Hard to argue with that Ugg - its been the story of our losses (except last week). Wastefulness in front of the sticks being very costly. We could easily have gone in on par or in front at quarter time if we hadn't wasted our chances.
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I struggle to understand this as well. It seems the presence of two forwards means the one resemblance of a game plan we have is thrown into the gutter and replaced with 'bomb it and hope the big guy can beat 3 defenders'. That 15-20 minutes at the end of the 3rd/early 4th shows that those tactics can still work, even against relatively high skilled teams like Wet Coke.
"You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."
Well some work on field would help... look at the two coach killers when we were on a roll early in the 4th - the BJ kick for goal when he had a free man 30 metres in front of him that could have strolled into an open goal, and the forward line marking contest which should have been an easy uncontested mark for the free man coming in, but our own player spoiled it.
Our backline has also, on many an occasion this season, cost us plenty of goals through simple lack of communication (mainly spoiling instead of easy marks).
"You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."
I don't think you should "except last week". I thought it was pretty much the same last week. We probably would have lost anyway- the Hawks were that good. But we matched them reasonably well in the first quarter but couldn't put any score on the board. When they got the ball, they converted and had six on the board by quarter time. Almost the exact same tale this week. It's clearly not the only thing that needs to improve, but you can see heads drop and legs get slower when the team stops believing it can kick a score even when it wins the ball.
McVeigh was dreadful in my book. BJ has talent, but does frustrating things still - I'd think about keeping him in as a small/medium forward though, he isn't bad up there and can apply pressure. Annoyed about his selfish moment in the 4th quarter though, needed to lower the eyes and take the team option, not the glory option.
The free Xav gave away for 'pushing' was a prime example of the high quality (cough cough cough) umpiring you get at Subiaco. Was fantastic bodywork and that was it. He had a pretty decent game I thought - he needs exposure and time in the big league to continue to develop.
Rampe I thought tried so hard today and had a pretty good game - his last few weeks have been good.
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I'd left it out on the basis you suggested - i.e. we could probably have kicked every chance we had last week and still got done. But as you say, even it had the same tell tale signs.
What is frustrating about many of the misses is that they are very gettable shots. Its not like we are only getting kicks from 50 metres out on the boundary line. These are regulation kicks that even half reasonable footballers should be kicking far more often than they miss.
"You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."
From the presser, Buddy flew back to Sydney this afternoon and they're "hopeful" he'll play against the Crows
I thought this was one of our best games of the year. It has been clear for a long time that we have a lot of problems and the last 2 games shows where we are at. Knowledge is a valuable thing. The question is whether our football dept will use it to advantage.
It was troubling that we lost the contested possessions by such a wide margin. I didn't get that impression watching the game. I'll have to see what happened on the replay, if I can bear to watch it.
You could say that Reid took us out of the game in the 1at qtr and it was only a matter of how much we would lose by that was in question. I wasn't surprised by the number of times we kicked directly to the an Eagle, because that's the way we've been playing all year. What has been disappointing is just how far off the Macca's kicking has become. Hanners was always mediocre at best, but he's gone down considerably as well. We are just a really poor kicking team and it's not clear how that's going to get rectified. Goodes and Shaw were 2 of our best, which is sad in a way.
On the bright side were the performances of Richards and some of the other younger players. X showed that he can defend and I feel more confident now that he can make it at AFL level. That's a big plus. Rampe also showed he can defend against a top quality forward who is much bigger than he is. BJ makes plenty of mistakes but has a bit of talent and if he can work out those things may have a future.
I hope some of animosity between Jetta and the Perth fans will make him sign on with us, because we really need him.
If we want to have a quick turnaround in form next year it's best to start now. We need to begin playing those that look to have a future with the club even at the expense of established players like McVeigh. I would give Hewett, Newman, Marsh, Aliir and Davis all a go at senior level this year. Maybe they will surprise as Richards did today. I've we use the rest of the season to best position ourselves for a hopeless finals campaign we could we be sacrificing next year as well.
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