Is everyone happy?

red n white

Draftee
Sep 20, 2001
14
0
melbourne
Other Teams
sydney
I was just wondering if all the Sydney suppporters were happy with the events that have conspired over the last couple of weeks with the Swans. I ask this question because it has been relatively quite over the past few weeks on the Sydney board and i thought this could be because people are not happy with whats been going on with the Swans over the past few weeks. What I mean about the "events" for example is the trading week - are we happy with the pickups ? i was personally quite happy - especially with the signing of Barry Hall ( to a lesser extent Nick Daffy),are we happy with what was used to trade with, i.e stafford, fitzgerald, i was happy because we picked up some big names and still managed to keep a relatively early draft pick as well as bringing on a young Sydney kid who shows the signs of being a really good player for the Swans.
Also events such as delisting players - e.g feast (who was a big discussion point earlier), bennett and plitz - are we happy with this, i was quite happy to see them them go myself.
Anyway please Sydney supporters write back and tell me how you all feel about the recent events with Sydney.

Cheers
 

Bloodstained Angel

Premiership Player
Mar 21, 2000
3,765
20
Sydney, Nsw, Australia
1. Barry Hall for 2 early draft picks

I'm happy enough with this outcome, considering StK's initial ambit claim was 1st draft pick Bolton/Goodes/Saddington. We did quite nicely at the end of it. Hall is a little overrated and I shudder to think of the money we are gonna pay him, but he has a great lead and strong hands, and, as another StK FF showed, a player like that can wreak absolute havoc on the pocket-sized SCG.

2. Nick Daffy for Greg Stafford and 1 early draft pick (on-traded to StK)

Not so thrilled with this - Daffy is an overpaid hack who once again enhances Sydney's reputation as the retirement home of the AFL:( . Also the money we seem to be paying him has made current contract negoiations with Kirk, Seymour, Dunkley and Mathews more strained than they otherwise need be.

Happier to see the back of Stafford though, he has talent but football is not the guy's No.1 interest in life, and he plays accordingly - see ya later Staff.

3. Delisting Feast, Piltz and Bennett.

Not happy about Feast going at all - especially with Stafford gone as well. I hope like hell Jason Ball has another HUGE season and Stephen Doyle can realise his potential because we are pretty thin in the ruck right now. Maybe we should draft an ageing ruckman or something like that to tide us over in the meantime ?

Bennett - good potential, big strong Tasmanian lad, however (as Steve RWO has pointed out) he's stopped growing ! Looks heaps better in the forwards than the backs, where he really struggles to get in front.

Piltz - has had a season in the VFL to prove himself, although he has made some progress, its unlikely he would have got a senior game in 2002.

4. Moving games to Stadium Australia

I haven't been there, but apparently the venue looks absolutely superb with goalposts up and grassy turf all the way to the boundary fence. If the Swans can actually put up a good show against the opponents we have drawn to play there, then there is no reason why Australian Rules at Stadium Australia will not be THE huge talking point in the NSW sporting scene next year.

It will be superb.

5. Getting, then losing, one further concessional draft pick from an expanded recruiting zone.

Gobsmacked when the concessions were announced. Gobsmacked by the reaction of Melbourne clubs. Gobsmacked that the AFL caved into pressure so readily when they took the concesssions away agian as quickly as they announced them. Just gobsmacked at the whole sorry affair, really.

6. TV Rights and a different draw.

Thrilled that Channel 10 has decided to broadcast the Saturady night game into Sydney during prime time. Less thrilled that most of those game will be the Swans playing on Saturday nights - I, like alot of other fans prefer Sunday afternoons.

Channel 9 sucks big time though. They still prefer Rugby League on Fridays and won't be showing any Aussie Rules untill 10.30pm at the earliest.

cheers
 
Mar 22, 2001
1,463
61
Sydney, Australia
AFL Club
Sydney
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You've said it all I think, BSA.. oh wait.. Re: Fitzgerald, I would have liked to have seen him given a go, but the club had a tough choice to make. IMHO the right one, but I'm still a bit sad to see him go. Can really play when fit and firing.

As always, I think it's a bit hard to tell what impact any of these changes are going to make. St Kilda got Gehrig and Hamill and still didn't do much with their season - it show that there's more to a successful season than 1 or 2 good recruits etc.

We'll see.
 

Sydneyfan

Club Legend
Aug 15, 2000
2,691
205
Brisbanópolis
AFL Club
Sydney
Other Teams
S’roos, Brisbane Lions, N Syd Bears
All in All

I've fairly happy with the recent events concerning the Swans like Des and BSA.

