Autopsy Swans vs GWS Elimination Final

[caesar88]

We went into today's game without Smith, Melican, Mills, Naismith, Reid, Tippett, Rohan, AJ, and with Franklin looking very unfit.

We had no real marking targets and far too many young inexperienced players who didn't perform as well as they've played during the season.

If you look at our team you have Franklin, Parker who are at the top level of players, Kennedy/Rampe have slipped back to probably a B level and most of the others are C Grade players.

Melican - hadn't played in a final before.
Naismith - arguably wouldn't even get a game ahead of Sinclair if fit.
Reid - never plays anyway.
Tippett - no one here rates him/retired.
Rohan - inconsistent and was rightfully dropped.
AJ - can hardly use him as an excuse as we should be well rehearsed in winning without him.

Smith and Mills (plus a fit Buddy) are the only ones that I think would've made a real difference. And even then we'd struggle with the form of the rest of our blokes. Senior heads that were fully fit made inexcusable decisions and mistakes that doomed us really.

 

[caesar88]

I just hope we learn now by not ignoring the obvious things that need attention

So Darcy Moore to play as a key midfielder then?

 

[LukeParkerno1]

But who do we give away to get that? Lloyd is worth it. If we don't get a top 6 pick for him I'll be p155ed.

Lloyd and Hanners. Start with that and see what we can get.

 

[The King!]

Lloyd and Hanners. Start with that and see what we can get.

Rohan will get us something good, like an ashtray

 

[LukeParkerno1]

So Darcy Moore to play as a key midfielder then?

Wouldn’t put it past Horse to do that

 

[LukeParkerno1]

Rohan will get us something good, like an ashtray

An extra draft pick. I’ll take it.

 

[Ticky009]

I’d like to thank the more than a little drunk but very very funny group of blokes behind us.

Probably the only reason I didn’t gauge my eyes out with a spoon.

 

[tombomb]

Not saying otherwise but whenever he got the ball it came back.

Trade whilst he has currency

Im not sure he has much, and the nature of the competition is contracted players only get traded if they want out.

 

[JackSwan]

Got caught / turned over first possession.
Then got tackled / led to first gws goal.
Then after this contest, watched/took time to get up.
*ing Fire up.!?
Played injured/soft.?

For me it just confirmed, wrong call from Longmire.
Just my opinion lads.!
Apologies, drowning my sorrows on the drink.! lol
I’ll fade away now & Go Swans 2019.!

 

[Blacky]

I agree with that, it isn’t just personnel.

But I also believe it is a number of factors not “just Horse”.

I agree.

It isn’t just horses fault we lost, but it’s his fault we looked like s**t doing it.

 

[legend166]

Had to watch the game on record and wow I'm glad I did. Got to fast forward through the last quarter.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but I hope they've realised now that playing the youngest player in the comp as your CHF was just a really dumb idea. And that's not a knock on McCartin - he could be a great player in the future but if you're counting on him playing CHF in the finals you've got no hope winning a flag. Especially when the rest of the forward line other than Buddy is about 8 years old.

They should have put a lot more games into Cameron and used him and Sinclair rotating up forward.

 

[caesar88]

Had to watch the game on record and wow I'm glad I did. Got to fast forward through the last quarter.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but I hope they've realised now that playing the youngest player in the comp as your CHF was just a really dumb idea. And that's not a knock on McCartin - he could be a great player in the future but if you're counting on him playing CHF in the finals you've got no hope winning a flag. Especially when the rest of the forward line other than Buddy is about 8 years old.

They should have put a lot more games into Cameron and used him and Sinclair rotating up forward.

We wouldn't even need that marking CHF if our players knew how to move the ball in a way that isn't just blindly kicking and hoping with long bombs. Our forward line's been an absolute shambles this year and yet it didn't need to be if it was altered. I can't fathom how Horse could possibly be OK with our mids just lobbing it forward with no logic or reason.

 

[Skeparovic]

I think that TheMase is spot on with their observation regarding the Swans team being in a state of transition. I suspect that 2018 was the Swans equivalent of an over achieving, yet bottoming out year.

