So, what did we learn?

[midaro]

1. Barry can't hold Gehrig.
2. Chambers is an embarrassment to our club.

[NMWBloods]

That we need to play a full game against decent opposition.

That writing off other teams before we play them is stupid.

[Zlatorog]

Agree 100%.

[anne]

That they think they are better than they are. That we will never catch Adelaide or West Coast. That playing at home is not that much(if any) advantage to Sydney.

[Young Blood]

That we need to adjust our game plan when its wet.

That Hall isn't comfortable when he can't mark on the lead, and will be beaten when he plays from behind for most of the night.

That Schneider still has something special around goal.

That Kirk is our best leader in adversity.

[Legs Akimbo]

That last week was not an abberation.

[ROK Lobster]

That we play the possession game well, but that when it does not suit, we are stufft

[Nico]

Originally posted by ROK Lobster
That we play the possession game well, but that when it does not suit, we are stuffed

And you cant spell ROK.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by Nico
And you cant spell ROK. Nico's joke isn't funny anymore.

[Mike_B]

That we don't think about how we play in poor conditions and seem slow to adapt when we need to. We played VERY stupid football for much of the night in light of the conditions.

[Foreign Legion]

Originally posted by anne
That they think they are better than they are. That we will never catch Adelaide or West Coast. That playing at home is not that much(if any) advantage to Sydney.

That we will NEVER catch A or WC?

Silly comment.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Mike_B
That we don't think about how we play in poor conditions and seem slow to adapt when we need to. We played VERY stupid football for much of the night in light of the conditions.

WE played stupid footy last year in the first half of the season. When we have dunces hats on we are ordinary. Nearly every time we lose it is because of poor decision making, and thats what did it too us again tonight. It was clear players on the lead were not going to win it for us, and it took until the death knock for us to wake up to that.

[anne]

Originally posted by Foreign Legion
That we will NEVER catch A or WC?

Silly comment. We are 2 or 3 games behind them now. Adelaide has an easy draw and probably will lose very few games from here. West Coast doesn't look like they will drop many either. I can't see Sydney catching either of these teams and so we will not get get a top 2 position and home finals. But maybe it is not such a big deal as they don't play that well at home anyway.

[Leeroy]

Agreed, poor decision making and too many stupid turnovers. The main difference between the two teams was that St Kilda were harder at the ball for all but the last 20 minutes - when we almost pinched it. They also had their tactics and strategy just right for the conditions and the Swans.

[Foreign Legion]

Originally posted by anne
We are 2 or 3 games behind them now. Adelaide has an easy draw and probably will lose very few games from here. West Coast doesn't look like they will drop many either. I can't see Sydney catching either of these teams and so we will not get get a top 2 position and home finals. But maybe it is not such a big deal as they don't play that well at home anyway.

Top 2 doesn't matter as we saw last year...

[anne]

Originally posted by Foreign Legion
Top 2 doesn't matter as we saw last year... They won't do it 2 years in a row, just as they couldn't steal 2 games in a row.

[swans4ever]

- we learnt that Barry Hall has had a great run for the past few weeks & it was time for an off game, since he is only human
- chambers seemed to be on st kildas side, always hitting ball to their end
- chambers kicked a ball off the ground :p
- davis could have been a hero
- we expect a big game against the pies
- that many people have yet again written us off
- we played bad
- supporters shouldn't lose faith & think that we cant beat top sides, one bad loss isn't the end of the world
- wet weather didn't suit us tonight
- umpires don't help at all

this game should be one that should be forgotten, move on & forget about it, the next big one is against the pies so we need to step up

[Carolyn]

We have two weeks to prepare for the game against the 'Pies so I hope to see a better game than tonight's.

[swans4ever]

i think thats guaranteed, can't get much worse than tonight

[Leeroy]

The players should sentence themselves to circle work instead of wind sprints for the next fortnight.

[573v30]

Well, it was actually a good effort for us to have only lost by 2 points. In that torrential rain, a 14-20 point lead really has the effect of a 5-6 goal lead. The week break is a blessing at the moment, a lot of players need the rest and hopefully better matchups and no rain in 2 weeks!

[Foreign Legion]

Originally posted by anne
They won't do it 2 years in a row, just as they couldn't steal 2 games in a row.

