Autopsy R16, 2020 Swans vs Blues

Kapers

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Sep 25, 2019
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As much as I defend the swans, it's sucks having to do an early day after a loss...
Would prefer to mull in my own self pity atm.
 
Jul 20, 2001
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I’ve said this before but I am not convinced McLean has a long AFL career ahead of him. He is too one dimensional, needs the ball kicked on top of him. If it isn’t he is largely ineffectual.

He offers little defensive pressure, is poor below his knees and doesn’t seem to be able to get any separation from his opponent nor get up the ground to create an outlet forward.
 

Swansujelly

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Sep 6, 2009
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I’ve said this before but I am not convinced McLean has a long AFL career ahead of him. He is too one dimensional, needs the ball kicked on top of him. If it isn’t he is largely ineffectual.

He offers little defensive pressure, is poor below his knees and doesn’t seem to be able to get any separation from his opponent nor get up the ground to create an outlet forward.
But he’s taller than Cripps, so...
 

RobbieK

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Aug 20, 2009
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Um, easy. Stephens or Warner would've offered more than Rowbottom out there. Ling or COR would've provided more than Cunningham who has looked slightly off the pace the last few weeks. We could've played McLean in the ruck instead of Sinclair, with Amartey forward. Yes, we would've been smashed still, but Sinclair had to be moved out, and nothing changed except we lost Aliir in defence.

Your logic of 'fielding the best team possible' just doesn't hold up, because we just did, and they managed a quarter and a half of good footy. That's it. So now we blew a chance to rest a few who badly need it, in a match that was winnable if we could run the game out a bit better, and we now face a situation where we'll probably end up resting a few anyway, only this time against even harder opposition.

I am also sick of you and others sprouting BS about how the club always knows best, implying they are never wrong and we the fans are never right. The medical staff get it right all the time? Tell that to Harry Marsh and Toby Nankervis who watched from the sidelines while our hospital ward took to the field grand final day 2016 and did SFA between them. Tell that to Hanners who was cooked by the age of 27 because the medical staff OK'd him to play every week.

Sometimes it's okay to just accept that everyone involved in the club is human and they will **** up, from Rowbottom telling the coach he feels fine, to the coach backing him in when he's moving like a geriatric come game day. It's not a big ******** deal to just accept these things and try to learn from them instead of wearing rose-coloured glasses while riding your moral high-horse through the board.
I have never suggested that the club doesn't make mistakes.

I have suggested, and will continue to do so, that, with the limited information available to you, you are are not in a position to identify those mistakes with the certainly you apparently have.

Why does a team rest players? They do it because they figure that the loss of performance in the short term from missing that player now has a benefit in the longer term because they will be able to better perform later.

So, you wanted us to rest players against Carlton, weakening us in this game, so we are better able to perform against Brisbane and Geelong?

That doesn't make sense.

This was the last realistically winnable game in our season. It made sense to prioritise performance in this game ahead of the two upcoming games against teams who are in second and third spot right now and which we are unlikely to win regardless of who we put on the field. There are no finals to prepare for, everyone is on holidays in two weeks time, so there is really no longer any need to work on keeping players fresh this season.

And so we did that, we put out our best available team. It was the team that beat Melbourne last week. It was the team that kicked the first seven goals of the game to set up what should have been a match winning lead. It was the team that still had chances to win the game in the last quarter except for some terrible skill errors and execution. That the team did not win does not mean we didn't put out best team out. It just means that our best team wasn't good enough to get the result on the day.

I'm not convinced any of your proposed changes would have made any major positive difference to the team today.

Rowbottom was not at his best, only managing 9 possessions , 5 tackles, 2 clearences. But would we have got more from Stephens or Warner? Warner had two games at AFL level and both games were even less impactful than this poor Rowbottom game. Stephens hasn't played the inside role that Rowbottom has at AFL, and his most prolific game is only 12 possessions, he averages 11. Rowbottom on a relatively poor day is still as good or better than the best we have seen so far from Stephens and Warner.

The suggestion of Ling or O'Riordan instead of Cunningham is fiddling around the edges, and removes a more experienced player from the field.