Major deficiencies are apparent in all lines of Swans list but none more so than in the middle of the ground. Swans have struggled all year long to win the ball cleanly in the midfield. Whilst there are players in the midfield that have earned All Australian guernseys in previous seasons they are not performing anywhere near that level in 2018. There have been very few occasions in 2018 when the Swans midfield have won clean possession. The Swans mids fumble the ball, routinely miss handball targets (e.g. to team mates feet or behind them) or bomb inside 50 where the forwards are generally playing behind their opponents and get outmarked. Watch our opponents and they get clean possession week in week out. Is this defensive gamestyle structures? I think it is more a weakness in the ruck division where Sinclair is unable to compete effectively with real ruckman or give hitouts to advantage. He gives his all however he is a forward/pinch ruck not a fulltime ruckman. Lobb has 7cm advantage over Sinclair in every contest yet people on here bag Callum for not beating a "3rd string ruckman". I am also a realist who can acknowledge that Sinclair is a 200cm forward who has competer unsuccesfully against >206cm 1st choice ruckman. I also have seen 1st hand what influence Gawn has had on Melbourne, Goldstein on North, Natanui on West Coast etc. A ruckman is a serious chance of winning a Brownlow medal this year. If only Swans had the possibility of 1st use in the midfield.

Defence is another area of weakness as <193cm defenders are unable to compete effectively with >200cm forwards especially since 2018 when Clarko's rule has been implemented by AFL hierarchy. It's hard enough as a defender when you get penalised for using your strength, kicking/handballing towards boundary line or rushing any behinds from outside the box. It also hasn't helped having tall defenders in Melican and AJ injured for most of 2018. Ideally Rampe would have lined up on Green today and could have matched him aerially, for speed and on the ground however he was playing undersized against Cameron.

Key defenders and quality midfielders are a must for Swans in the trade and draft period.

The kids have done an okay job in the forward line, however unrealistic expectations have been placed on them by some on here given the lack of key position players inside forward 50. The chaotic delivery forward they deal with week in week out would be nearly impossible to score from.

What will 2019 bring?
I expect more highs and lows for a team that I think is still in transition (even with the best FF in the competition in Franklin). I believe it will take more than one draft/trade period to rebuild the engine room and think 2020 is when Swans will genuinely contend again.

Do I appreciate making the 2018 finals despite Swans bowing out with barely a whimper today. YUP!

Will I still appreciate every game of next season win lose or draw? Absolutely! Because that is what all of us satisfied or dissatisfied fans of the Sydney Swans do in supporting our club.

Hope the offseason brings hope, expectation and excitement to you all and the possibility of what 2019 may bring.

To all the Swans players, coaches and fans thank you for all of the highs and lows of 2018. You all sacrifice a lot to provide weekend entertainment for us fans. The experience of supporting players whose bravery and skill we admire, a style some hate and a club we all love in our own passionaye individual ways is what makes me proud of being a part of the Swans family.

Go Swans!

 

[Mick Oxlong]

Lloyd and Hanners. Start with that and see what we can get.

Re Lloyd...you don’t read? I’ve been telling everyone his priority is Sydney, my source IS his manager. My understanding is that it is close to a done deal but that, I didn’t hear from Alex himself but a very close associate

 

[Mick Oxlong]

Had to watch the game on record and wow I'm glad I did. Got to fast forward through the last quarter.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but I hope they've realised now that playing the youngest player in the comp as your CHF was just a really dumb idea. And that's not a knock on McCartin - he could be a great player in the future but if you're counting on him playing CHF in the finals you've got no hope winning a flag. Especially when the rest of the forward line other than Buddy is about 8 years old.

They should have put a lot more games into Cameron and used him and Sinclair rotating up forward.

Cameron...yes, he would’ve done far better

 

[Citrus22]

Terrible in the contest all day. Our game is built on winning the hard ball so it’s essentially over when we don’t. So either we need a new game plan or some new personnel to get that job done.

 

[SilentHunter_]

Tell you what it hurts. We have fallen a lot from where we were the last couple of years. Going to be painful getting back there or so it seems. Hard calls need to be made by the club and soon if we want it to be quick.

 

[Day_night_honourer]

Not making the finals would've been more bearable than this.
Can't stand being seen as making up the numbers in finals - It's not the Swans way...Kirky would be feeling sick too.

 

[SilentHunter_]

Kirky would be feeling sick too.

He's a part of the problem not the solution.

 

[Tuco]

Need some mids. Stop stacking them in the backline and get them loose between the arcs doing some damage. Running these Rookie/small forwards through there is pointless.

Until we add two elite SPECIALIST midfielders into the mix, we'll always be playing catchup footy. JPK cannot carry us alone.

 

[kickthething]

Terrible in the contest all day. Our game is built on winning the hard ball so it’s essentially over when we don’t. So either we need a new game plan or some new personnel to get that job done.