WOW - thanks for that anne - I thought for sure we had the second premiership in the bag until you typed that.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by 573v30
Well, it was actually a good effort for us to have only lost by 2 points. :eek:

[Carolyn]

We're playing at Telstra Stadium in a fortnight's time as well so hopefully the ground would suit our game style better and we could get away with a win.

[Jeffers1984]

- Never make cocky calls like "we're gonna win by infinity".
- Swans are bad swimmers.
- Thomas outcoached Roos.

[573v30]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
:eek: It would've been worse and more embarrassing if it weren't for Schneider...

[hammo]

The SCG has turned into a home ground disadvantage

[Damien]

I am actually trying to ignore the fact we lost!! It will hit me soon enough.

However, I do want to say that Frasier Gherig is possibly the laziest player I have ever witnessed playing. Anything that required a second effort was left begging, much to the annoyance of the St.Kilda fan I took along tonight.

I didn't realise how much work the rest of the St.Kilda forward line have to do to get him free for a lead (lots of illegal shepparding also) and anything at ground level where he is in a contest, he gives up pretty quickly.

It is the first time I had really ever paid close attention to him and can't believe that he seems to have this wonderful repuation with so many!

Arghh, had to get that off my chest lol

[Go Swannies]

That the Swans are learning how to play in the wet. That is the best I've seen the team play in an absolute downpour (I still squelch). We looked totally outclassed against the Tigers and Pies in the rain in 2004. Tonight we had the double inconvenience of being outcoached and less accurate with a wet ball. And we lost by 2.

That the Swans need to lose matches to remember not to believe their own PR.

That the Saints will be lucky to be able to field a team of 18 by finals time.

That Swans supporters here don't cope well with losing while those at the game were more in "the loss we had to have" mode.

That the Sainst remain our bogey team - think the 2002 draw, the R10 "ugly" game of 2005. AD we need you.

[BigBadBarryNo1]

- our forwards need to learn how to play more defensively in the wet (eg hall should have just stuck a fist out to block some of those maguire marks)

- can't leave everything till the last minute

- need to leave 1 man loose behind the ball as defence (which we learnt too late)

- desperate footy doesn't suit us..

- craig bolton's lucky run up forward and booming kicks were a fluke

- kick for goal on a 50 metres coz the opposition is gonna flood in the wet

[Go Swannies]

Oh, and Swans BOG were definitely Kirk. Then probably Schneider, Magic and Goodes.

@@@ - Hall and Nicky D (who tolld me as we left the ground about 11.30 that it will all come right for the Pies game).

[SimonH]

Originally posted by Jeffers1984
...
- Thomas outcoached Roos. Absolutely. Always controversial to give Thomas credit for anything, but in the first 3 quarters it was obvious that St Kilda:
a) was more prepared than us to play a wet-weather game
b) had a far better plan for using its forward KPPs (Riewoldt and Gehrig) to maximum effect, than Sydney did, and
c) was far tighter at the back than it usually is, and in particular had coordinated double-teaming Hall without allowing Sydney a free forward target.

The coach has to take the credit/blame for these things.

He almost undid all of his good work in the final quarter, though. When Sydney started to get close, he mindlessly stacked the backline, adopting a defensive attitude of avoiding losing the game, rather than trying to win it. The result of these kinds of strategies is usually that the team stops believing it can score goals, stops running forward when teammates have possession, and virtually cedes that the entire game will be played in the opponent's half, where it only takes a single contested mark, clean piece of crumbing or free kick to decide the game. This was exactly what happened, and Riewoldt's heroics saved him from losing a game his team had always controlled.

Apart from that, the main message was one I already well and truly knew: Sydney suck in the wet, at least when they stick with their 'precision short footpassing and bursting out of packs with chains of handballs' dry-weather style of play. However, they belatedly started playing proper wet-weather footy in the 2nd half, with encouraging results.

