Post Game Analysis against Cats / reality check

[top40]

It is a simple assessment.

The Swans are a good team, and will easily play in Finals in 2011.

However, with Geelong ,although they are getting on a bit, and miss Ablett JR, there were at least 12 All Australians players out there in Cats colours. These guys, particularly Chapman, Wojcinski, Scarlett, Kelly and Ling, showed the big game experience and quality to lift in tough, wet conditions. That's experience for you. And their new coach, Chris Scott represents a plus, not a minus, ejecting freshness and unity into their camp.

There is still a lot of inexperience in the Swans, particularly taking into account the wet conditions. The absence of Bradshaw, Malceski, Kennelly, (perhaps he should have played?), and LRT showed. Further, Sydney had just gone through three tough games, including travelling from Perth the week before. They will look forward to the Bye. On the other hand, Geelong had just had an easy home venture against Port.

Finally, the difference was only 4 goals, bearing in mind that two of the Cats' goals came from free kicks.

[Nico]

It is a simple assessment.

The Swans are a good team, and will easily play in Finals in 2011.

However, with Geelong ,although they are getting on a bit, and miss Ablett JR, there were at least 12 All Australians players out there in Cats colours. These guys, particularly Chapman, Wojcinski, Scarlett, Kelly and Ling, showed the big game experience and quality to lift in tough, wet conditions. That's experience for you. And their new coach, Chris Scott represents a plus, not a minus, ejecting freshness and unity into their camp.

There is still a lot of inexperience in the Swans, particularly taking into account the wet conditions. The absence of Bradshaw, Malceski, Kennelly, (perhaps he should have played?), and LRT showed. Further, Sydney had just gone through three tough games, including travelling from Perth the week before. They will look forward to the Bye. On the other hand, Geelong had just had an easy home venture against Port.

Finally, the difference was only 4 goals, bearing in mind that two of the Cats' goals came from free kicks.

On making the 8; have a close look at our draw. We needed to win that game last night.

[Go Swannies]

On making the 8; have a close look at our draw. We needed to win that game last night.

If we'd only make the eight by beating the Cats in soaking conditions in R4 we won't be playing finals.

[swansrule100]

On making the 8; have a close look at our draw. We needed to win that game last night.

i think this was one of the tougher games in the draw. I dont think we adapt when its wet at all and geelong are the masters of it. They were a class above last night, chapman even know it was raining? he is a gun.

[Swansinger]

.. chapman even know it was raining? he is a gun.

Yep - stopped the ball dead like it was dry.
We had no-one in that class.

[Go Swannies]

Yep - stopped the ball dead like it was dry.
We had no-one in that class.

Teddy.

[Go Swannies]

i think this was one of the tougher games in the draw. I dont think we adapt when its wet at all and geelong are the masters of it. They were a class above last night, chapman even know it was raining? he is a gun.

But God he plays for frees. There was one time when I had my binoculars on him when he had the ball in traffic and as he lost control his head jerked back though no one went near it. Whistle, free, goal.

He did good, even amazing things after that but like Lloyd and Johnston he was just an annoying player who milks for frees.

[Go Swannies]

Came home last night very disappointed. But in the cold light of day and the odd glimmer of sunshine I'm now feeling pretty comfortable with where we are at. The Cats may not be as good as they were but they are still a very good team and have a lot of experienced hard bodies in there - and it showed. But we matched it with them until we gave up just before the end. And that was despite a lot of poor kicking (again) and a lot of players sticking to a dry weather game plan. It will certainly stop the team from getting ahead of themselves. One loss after four rounds is better than we had a right to expect at the start of the year. And that to the Cats. I agree that we need to bring in some from the ressies - Pyke deserves to come in and Mummy needs some support, Tadhg will fix the run out of defence - a problem tonight and Moore will marshall our misfunctioning forward line.

What we need now is a convincing win. Hopefully that will be against the Blues. After some very hard games, played hard, I think the bye has come at the right time for us.

[swansrule100]

Came home last night very disappointed. But in the cold light of day and the odd glimmer of sunshine I'm now feeling pretty comfortable with where we are at. The Cats may not be as good as they were but they are still a very good team and have a lot of experienced hard bodies in there - and it showed. But we matched it with them until we gave up just before the end. And that was despite a lot of poor kicking (again) and a lot of players sticking to a dry weather game plan. It will certainly stop the team from getting ahead of themselves. One loss after four rounds is better than we had a right to expect at the start of the year. And that to the Cats. I agree that we need to bring in some from the ressies - Pyke deserves to come in and Mummy needs some support, Tadhg will fix the run out of defence - a problem tonight and Moore will marshall our misfunctioning forward line.