But selecting a debutant ruckman in Amartey, one who is realistically getting delisted in a couple of weeks without ever making it to AFL level, and expecting him to give us more than Sinclair did is incredibly optimistic. More realistically we would have been much worse off if this change had been made.

So, yeah, I don't think these changes get us closer to winning the game than we already were.

The team all year has been inconsistent. Good quarters and halves here and there, interspersed with terrible quarters and halves, or indeed whole games. We got more of the same against Carlton. The good was really pretty good and should have been enough to win us the game. I don't think there are any changes you could have made with the available alternative players that would have made any sort of real inroads on fixing the bad. When things went bad we needed experienced leaders to stand up and take control. We didn't have enough out there. Putting guys like Warner, Ling or Amartey on to the field isn't going to help with that either.

You don't have any evidence that the club is mismanaging Rowbottom in a way that threatens to harm his potential longevity, so why do you believe it?
 
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Oct 17, 2016
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I was happy with the lineup we went in with. Recently it seems like we have kept a settled side of in form players rather than rotate fresher players in. But I don't think the players that would have come in would have made an impact when the rest of the team was down.

Though I would mix things up for the brisbane game by resting whoever is sore and bringing in fringe players we want to get a look at. Then select best 22 for the final game.
 
Oh well.

I didn't think our bad bits were quite as bad as people think.

I agree McLean might struggle long term although I would be interested to see him in a better "team" where the mids were dominant and delivery was better but that is moot at the moment.

This type of loss/game was bound to happen with a team with this demographic and experience so I am not that angry with it all.

At the least we scored heavily for a while, accuracy helped obviously, and the defence was great overall but weight of numbers just let us down.

Main negatives for me were AA seemingly not going 100% at contests, I am a long way away of course, and Blakey just seems not 100% with it although he did get banged up during the game.

Positives were Florent showing his obvious class and the kids popping up here and there with great plays. There were good bits from nearly everyone and we did only play last Thursday after all in some pretty trying heat and humidity (which is worse) so it makes sense we were going to be a bit knackered.

Did everything but win the game against a team in a better list position and one that should have been playing finals or will so overall great.

A month ago a performance like this would have been lauded so happy to see it continue to come together with the knowledge there will be bumps.

Plenty to work with at least if we can improve the list over the summer - or next 2 summers.
 
Oct 2, 2016
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McCartin & Melican looked great in defence together. Back 6 looks solid as a rock once you throw in Mills & Rampe from injury.

Movement through the midfield was pretty poor. Plenty of space for another few strong midfielders.

Frustrating part was we didn't look like we wanted to score once Carlton came back into it. 2 quarters of just trying to strangle the Blues. Part of it is gameplan but part is our midfields inability to stand up when under pressure.
 
Jul 20, 2001
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It shouldn't be underestimated how much of a punish it is to travel from cairns to the gold coast. Its early flight.. Bus.

Not only that but the last 4 games (in a short period of time) we have been to Perth>Adelaide>Cairns>Gold Coast

Carlton have been to:
Darwin>Brisbane>Gold Coast>Gold Coast
 
I have never suggested that the club doesn't make mistakes.

I have suggested, and will continue to do so, that, with the limited information available to you, you are are not in a position to identify those mistakes with the certainly you apparently have.

Why does a team rest players? They do it because they figure that the loss of performance in the short term from missing that player now has a benefit in the longer term because they will be able to better perform later.

So, you wanted us to rest players against Carlton, weakening us in this game, so we are better able to perform against Brisbane and Geelong?

That doesn't make sense.

This was the last realistically winnable game in our season. It made sense to prioritise performance in this game ahead of the two upcoming games against teams who are in second and third spot right now and which we are unlikely to win regardless of who we put on the field. There are no finals to prepare for, everyone is on holidays in two weeks time, so there is really no longer any need to work on keeping players fresh this season.

And so we did that, we put out our best available team. It was the team that beat Melbourne last week. It was the team that kicked the first seven goals of the game to set up what should have been a match winning lead. It was the team that still had chances to win the game in the last quarter except for some terrible skill errors and execution. That the team did not win does not mean we didn't put out best team out. It just means that our best team wasn't good enough to get the result on the day.

I'm not convinced any of your proposed changes would have made any major positive difference to the team today.