Other lessons:
1. ROK has a huge engine and almost invariably seems to get better as the game goes longer.
2. Adam Goodes was absolutely outstanding, and in particular he made good position and kept his goddamn feet in the contests. There's a lesson in that for most of the other 21. If he keeps playing like this, I'm going to have to concede that he is a chance for the Brownlow.
3. It's true. Despite our historically pretty good record there, the SCG does not suit Sydney's style of play much at all.
4. LRT really has come a long, long way. He played on the BOG, but in terms of holding him accountable and creating a contest, he can hold his head high.
5. Richards was dreadful, and is seemingly even less of a wet-weather player than the rest of the team.
6. What the hell was going on with our rucks most of the night? Jolly belatedly kicked into gear in the last quarter, but as a whole that's the kind of effort against a very unfancied opposing ruck division, that would have me rushing Doyle back into the side (!).

[anne]

I thought LRT was pretty good and handled the conditions much better than many of the others.

[ROK Lobster]

Originally posted by anne
I thought LRT was pretty good and handled the conditions much better than many of the others. Riewoldt had 23 possessions and took 7 marks. By comparison, Hall had 5 possessions and took 2 marks. All LRT has to do is run on and RWO says he had a great game.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
That the Swans are learning how to play in the wet. They shouldn't be 'learning' - they should already know!


That the Swans need to lose matches to remember not to believe their own PR.I was thinking that for much of the game particularly the last quarter. Part of me was wanting to get that winning goal and part of me was thinking that will not snap them out of this mindset that they think they can run over the top of the opposition and always win. The comment about us being like the Kangaroos of the 90s was probably taken a little too much to heart.


That the Saints will be lucky to be able to field a team of 18 by finals time. I was told luck had nothing to do with injuries...

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by SimonH
2. Adam Goodes was absolutely outstanding, and in particular he made good position and kept his goddamn feet in the contests. There's a lesson in that for most of the other 21. Many of our players approach a loose ball by sliding into it, rather than stay on their feet. A bit frustrating.

[Mike_B]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
That the Swans need to lose matches to remember not to believe their own PR.


We need to get back to that WWWL run of last year - never too long a streak to start getting ahead of ourselves!

[Damien]

Originally posted by anne
I thought LRT was pretty good and handled the conditions much better than many of the others.

Yeah he was, it was really interesting to watch the battle between him and Reiwoldt right across the ground last night.

LRT did very well.

[humphrey bear]

I learnt that the majority of footballers despite being full time are basically dumb and incapable of adapting to different conditions.

We regularly had forwards leading to the boundary line to receive 20m chips 50 to 70 out from goal.

And the only thing dumber than the forwards who led their were the midfielders who kept kicking it to them and either turning it over or the forward having no hope of kicking a goal and then turning it over with the next kick.

Just about very goal that either teams scored came from contested play 25 or 35 metres out with a free or scrubby kick.

But the Swans wouldnt kick it regularly to that spot and wanted to pretend it was a dry day.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by humphrey bear
We regularly had forwards leading to the boundary line to receive 20m chips 50 to 70 out from goal.

And the only thing dumber than the forwards who led their were the midfielders who kept kicking it to them and either turning it over or the forward having no hope of kicking a goal and then turning it over with the next kick. J Bolton's pass to Hall on the boundary (after a dodgy free) summed that up perfectly.

[hammo]

Originally posted by Damien
Yeah he was, it was really interesting to watch the battle between him and Reiwoldt right across the ground last night.

LRT did very well.
Reiwoldt was best on ground

[Damien]

Originally posted by hammo
Reiwoldt was best on ground

I don't agree, I don't think he was that effective at all last night and certainly not the reason they won. He was good, but generally when isn't he? I think LRT nullified his impact.

[Go Swannies]

Originally posted by Damien
I don't agree, I don't think he was that effective at all last night and certainly not the reason they won. He was good, but generally when isn't he? I think LRT nullified his impact.

If you think Leo get's a lot of credit for That Mark in the GF then you have to say Saint Nick was outstanding last night. I think he's a good footballer - about 50% of his perceived hype - but the mark he took in our forward 50 in the dying minutes saved the game.

Easy to cling to preconceptions but Nick was excellent last night - and you can't say that about many Swans players.

BTW, a Sydney team that plays well in the wet is like a world-dominating Australian ice hockey team - it ain't going to happen.

[Damien]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
If you think Leo get's a lot of credit for That Mark in the GF then you have to say Saint Nick was outstanding last night. I think he's a good footballer - about 50% of his perceived hype - but the mark he took in our forward 50 in the dying minutes saved the game.