 

[Tedeski]

I am not a Horse apologist. I am a realist. That is how I am in life and that is the perspective I view things from.

Some here would no doubt view me in this category, but you’re wrong, so spare me posts of your superiority.

I am obviously disappointed, but not completely surprised.

I’ve said all year that our list has been structured in such a way that our best 22 is pretty good on paper. That we have made a list decision to stack the top of our list with talent and make up the rest with foot soldiers. Unfortunately some of those top players have gone backwards (Hannebery, Kennedy), we have had Buddy injured all year and he started to get fit and then got injured more seriously in the lead up to this game, Reid who is important to straightening us up, the likes of Heeney haven’t grabbed the mantle, Mills, Melican and smith in defence injured and Grundy has gone backwards. I’d add Jack in but he was on his way out last year. Lastly a number of our kids have oodles of talent but they aren’t ready to make up for the aforementioned players / issues, and it’s unfair to expect them to. We have a defensive stoppage setup because we have conceded the tap with Sinclair (no slight on him, it’s not like we had much choice).

With that out of the way, I also noted the coaching staff have tried to tweak the gameplan which we have seen glimpses of. The problem is this:

You can’t change the gameplan during the season and expect it to be ingrained. That process starts Pre-season day 1. When the players get put under the pump, they revert to the instinctual action, which is the gameplan that’s been in place for years. Then we get caught in a flux between them and nothing works and that’s what we have seen in patches and for almost the whole game tonight.

I do believe that we need to change the way we play. I also believe that process is underway. I am willing to give Horse and the new team a chance to ingrain that over preseason. If we were to serve this up again, we will be getting close enough to the end of Horses contract to start looking for other options.

I have also been an advocate of being aggressive at the trade table this year and utilising us getting Blakey for 2nds and 3rds and utilising our first pick to target another player or trade up the draft.

Excited for the likes of Florent, Ronke, McCartin and Hayward but they aren’t ready to carry the torch under the sort of pressure GWS applied and their senior players letting them down.

Roll on trade period where we need to be aggressive to target players that complement a new style of play.

Excellent assessment.

 

[MC Bad Genius]

That scum Greene kicked 3 of your guys during the game and there was no attempt at a square up. Why?

That last one was particularly egregious and was right in front of where I was sitting. I was hoping that Aliir would just run over the mark as Greene was coming into kick for goal and just flattened the little turd.

What a grub.

 

[Grand Uncle Horace]

Debacle of a game, there’s no sugarcoating that.

It was a comprehensive anihilation in the midfield once again which is becoming quite a pattern in our finals defeats, this time against a team who had their best mid injured for the most part. It’s an area we desperately need to rejuvenate over the off season because Jack is on his last legs, Hanners has been regressing, JPK won’t be around forever. Parker and Heeney are good but we don’t have the depth on the inside that we use to.

The forward line was invisible today but I don’t think they had much of a chance with the heavy territorial advantage the giants had all game, combined with the horrendous delivery.

At half time we needed Buddy to turn it on to get back into it. But by the looks of it he had some serious fitness issues, the telltale sign being that we chose to stick him in the goal square with Davis who had been winning the one on ones all game. Usually when Bud’s quiet he’d get right up the ground, lead through the corridor, mark a kick out of defense in middle of the ground and then set something up for us. None of that today.

I can’t really discern at this point what our plan is going into the forward line. So often we bomb it high and long to a pack of 6-8 players and GWS had the numbers at ground level. This method would make sense if we actually had strong marking forwards, but our best overhead mark has been injured all year. Other times we seemingly just blindly kicked it long to the GWS spare. It’s been an issue with all our losses for the past few years, so lot for the coaches to rectify.

It’s very different to our defense which seems very organised and the defenders are obviously working to a plan. Whereas the mids and forward don’t seem to be on the same page with kicks not going to advantage and blind long bombs to contests.

The most disappointing part still is that we’ve been smashed twice now in finals by that those absolute flogs at GWS. Not what we want against our direct geographical rivals.

Wanted to like this Post, but could not. How can one tick a plain unadorned description of the game, this season, this joyless tenure.

There is simply no prospect of this Club and its players playing joyous football.

This arvo the coach and the MC played a legend and a good player with injuries preventing them running 10 yards. I'm sorry I remember David Young howling as he was jabbed up to play decades ago. It was cruel then and it is cruel now.

 

[MC Bad Genius]

hanneberry was one of our better players today. Not that that is saying much.

Yeah nah. He was utter rubbish.