Round 4, 2014 v North Melbourne

[bodgie]

We don't play like a good football team. Poor decisions poor skills, lacking intensity of previous years, strange set ups. We were flattered by Adelaides last quarter fade. 3 losses in Sydney already.

[Matt80]

Some things need to change.

Garry Rohan made a defensive contribution, but does not find enough of the ball. He needs to be given a run with tagging role to help him develop.

ROK needs to be in the midfield coal face or out of the side. He can't survive in the open as he does not have pace of the mark anymore.

Ryce Shaw does not have the composure any more and needs a spell.

Need to persist with Cunningham. Mitchell needs to improve his pace and reaction time.

Laidler, Smith and Rampe played well. Rampe needs to develop confidence in his offensive game.

Buddy did not play well, but will play good games. Scott Thompson was superb.

Grundy was poor, but has played well this season.

[ugg]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

Great summary explains everything perfectly

[aardvark]

The desire for success is gone, too many players just playing out time in their careers. Some hard decisions need to be taken before it completely falls apart.

[bodgie]

We don't play like a good football team. Poor decisions poor skills, lacking intensity of previous years, strange set ups. We were flattered by Adelaides last quarter fade. 3 losses in Sydney already.

[ScottH]

in 2006 we were LLWL same as this 2014.

[mcs]

Two very noticeable things at the game.

One - they were slightly dominant in contested situations, but the big difference was we'd do one too many handball, whereas one release handball was enough for them to kick for position in the wet. Fairly basic strategy.

But the second one was more odd. In the first half in particular we'd have LRT, Buddy and the resting ruckman in our forward 50, but the smalls would press up 30 or 40m to the stoppage.

It meant when the ball got banged in there was no one to crumb or hold it in. Bad tactics given the wet made marking difficult. In fact the only one who occasionally held back with the forwards was ROK, but he's too slow to be much benefit.

They mixed it up a bit more later with Jetts and others, but North was playing two behind the ball by then so could usually intercept or mop up.

Spot on - that in a nutshell shows why our forward line is dreadful. Its really not helped either by our best small forward in Mcglynn being used in midfield or as a tagger (he really was good against the Old Man today.)

[annew]

Two words for the Swans of 2014 No ticker!

[bloodsbigot]

in 2006 we were LLWL same as this 2014.

Yep.

I didn't get the chance to watch the game today (Thank god), so I'm not as emotional as others, and this is why I'm still optimistic about our future and chances for the remainder of the season.

Let's hope for a nice dry game next week (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... NO MORE RAIN PLEASE). At this stage, I seriously think we will go down as one of the worst wet weather teams in history. You'd think we'd be good at it with so much practice at it? John Longmire needs to turn the sprinklers on during the week and play out a full match in it.

Our record this season:
Rain - Loss
Rain - Loss
No rain - Win
Rain - Loss

We just need to string a couple of good games together to get back some confidence. Morale is probably pretty low at the club for now.

[hot potato]

Yeah lift ya Morals Swannies !
This is just too awful to watch .

[Big Al]

Here are the positives from today loss:
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I think that about all I could find.

[swanwolf]

Congratulations to North. Given our form, our best hope was playing better wet weather footy than them and when that didn't happen we were done for. Laidler, Smith, Kennedy and McGlynn were good, I thought. The bad were too many to mention. Longmire (I assume) makes some odd decisions sometimes and I really cannot fathom his intent, I'm not so sure most of the players can either.

I'd almost written this year off from Eagles NAB game team selections but there is still time to salvage the season, maybe even make the finals! So I'm already looking forward to next week's match and the questions it will answer: Who are you Swans? What do you stand for? What are you made of?

Hard, Disciplined, Relentless.

Have you forgotten?