Easy to cling to preconceptions but Nick was excellent last night - and you can't say that about many Swans players.


Huh? I think Nick is amazing, and I have no preconceptions about his abilities.

I just think LRT did a great job on him last night and he was not effective as he could of been.

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by Go Swannies
If you think Leo get's a lot of credit for That Mark in the GF then you have to say Saint Nick was outstanding last night. I think he's a good footballer - about 50% of his perceived hype - but the mark he took in our forward 50 in the dying minutes saved the game.

Easy to cling to preconceptions but Nick was excellent last night - and you can't say that about many Swans players.Yep. I thought he was outstanding.

Clever coaching too - he spent much of the game up the ground and in defence, leaving Gehrig with more space up forward.


BTW, a Sydney team that plays well in the wet is like a world-dominating Australian ice hockey team - it ain't going to happen. Could be a problem if we have a wet September...

[satchmopugdog]

1.Brett Kirk is the real Captain. It stood out like the proverbial Dog'spiece of anatomy last night.
2. Saintsational thought we had the better of the umpiring.
3. Lots of other things but I have to take Benny for a walk.

[monopoly19]

Originally posted by hammo
Reiwoldt was best on ground

Absolutely. Looked to me to be a class above the rest, both in his ability to mark the ball cleanly on the first grab and to find space. I can't understand how people are saying LRT had a good game - his job was to shut down one of St Kilda's most dangerous players and he failed miserably.

[ScottH]

Don't try and kick the ball out of the air, in the wet, when near thge boundary. 3 OOBOTF, 1 to MOL, who acually missed. 2 to Dumpster, although the 2nd one was given a free for another incident.

Dive and punch the ball forward in the wet when several players are chasing it. Like crouch in the GF.

Kick ugly into the F50 in the wet, more chance of anything happening, rather than a StK uncontested mark. (MOL last kick doesn't count)

Kick to the top of the Goal Square, FFS, rather than a pocket. A free in the goal square is an easier shot than from a pocket, or even a rushed behind or 3 could've been handy.

Don't play dry weather footy in the wet.

[Piobaireachd]

Originally posted by NMWBloods
:eek: meh. glass half empty glass half full. I love this stuff.

[caj23]

Richards confirmed his dud status

[ScottH]

Originally posted by Will Sangster
Richards confirmed his dud status How was it that he gave a free kick away, when the saint slid into Richards knees. How was he supposed to avoid that? At least he got paid a similar one a little while later.

[Schneiderman]

I learnt that Barry Hall is too strong for his own good. Apparently the umpires have decided that thus he doesn't deserve the protection of the rules. Gherig is obviously considered a real woos.

That we were hoping that our skills would hold up in the rain, but they didn't, and by the time we changed our style we had run out of time.

St Kilda's style all night was as much lucky as effective. They played a 'Pagan's paddock' style with a very flooded Swans forward line, and Thomas was punting on our foot skills being as poor as they were. Add to that Reiwoldt's brilliance, LRT's only 50/50 marking and kicking ability, and the illegal tactics on Hall, and he got away with it. Just.

That our team is not a front-runner. And that's fine by me. I expected them to lose sooner rather than later, and by two points, in the wet, against a team that wont count come September, is not the worst result. We now have two weeks to get our bodies and minds right. If we beat Collingwood, it will matter much more than this loss the other night.

Hopefully we learn from this rain lesson. Considering how successful our recent tactics and form have been, it was exected that we try to continue it despite the weather. Now we know that in the wet we need to flood and lock it down instead. Boring but effective.

[Go Swannies]

We also learned that Paul Roos can't trick the team. He tried to convince them that the Roos get-out-of-gaol game was "the loss we had to have" - and stated as much. But the team weren't fooled and had to contrive a real loss to go back to underdog status as we come up to the business end of the season.

It will be interesting to see if the Weagles do the same and think they are playing better than they are? If they play at AAMI like they did at Subi, Port may get a percentage boost.

[sfan]

Originally posted by anne
I thought LRT was pretty good and handled the conditions much better than many of the others. I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable.

[Carolyn]

Originally posted by sfan
I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable. LRT still kicked a goal though...

[ScottH]

Originally posted by Carolyn
LRT still kicked a goal though... And dropped a sitter.