What we need now is a convincing win. Hopefully that will be against the Blues. After some very hard games, played hard, I think the bye has come at the right time for us.

i agree with your sentiments, i find the frustrating part about losing last night is it continues a streak of bad form against the real top sides, you think we would of had the odd win over teams like pies, cats and saints over the last few seasons.

[Go Swannies]

i agree with your sentiments, i find the frustrating part about losing last night is it continues a streak of bad form against the real top sides, you think we would of had the odd win over teams like pies, cats and saints over the last few seasons.

We might have had a chance in the dry but with the wet there's was just a sense of wonder that we hung in so long. In the last few years it looked like the Swans were overawed by the Cats, Pies and Saints. Last night it looked like they thought they could win but lacked the skills. If we'd won last night it'd be season-defining but I don't think the loss was. But if we can't beat the Pies and Cats (in R23) in the H&A it's hardly worthwhile turning up for finals.

[Xie Shan]

Came home last night very disappointed. But in the cold light of day and the odd glimmer of sunshine I'm now feeling pretty comfortable with where we are at. The Cats may not be as good as they were but they are still a very good team and have a lot of experienced hard bodies in there - and it showed. But we matched it with them until we gave up just before the end. And that was despite a lot of poor kicking (again) and a lot of players sticking to a dry weather game plan. It will certainly stop the team from getting ahead of themselves. One loss after four rounds is better than we had a right to expect at the start of the year. And that to the Cats. I agree that we need to bring in some from the ressies - Pyke deserves to come in and Mummy needs some support, Tadhg will fix the run out of defence - a problem tonight and Moore will marshall our misfunctioning forward line.

What we need now is a convincing win. Hopefully that will be against the Blues. After some very hard games, played hard, I think the bye has come at the right time for us.

GS, that's about the same as what I got from last night's game. We fell away at the end which was disappointing but up until that point we'd had more possessions and won more contested ball (as noted by 2MMM commentary team) than the Cats which seems to indicate that we're at least closing the gap. Doesn't excuse the dumb footy and apparent unwillingness to change to a wet weather game plan -- Rhyce Shaw, who otherwise had a great game, must have thought he was still playing under Malthouse the number of times he went wide to the boundary line!

Skills and decision making are fixable, but the effort was certainly there, despite the Geelong players having more experienced hard bodies the Swans players certainly let them know that they were being tackled early in the game (though the pressure dropped off in the second half).

Not a bad time to have a bye, though we are traditionally slow starters coming off a week's rest (see games against Collingwood after the split round). Carlton will be tough as they are playing some pretty good footy. They pushed the Pies pretty hard last week. (Okay, that is far too many mentions of Collingwood in this post!!)

[liz]

A few observations:

- I generally agree with the tenor of Top40's post. Yes, it was frustrating to watch and we were finally called out for the skill errors the team's been making all year, but especially by the end, I think it was inexperience and fatigue that told heavily. We still might have lost because Geelong are still a decent team but the fade in the final quarter was disappointing.

- When McVeigh had his break out season in 2008, he worked his butt off. Indeed, he said after he won the B&F that he'd decided to take his fitness to another level and then make use of that on field. I realise he now gets tagged more than he did in 2008 but I think he's forgotten just how hard he worked onfield in 2008. Even in 2009-10 his workrate had dropped off a bit.

- ROK's style from the midfield has always been dominated by long, speculative kicks forward. It was actually quite a valuable facet when the rest of the team were intent on slowly chipping it forward, and especially where it enabled MickyO or Hall to get a one-on-one contest with an oppponent. They knew what he was likley to do and were able to play to it. Problem is, we don't have MickyO or Hall up forward anymore. Instead we have a relatively inexperienced forward line (especially when Goodes isn't there) with no structure to speak of. And so ROK's delivery forward is creating nothing. That doesn't explain (or excuse) his shorter kicks from further back that are missing targets too frequently but sadly that is a malaise affecting much of the team at the moment.

- Hanners is getting much closer attention this year than last, which is to be expected, and at the moment it is probably something he is struggling with. It is a pretty common syndrome for young rising stars (in the broadest sense) and a reason why many are deemed to suffer from "second season blues".

- Who's taken our Reg away and can we have him back please? He is still doing reasonably well defensively but he looks slower than last year, is not bending down as well to gather ball off the ground (something he showed immense improvement on last year) and his disposal is shocking whereas it was pretty reliable last year. I know it is easy to blame injuries, but having watched him for four weeks now, I suspect he is carrying an injury - possibly in the groin area - that is affecting several aspects of his game. It is pure guesswork but would explain why the things that have dropped off have dropped off so much.