Think it might be a mistake naming the likes of Brain, Murphy and Wales as Academy players. I think they're just toppies. I say this because none of them are listed on the website as Academy players, nor is Mitch Thompson.
Officially on the Reid and Sumner bandwagon!
EX Academy players then, which we are recycling into toppies......what a wonderful lot of nya nyas we will have in due course if they do their bit and they progress like we want them to.
If you've never jumped from one couch to the other to save yourself from lava then you didn't have a childhood
For those interested, I'll be tweeting from the match
www.twitter.com/swansreserves
Game has started, Ugg providing great updates at http://twitter.com/swansreserves
In the battle for the key forward spot it looks like LJ has started in the backline and White and Reid up forward.
I knew him as a gentle young man, I cannot say for sure the reasons for his decline
We watched him fade before our very eyes, and years before his time
Terrific tweeting ugg, get on board anyone out there!
MikyPyke seems to be making a statement, so is Jesse!
If you've never jumped from one couch to the other to save yourself from lava then you didn't have a childhood
Twitter update from Ugg ... Half time, rain has stopped, second quarter played almost exclusively in the Swans forward half.
Reserves 9.9(63) - Eagles 1.0(6)
Goals white 3 tdl 2 Kruger 2 mez cuz
According to Ugg, the behinds are not due to the conditions ... all were gettable
About to go out ... will be on the twitter feed - someone please update the troops here.
Thanks Ugg et all.
Third quarter went from Sunny to raining (prompting Ugg to question wether he was in Melbourne) to a torrential downpour ...
http://plixi.com/p/85048756
Definitely a morning for the hardy. I lasted til 3/4 quarter time, at which point I bailed out and have just got home, and put all the clothes I was wearing straight into the dryer. Would have stuck it out until the end but the torrential rain had reduced the quality of the game considerably, especially for the very tall timber the Swans were fielding. Dylan McNeil and Luke Parker was possibly the only two having fun out there.
Before the weather really set in (and the first quarter and a bit were largely dry) my observations were:
- White has to be the tall option for next weekend. He moved well, presented often in the forward 50, and his hands were mostly good. He fumbled a few marks he might have taken, missed a couple of shots at goal but would have had 3 or 4 goals on the board by half-time. He also crashed and bashed enough to create contests for others, chased and tackled reasonably, and was happy to shepherd for his smaller team mates when that was a better option. Has to be said that the midfield, at this point, was doing as it liked and so there was constant service to our talls. He didn't dominate totally but certainly looked like the best option out there at this stage of the season. There was one moment where I thought we might have a Ponting/Smith incident, where TDL was camped under a high ball coming in with his eyes on the ball and Jesse decided to try and crash the pack also. But TDL marked the ball anyway and there was not a smidgeon of Ponting about him - he just went back and slammed the ball through the goals.
- Reid wasn't bad. He found a bit of space, presented well and took a couple of marks. I think he was playing deeper than ideally suited him, and indeed, it was very tall and crowded in our forward 50 at times, with Reid, White, Currie and Haren all lurking, and Pyke meandering forwards when it suited him too.
- I am not quite sure where LJ was officially playing but it wasn't in the forward line. He was either playing as a very high half-forward, or on the wing - but certainly more as a tall mid than a presenting forward. I thought his work rate was pretty good and there were a couple of telling kicks into the forward line but he probably didn't get his hands on the ball quite often enough.
- Pyke was the absolutely dominant ruckman out there because ECE had no-one remotely big enough to compete. He was directing the ball to his mids convincingly enough and then just meandering around the ground, doing as he pleased. He read the play well enough to take intercept marks on the few occasions (while it was dry) that the Eagles got the ball going there way. Doesn't appear to have developed any more confidence in his kicking - he was still looking to handball off to a small whenever he took a mark.
- All of the onballers were busy but none stood out as clearly the best. McNeil, Meredith, Parker - all won their fair share of ball. Meredith maybe fumbled off the ground a few times more than ideal, given he is probably first in line to come into the senior team. Parker worked hard and was aggressive at the contest, as you'd expect.
- TDL played quite far up the ground and was lively. I suspect he has been told he has to improve his endurance and add a few more strings to his bow to break back into the senior team. He executed a couple of perfect rundown tackles and won frees as a result. And when he did drift forward his hands in the contest were strong.
- Eugene was in the slightly unusual situation of having supporters of both teams cheering him on. I liked what he did. He wasn't dominant but was certainly lively playing as a half-forward flanker. And he looks like he's been putting in with the Real Commando's Indian Clubs over the summer - he's definitely filled out around the shoulders since last year and, physically at least, looks not too far off being able to hold his own at senior level.
- Lamb possibly struggled to find much space amongst all the tall timber but there were a couple of very intelligent pieces of play from him that set up scoring opportunities for others.
- Haren and Otten look very raw at this stage, not unsurprisingly. Poor Haren was really just one tall too many in our forward line and spent most of the dry bits of the game trying to keep out of the way of White, Reid and Currie.
- Dan was OK, though I don't think he got many minutes in the ruck. Kicked a goal from a reasonable distance out with a scrubby kick of a very wet, greasy ball towards the end of the second quarter.
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