Our midfield a massive worry?

[RUNVS]

I know the game isn't quite over yet but is anyone else really worried about how our midfield has performed the last 3 or 4 weeks? To me they are not working anywhere near hard enough and as a result they are putting our defence under a massive amount of pressure and not giving anywhere near enough service to our forward line.

It isn't just one or two of our midfielders either. It is all of them as they have all been playing like they are not interested, giving the opposition lots of uncontested marks and not working hard enough to give our defence options when kicking it out of defence.

So in all our opinions what is wrong with

Jack
McVeigh
Kennedy
Hannebery
Mitchell
Bird
Parker

and why has the form of all of them fallen away so dramatically?

 

[The King!]

Last weeks is how to fit them all, this week will be about how easy it is to fit the injured guys back

We got outplayed by a good side at a ground no one wins at

Dont panic

 

[RUNVS]

Last weeks is how to fit them all, this week will be about how easy it is to fit the injured guys back

We got outplayed by a good side at a ground no one wins at

Dont panic

It isn't just this week though. Our midfield pulled the same crap against Collingwood and they were also very poor against St Kilda as well.

 

[The King!]

Yes maybe its been worked out a bit, like we won clearances with extra men at a stoppage but geelong hold em back and run it through our mids who are slowish at times


I think rohan being rushed back is an attempt to get some of the breaking the lines back

And rid some of the sameness from the mids

 

[kickthething]

Mids are out of gas....maybe a few have been reading the newspapers? The panic when we have the ball is alarming and the number of players who are watching rather than doing is a concern.

 

[The Swans Blog]

We went into the finals last year losing 3 of our last 4... against the same teams. We went on to beat two of them in clutch finals as well.
If I recall, we also finished 4th. We've twice won the GF from 4th

It didn't look good on the pitch, losing players to injuries and others receiving knocks. We need to put our best team out there and get as much football out of them as possible. But since we're locked into the top 4, we're 4th, and we're going to finish 4th (outside of some minor miracle), there's no point thrashing ourselves and risking injuries. We're playing Hawks round 1 of the finals, as long as we don't beat them next week, and to be fair, I wouldn't have it any other way. Like us, they're form has been up and down, and they're doing just enough to get over the line.

Come finals time, I'd really like to see us with O'Keefe, Kennedy & Jack in the centre. They're our best ball winning midfielders, and we're going to need it.

Our midfield shouldn't be a concern, it's the defence where everything is starting to fall down. 1 retirement, 2 injuries to key players, what else could go wrong?

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

Yer i get what you mean mate but if you look at 2012 we smashed Hawthorn and lost to them by a kick, we beat Geelong but lost to them by a few goals the difference is we weren't getting smashed.

 

[RW]

I think they are not working hard enough, Geelong players were running harder to end up with the free man. Maybe they've been worked out a bit, one positive in the last couple of weeks has been Kennedy's return to form. Hannebery was ironically better after he came back on, Jack and Mitchell seemed to get a bit of it but they were constantly under pressure. Our strength is our endurance, rather than pace, fair call on the sameness. Am thinking now it probably isn't our year, a return to form is still possible but looking less likely.

 

[Superstar swan]

The midfield were not as bad as it seems today. They got first hands to a lot of contests, but they( the entire team included) were just fumbling like I have never seen before. If they were as good with their hands as they usually are, that games become a lot closer. As for the forward entries , the forward line are as much to blame as the mids. The forwards did not work hard enough at creating space , tonigh. It was one lead and that was it , some serious work needs to go into our leading patterns , dummy leads and continuous efforts.
I know we are missing reid, goodes and jetta but the forwards that are in the team should know the systems.

Forwards were too flat footed today, made it too easy for the cats defenders

 

[The King!]

How quickly did the ball come out of our forward 50

Some strange moves in the mid tonight, like the okeefe bartel thing, why didnt okeefe get moved to the middle?

 

[grimlock]

Some weird moves tonight. ROK forward tag which only got some value near the end. White starting centre square for all of the last quarter, had no impact there. Not blaming Jesse because that's not his strength

 

[The King!]

Possibly it once the game was down and we were down a rotation they looked to see what can mitchell, lamb etc do under the pump

Could of put okeefe into the centre bounces for instance

 

[.Shotties.]

Some weird moves tonight. ROK forward tag which only got some value near the end. White starting centre square for all of the last quarter, had no impact there. Not blaming Jesse because that's not his strength

Yeah I spent a good part of the game wondering about what was happening on the field and my mate hypothesised similarly to SR that the match committee was testing a few things. I don't really know if I can believe it but I'm holding onto any hope.

 

[The King!]

We went into the finals last year losing 3 of our last 4... against the same teams. We went on to beat two of them in clutch finals as well.
If I recall, we also finished 4th. We've twice won the GF from 4th

Nah 3rd

 

[scaryness]

The main thing that's killing me is that our mids haven't been lowering there eyes going inside fifty. They just bomb it in either in the Tippett direction, or just blindly without hesitation.

 

[RW]

Jesse was ok on the wing I thought, he used his frame a few times to good effect. Not really his fault he didn't have anything much forward to go to.

 

[The Swans Blog]

Is it worth benching Tippet against the Hawks and force the Swans to find other avenues to goals?

 

[Swan Dive]

It's pretty obvious our midfield's been out of form. We're just not getting the ball forward from the centre contests. Most of our forward 50 entries are set up from elsewhere.

 

[Swan Dive]

Is it worth benching Tippet against the Hawks and force the Swans to find other avenues to goals?

It's not a bad suggestion. We were travelling quite well without him. How good was Pyke with some of those contested marks under real pressure? He stood up tonight.

 

[Heeney2Franklin]

Is it worth benching Tippet against the Hawks and force the Swans to find other avenues to goals?

.... No

Our midfield is cooked 2 way running which was such a feature of our gamestyle earlier in the year is gone.

 

[MickyG]

I watched some of the Hawks - North game and there was a comment about the North game plan requiring a lot of running resulting in their exhaustion in the fourth quarters. Is that the problem, too many weeks of two way running?

 

[swansfan51]

I watched some of the Hawks - North game and there was a comment about the North game plan requiring a lot of running resulting in their exhaustion in the fourth quarters. Is that the problem, too many weeks of two way running?

Can't see how it would be. They train for 30-40 hours a week so an extra 10% for 2 hours on weekends wouldn't be the problem.

 

[Superstar swan]

.... No

Our midfield is cooked 2 way running which was such a feature of our gamestyle earlier in the year is gone.

Or it could be on the back burner , until finals. They know the effects it can have in the energy levels of the players it has if they maintain it all year. Could they be pacing , so they can run it out in finals ??

 

[penga]

We won a lot of clearances but the structures were terrible. Every clearance was like a Geelong uncontested mark. Need to change the spots our players get to or something. Spread from contest didn't look existent. Also the run out of half back is gone, Cats just applied very good pressure, we second guessed ourselves too much with 1 handball too many and coughed it up. They did to us what we do to the opposition when we win.

 

[scaryness]

We locked our top four spot away, and there wasn't really a chance to finish top two, so we could just be pacing ourselves for the finals.