Rowbottom was not at his best, only managing 9 possessions , 5 tackles, 2 clearences. But would we have got more from Stephens or Warner? Warner had two games at AFL level and both games were even less impactful than this poor Rowbottom game. Stephens hasn't played the inside role that Rowbottom has at AFL, and his most prolific game is only 12 possessions, he averages 11. Rowbottom on a relatively poor day is still as good or better than the best we have seen so far from Stephens and Warner.

The suggestion of Ling or O'Riordan instead of Cunningham is fiddling around the edges, and removes a more experienced player from the field.

But selecting a debutant ruckman in Amartey, one who is realistically getting delisted in a couple of weeks without ever making it to AFL level, and expecting him to give us more than Sinclair did is incredibly optimistic. More realistically we would have been much worse off if this change had been made.

So, yeah, I don't think these changes get us closer to winning the game than we already were.

The team all year has been inconsistent. Good quarters and halves here and there, interspersed with terrible quarters and halves, or indeed whole games. We got more of the same against Carlton. The good was really pretty good and should have been enough to win us the game. I don't think there are any changes you could have made with the available alternative players that would have made any sort of real inroads on fixing the bad. When things went bad we needed experienced leaders to stand up and take control. We didn't have enough out there. Putting guys like Warner, Ling or Amartey on to the field isn't going to help with that either.

You don't have any evidence that the club is mismanaging Rowbottom in a way that threatens to harm his potential longevity, so why do you believe it?

FFS use your ******** eyes

Where the **** did I say we were threatening Rowbottom's longevity ? He will be fine but he's offering us very little atm and it serves neither him or the team well to have him out there as a spectator. In a condensed fixture where finals are out of the equation it's not a big ******** deal to give someone a rest if they're not at 100%.

Your point about resting players against Carlton vs resting players against Brisbane & Geelong still makes zero ******** sense. Field our best team even if they're cooked and can only manage one good quarter in a game that was incredibly winnable vs resting a few so they will be refreshed in the two games where they'll be a lot more needed.

Wake up Jeff.
 
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Dubai Quacker

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Imagine kicking 7 unanswered goals to start the match and only 1 more for the rest. Tried to protect our least waaaaay to early then couldn't match the increased intensity
Exactly.

Got the first 7, then decided to try and not get run down.

Once an opposition realises your mentality is to protect a lead, their whole psyche changes.
 

CheapCharlie

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I like McCartin's work down back, but longer term having him up forward is best for us
Melican has responded well in the absence of Rampe and Mills
Enjoyed the efforts of Mcinerney, he is coming along nicely
Florent had a good one
Jordan Dawson was impressive in parts

Paps can't find the goals the last few weeks... at times it looks like he will turn the game, but just misses. Hopefully stays with us next year :straining:
Sam Reid. His best is about average.
Kennedy hasn't been the same since returning from injury
Rowbottom looks tired
 

Tedeski

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I’ve said this before but I am not convinced McLean has a long AFL career ahead of him. He is too one dimensional, needs the ball kicked on top of him. If it isn’t he is largely ineffectual.

He offers little defensive pressure, is poor below his knees and doesn’t seem to be able to get any separation from his opponent nor get up the ground to create an outlet forward.
Spot on Masey.
If he can't ruck, he offers nothing at senior level.
We needed a ruckman in the second half. Instead we went with an older part time ruckman who was bandaged up off a 4 day break & who couldn't bend over & who had perhaps every attempt at a kick smothered or when he had time, going to the opposition.
Then we damaged our structures by moving Aliir into the ruck, severely affecting the backline that was doing OK with him there.

JPK & Parker unfortunately cannot play effectively off anything less than a 6 day break. That's a selection issue. Even Dangerfield has been given a reprieve forward but as a forward he devastates the opposition & then pinch hits in the middle should they need him.

Carlton made 4 changes, 2 of them listed as management after a 4 day break. That's 20% of their team freshened up to help run out a game.
Across the league, I can't remember another team that has gone in "unchanged" after a 4 day break.
Now I get accused of being a Horse lover but listen carefully folks.

