Not exciting when all the young guys were terrible....one great goal from Towers Rampe, Biggs etc were woeful - when not dropping balls, missing tackles etc they were shovelling the ball sideways or kicking it to no-one in partucular.. Awful. pretty much all other teams had young guys showing a glimpse of future. we didn't. Lamb was really disappointing, for example. Just did nothing.
"I'll acknowledge there are more talented teams in the competition but I won't acknowledge that there is a better team in the competition" Paul Roos March 2005
C'mon guys, it was their first day playing against AFL level competition on a team not exactly made up of our full premiership side. Team cohesion takes time to build up, one of the reasons our team and especially back 6/7 were so strong. In fact I believe Sydney had the least amount of players used last year.
Give em a break!
I'm reading a lot of doom and gloom here as to the prowess or lack of such of our new recruits and second year players. We need to be very careful when calling even the second year players out and saying they are not up to it. The ones that actually got to play any real game time played in the NEAFL which is a considerable lower standard than playing an AFL side. The pace is much slower even than an VFL, SANFL or WAFL game. They will take a couple of games to adjust to the pace.
The other thing is everyone has had a later start to the preseason than their opposition, especially Carlton and GWS. They were both back early and into the fray. Our blokes were huffing and puffing and yet the opposition players were hardly blowing at all, it shows a gap in preparation. We will need to up the prep very soon or we will be getting a slow start to the season.
Some of our second year and newbies showed glimpses, Lamb, Towers, Rampe, Jack, Biggs, etc all had their moments. The problem was the team wasn't gelling at all and the fitness level was not quite right. We were literally chasing tail all day.
When we did get going the delivery was terrible and we were playing thatr kick to a contest too often. The problem with that is we had no Mike Pyke, Mummy or Joey to provide the high marking. The only one who did was Sammy and they surrounded him with as many defenders as possible.
These are early games and this week the training would have been more intense and the pace would be grueling. This is now the business end of the preseason and with just two more official preseason matches Longmire will be increasing the intensity at training.
Don't fret Swanies Fans Carlton played an almost full side against us and GWS played a much more mature line up against us than against Carlton. Carlton onlt had 7 players who had not played AFL footy in their squad. GWS played most of their experienced boys against us plus their new AFL experienced recruits like Gilham. We played mostly raw recruits or second year players with 9 of our premiership team and a total of 12 experienced players if you count Drey, Tony A and Jesse. That is a far cry from what the opposition put on the park. Even though GWS has all these inexperienced players they had Davis, Hampton, Palmer, Ward, Skully, Giles, OhAilpin and Gilham who all have very good experience. About the same as us but with a better preparation as they started 4 weeks before us.
We will improve in the coming weeks as more of our more mature players come back and the younger players are able to learn the game plan under their tutelage. The mix of mature to youth will be a bit better. Last week we had half a squad that really didn't know the game plan or hadn't played at this level for 12 months.
My reading of that quote is really just that given the number of kids we played, as you pointed out it was quite a lot, it would have been nice for a handful that got quite a bit of game time to have stood out as putting in a strong performance. I think that's reasonable enough to ponder.
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
I actually thought some of the young guys and fringe players showed a bit. I thought Rampe looked good when he was around the ball (don't know how long he spent out there to be fair) but he seems hard at it and quick. I thought Lamb looked composed and classy when he marked and goaled, granted he only kicked the one goal, but it's not like there were that many going. I thought Everitt looked big and was willing to fly for marks and take body contact, the lack of willingness to do so before has always been my issue with him. I thought White actually looked good (even ignoring the the fact that his super goal was the best thing I happen all day for the swans) he took some nice pressure marks as an outlet from the backbone which basically no other tall did all day, and a couple of times I saw him actually take the tacklers on, then release a handball (ala Goodes). I thought the team performance was abysmal, but I try to keep in kind how difficult it is to play well when your team is being thumped. Even KJ, Ted, and Macca looked ordinary, and I would be over the moon if one of our new players could outperform them.
Are we maybe looking at Jed as more a forward than a midfielder? I know most of our forwards are mid/forward in various proportions, but maybe he'll tend more towards the forward end of that spectrum.
wow just wow.
I'm glad some posters have perspective of where our recruits and team as a whole are at in regards to preparation.
And seriously to say "Lamb was really disappointing, for example. Just did nothing." When he clearly took a mark and kicked a set shot, i'd pencil that in as something and disregard all the hyperbole that came before the comment.
I hope Sam and Tippo can just do nothing 80 times combined this year
I think there is some critical number of senior players you need to perform well as a team - once you fall below that number chaos ensues which is what we saw during these games. The fact that even senior players looked ordinary highlights this. Possibly explain why teams like Melbourne are stuck in a vortex of renewal.
The other factor is that our list has changed a lot in recent years. There was a time we had a number of players hanging around for 2-4 years without a senior game. This seems to have changed so I think the non senior players are more newbies than in the past.
I was very disappointed with likes of Goodes,Mumford,Shaw,Morton,Smith,Bolton and Mattner who all did nothing on the weekend. Those guys really need to lift if we are get to that vital win we crave in March. I'm sick of Horse blooding a Horse a whole heap of youngster this time of year and the fact we're a month behind the crap clubs is just an excuse.
Seriously though while I'm disappointed with a couple of the youngsters I'm certainly not going to have a cry and a whinge about after only ONE 20/20 AFL game.
..And the Swans are the Premiers...The Ultimate Team...The Ultimate Warriors. They have overcome the highly fancied Hawks in brilliant style. Sydney the 2012 Premiers - Gerard Whately ABC
Here it is Again! - Huddo SEN
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