[liz]

Originally posted by sfan
I thought LRT was given a lesson on Sat night and would have learned lot from the pasting he took. His mistakes on Saturday night was the number of time he lead Nick to the ball when he should have been taking his man away from the contest.

I noticed on quite a few occaisions he was starting to run away from the ball to open up space for Hall, Nick would start to follow then hesitate and for some reason LRT would stop and then run back into the hole as if her had to pick up Nick This let Nick get back in the contest and he killed us. I thought at the time just keep running wide and make Nick accountable.

I think that's inexperience on the part of LRT. Playing as a true CHB he's probably just told to stick close to his man. The role he played against Riewoldt was probably one he's not played before, especially against anyone as damaging as Riewoldt.

Makes you wonder, though, whether B2 mightn't have been a better match-up once it became clear how Riewoldt was going to be used.

And while I know Roos prefers to play man-on-man and not put spare men back (at least that's the way he's mostly going at the moment), if they'd just stuck LRT 20m in front of Gehrig and Barry, it may have made Barry's life a lot easier. An extra Saint in our defence wouldn't have made much difference given that their defence was marking everything that came that way anyway.

[ScottH]

Originally posted by liz
....given that their defence was marking everything that came that way anyway. Mainly uncontested marks as weel, which was the most frustrating part.

[floppinab]

Originally posted by satchmopugdog
1.Brett Kirk is the real Captain. It stood out like the proverbial Dog'spiece of anatomy last night.


He was but he was also one of the chief instigators of the slow approach, when we needed to at least get it on quickly, at worst bang it in quickly to a less clogged forward line, he was always content to slow it up, allow the Saints to get back forcing us to the pockets in search of open space.

Our first goal of the game should have given us a clue as how to play on Sat. night. Quickly forward regardless of the quality to give our forwards a chance when it hit the deck.

The only interesting comment Baz made last night OTC was how he thought we were winning games this year based on superior skills leading to higher scoring. I think it's clear our skills have dropped off the last few weeks with the Saints on Sat. night being far superior in that area.

[giant]

Originally posted by satchmopugdog
2. Saintsational thought we had the better of the umpiring.


They are probably right. That said, whoever it is on here who keeps track of the goals from frees count in their sig can add 2 to SK & zilch to Swans.

For mine, in difficult conditions, I thought the umps did a good job - always tough in the rain coz there are so many minor infringements.

[caj23]

I thought LRT did a great job on Reiweldt.

Whilst the match saving mark at the end of the game was great, even though he had a bit of the ball he didn't really do any damage to us at all for the rest of the match.

his game was highly overrated by the commentators and media

[NMWBloods]

Riewoldt repelled a number of attacks and drove them forward a lot.

As well as 26 possessions, he took 8 marks (2 contested - half as many as the total for the Swans), had 3 clearances, 3 I50s and 6 R50s.

Also had a lot of errors (8) but overall I thought he was very effective.

[ScottH]

To view LRT's game solely, he was OK.

To view LRT's game against his opponent, his opponent had a much bigger influence on the game.

[SimonH]

Originally posted by liz
I think that's inexperience on the part of LRT. Playing as a true CHB he's probably just told to stick close to his man.
...
And while I know Roos prefers to play man-on-man and not put spare men back (at least that's the way he's mostly going at the moment), if they'd just stuck LRT 20m in front of Gehrig and Barry, it may have made Barry's life a lot easier. An extra Saint in our defence wouldn't have made much difference given that their defence was marking everything that came that way anyway. I think that Roos needs to start playing more tactical 'shades of grey' with opposition sides that flood by, for example, playing 10 in defence at the centre bounce. It's not merely a question of 'let 'em flood, and we'll just get possession and chip it around until a player on a lead pops up' vs 'don't give 'em a free man; everyone stick to their opponent'.

We need to try a bit more of our defenders still being aware of who their opponent is, just playing 30 or 40 metres behind them (around the half-back to wing zone). Then, if they get the footy uncontested, they can run and share it far enough that they can kick it over the head of their opposite number, taking the flooders out of the contest. More likely to succeed on a dry day, I know; but you can't just let the opposition force you to play a 10-man forward line. You have to rack up enough free possessions, close enough to your forward 50, that these players start getting antsy and start getting dragged out towards the ball.