He constantly gets selection wrong when it comes to playing injured or under duress players.
Going back to the 2016 GF where he chose an 18YO Mills coming off a 5 week break after a hammy injury. That's nuts. At least Macca was our skipper with plenty experience of coming straight back in.
This continues with Horse & co. We are not making finals. We do not need to win at all costs against a s**t Carlton team who suddenly think they are magic.
Our senior players that put their hand up to play in such scenario should be overruled. Especially JPK & Parker. They have a history of not getting up & then suddenly having a ripper game after a 7 day break. They just can't do it.

If a team is good enough to get themselves 39 points up midway through the second quarter when at their fittest & freshest, then are are not as bad as coughing that lead up suggests.

Likewise, if a team is bad enough to get themselves 39 points down midway through the second quarter when at their fittest & freshest, only to comeback & win last minute, then they are not as good as that come back suggests.
 
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For those suggesting we shouldn't have gone in to this game unchanged... I'm wondering who you would have selected that you think would have performed better than the players who were out there?

At this stage of the season the cupboard is pretty bare. With only games against Brisbane and Geelong to come before the season is over, it made sense to play the best team we had available, and I think that is what we did.

No doubt there are some tired players out there at this point of what has been a pretty crazy season, but it isn't going to kill them. The idea that some on here have a better idea about the physical condition or capacity of the players than the doctors, physios and coaches is laughable.
Easy in hindsight but off a four day break we could have selected Bell, Stephens, and Ling. Maybe Knoll.Is O’Riordan fit? Who knows. There was a scrimmage played so there are fit players.

Our blokes looked dead on their feet after half time. Slippery conditions wouldn’t have helped.
 
I’ve said this before but I am not convinced McLean has a long AFL career ahead of him. He is too one dimensional, needs the ball kicked on top of him. If it isn’t he is largely ineffectual.

He offers little defensive pressure, is poor below his knees and doesn’t seem to be able to get any separation from his opponent nor get up the ground to create an outlet forward.

McLean offers a good contest (which I've been told is the only criteria for key forwards to get games for us). Unfortunately our small forwards and mids were ineffective at reading the spill and winning the crumbs. It also wasn't hard to see that Carlton had an emphasis on shutting down our front and centering, which isn't really surprising given that a) they more than any club are aware of how dangerous someone like Papley can be, and b) they have a very good batch of mid-sized defenders who are great at nullifying these loose balls, like Docherty, Simpson, Jones and Plowman.

So yes, McLean needed to be clunking marks to be effective in this case, but given the conditions were s**t and the delivery was s**t, I think it's unfair to criticise him on this game. Just as it would be unfair to criticise Sinclair or Reid for this game.
 

Olian

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Rowbottom didn’t get a lot of the ball last night but I’m not sure it’s due to him being tired. He had the most pressure acts of any player on the ground with 24. Also the 5th highest average speed in attack. Didn’t get a lot of the ball but he was close enough to apply pressure.
 
Rowbottom didn’t get a lot of the ball last night but I’m not sure it’s due to him being tired. He had the most pressure acts of any player on the ground with 24. Also the 5th highest average speed in attack. Didn’t get a lot of the ball but he was close enough to apply pressure.

Stats
 
Jul 20, 2001
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McLean offers a good contest (which I've been told is the only criteria for key forwards to get games for us). Unfortunately our small forwards and mids were ineffective at reading the spill and winning the crumbs. It also wasn't hard to see that Carlton had an emphasis on shutting down our front and centering, which isn't really surprising given that a) they more than any club are aware of how dangerous someone like Papley can be, and b) they have a very good batch of mid-sized defenders who are great at nullifying these loose balls, like Docherty, Simpson, Jones and Plowman.

So yes, McLean needed to be clunking marks to be effective in this case, but given the conditions were sh*t and the delivery was sh*t, I think it's unfair to criticise him on this game. Just as it would be unfair to criticise Sinclair or Reid for this game.

In fairness to my comments, it isn’t just this game for me. I am struggling to see how he carves out a successful AFL career.

His main strengths are his size and ability to take a contested mark. At the moment the opposition wouldn’t care much for him but if he started to do very well in this area, the opposition would target it, nullify it and make his main strength null.

Too one dimensional. I’d probably still give a contract because we are hardly blessed with lots of tall forward / rucks and I’d give him the chance to prove me wrong, but am struggling to see him having a long career in the AFL.
 
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