I have a couple of concerns though, similar to those of BSA and Des, I don't think Daffy will add all that much to the lineup, though I could be proven wrong. It was time for Stafford to have a change of scenery, hopefully all goes well for him. Shame to see Fitzgerald go, he's a great talent but risky due to being injury prone. A bit perplexed about us getting rid of Feast, I probably would have given him another shot at the big time.

Looking forward to seeing the matches at Stadium Australia, hopefully will be sell-out crowds with a great football atmosphere.
 

coxon

Premiership Player
Oct 23, 2000
4,863
97
Sydney
AFL Club
Essendon
really looking forward to stadium australia matches...
i think the stadium is great..
however the problem will be filling up that damn thing with a decent crowd...

re:
Channel 9 sucks big time though. They still prefer Rugby League on Fridays and won't be showing any Aussie Rules untill 10.30pm at the earliest.

tho, that would be better than Ch7's replay of friday nite games at 11.40, 12:00 ~
 

Bloodstained Angel

Premiership Player
Mar 21, 2000
3,765
20
Sydney, Nsw, Australia
Yeah I see where you are coming from coxon

Next season Channel 9 will go to the footy at 10.35 after the League and a 5 minute newsbreak. Compared with the previous Channel 7 arrangemnt where tyhe Friday game would usually start at 11.45.

10.35 as opposed to 11.45 is certainly an improvemnet and I am grateful for small mercies (i suppose :( ?)

However it has to be said, Television coverage of Australia's Number 1 sport in Australia's largest city remains a disgrace, a scandal and an embarrassment to the AFL.

Residents of Australia's largest city cannot see Australia's largest sport on television untill 10.35 pm at the absolute earliest - I think that absolutely stinks, it absolutely smells of dark brown stinking diahhorra pooh.

Once again the crucial audience, 7-15 year old boys (and their Dads) cannot see the game at a time when they would be awake to watch it.

Instead they will be watching Rugby League, and then people wonder why the NSW market is so hard to develope ?

Give me a *ing break.

To make matters even worse, Channel 9 is now playing hardball with Foxtel over Pay TV rights as well. It seems that we will not be able to see the game live on Pay TV (like we could with Optus C7), and not on Foxtel at all untill 11.30 pm at the earliest.

So, here we are in Sydney, 550 million *ing dollars later and all the talk about the new broadcast deal bringing the game to the Northern states, and what do we end up with ?

- even less footy on Tv than before and the stuff that is on is STILL buried away in the dead of night where nobody but real 'footy tragics' (like me :D ) will be bothered to watch it.

... and all the while the kids are playing soccer and watching Rugby League on Prime Time television.

Alot of BigFooty people said that it was a huge mistake to give the Broadcast rights to a TV Network which is so philosophically and emotionally tied to Rugby League.

I'm beginning to agree with them.

cheers
 

BMD

Team Captain
Mar 14, 2001
553
0
SYDNEY
AFL Club
Sydney
I agree generally with your sentiments BSA. Is my understanding that Channel 10 will be televising all saturday night games live correct? Or is this only Saturday night game featuring the Swans?

Either way this is a small improvement as well. Small steps, I guess.

Oh well at least I'll crawl to bed at 1:30 rather than 2:30 on Saturday morning!
 

Bloodstained Angel

Premiership Player
Mar 21, 2000
3,765
20
Sydney, Nsw, Australia
yeah - thank God for Channel 10 !

Ch10 has said it will broadcast the Saturday night game into Sydney, either live or on a slight delay (8.30pm)

They have said that they will do this for at least 11 games, of which I believe Sydney will be in 8 of those.

Channel 10 are on record as saying that they are prepared to stick with the policy, even if ratings are sh|t to start off with.

ummm, yeah - we'll see about that:rolleyes:

Primetime Aussie Rules in Sydney is a bit of a ratings graveyard but I'd like to make the following points :

1) WE need a broadcaster brave enough to screen the sport and keep screening the sport even if ratings are poor to start off with. We need somebody with a bit of good old fashioned 'missionary spirit' who is prepared to put in the hard yards to break this awful nexis between poor ratings and lack of exposure.

2) Even if Prime Time footy only rates a 3 or a 4, thats about the same as Channel 10 would get on a Saturday night if they just did their usual B-grade 80's movie anyway. So Channel 10 might as well show us some great Australian sport live rather than subject us to yet another re-run of Porkys or some other rubbish.

cheers
 
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