielders can kick goals on a semi regular basis. Its nice to have midfielders who can score goals but our forwards are still expected to do most of the scoring and unfortunately im not sure they are up to it.




Really it wouldnt take much to turn the Swans into a top 4 side. Most of the ingredients are already there.

Who of your midfielders apart from Buchannon regularly kicks goals? Ablett kicks the odd one, but hardly a consistent goalkicker. You need a midfielder that will kick 25-30 a season- Vezpremi is that person. It helps the forwards if mids kick bags, as less defenders will be on your key forwards- less likely to flood as well, as they have to worry about your mids just as much.

I agree on the top 4, however I do think someone has to go to accomodate Vezpremi to get the top 4 position to be honest. He is a dead set star, play him!
 

RUNVS

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Thread starter #22
Who of your midfielders apart from Buchannon regularly kicks goals? Ablett kicks the odd one, but hardly a consistent goalkicker. You need a midfielder that will kick 25-30 a season- Vezpremi is that person. It helps the forwards if mids kick bags, as less defenders will be on your key forwards- less likely to flood as well, as they have to worry about your mids just as much.
Every Swans who played last year (except for LRT) got atleast 1 goal which most teams cant say.


I agree on the top 4, however I do think someone has to go to accomodate Vezpremi to get the top 4 position to be honest. He is a dead set star, play him!
Is your first name Patrick?

Though seriously he is our first draft pick so i expect him to be good though i still wish that we went with Cyril Rioli as he is a gun of a player.
 

LukeParkerno1

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#23
Every Swans who played last year (except for LRT) got atleast 1 goal which most teams cant say.




Is your first name Patrick?

Though seriously he is our first draft pick so i expect him to be good though i still wish that we went with Cyril Rioli as he is a gun of a player.

1 goal is not enough. Do any of your current mids kick 20 goals. One of the big things with Geelongs midfield was their abilty to kick bags of goals- Ablett, Selwood, Bartel, etc all kicked bags. 1 goal is not enough, and it does not reduce the flooding one bit.

I am not Patrick, and actually think you made the right call on him vs Rioli. Rioli whilst good will primarily be a forward who can spend patches in the midfield. Vez, once developed will be a midfielder who can "rest" down forward. I'd take Vez.
 
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#24
1 goal is not enough. Do any of your current mids kick 20 goals. One of the big things with Geelongs midfield was their abilty to kick bags of goals- Ablett, Selwood, Bartel, etc all kicked bags. 1 goal is not enough, and it does not reduce the flooding one bit.

I am not Patrick, and actually think you made the right call on him vs Rioli. Rioli whilst good will primarily be a forward who can spend patches in the midfield. Vez, once developed will be a midfielder who can "rest" down forward. I'd take Vez.
i agree
forget rioli, let's wait for vez
 

RUNVS

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I am not Patrick, and actually think you made the right call on him vs Rioli. Rioli whilst good will primarily be a forward who can spend patches in the midfield. Vez, once developed will be a midfielder who can "rest" down forward. I'd take Vez.
From what ive heard Vezpremi doesnt have the body for AFL football yet. Do you know anything about him (eg how he plays, where he plays, what he is good at, what he sucks at)?
 
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