Beat Camden convincingly as expected.
Beat Camden convincingly as expected.
I went to the game and I am not sure of the strength of North Shore. I recognized a few prems players. The swans team is well ahead of the bombers in preparation as they play GWS in a couple of weeks time as part of the Div 2 state comp. As a result they were sharper and a bit quicker.
Overall it was a good game, with good physical intensity, and I think North Shore enjoyed the hitout. Given all the swans players are aligned with a prems team, the swans team is almost an under 18s prems rep side anyway.
The opinion of blokes that have had a run on them is that the latest synthetic stuff is very good. Good to run and land on and plays well. Have also heard it's reduces injuries. Will definitely be a big improvement on Gore Hill from about June on anyway!!
Re Erol Sertbas - good in for sure. Jack Campbell and Zach Fyffe also back from Sydney Uni. Fyffe might be playing a bit of NEAFL though.
Got a few other ins too, but win a few lose a few. 3 have gone interstate, one or two o/s and looks like 6 or 7 possibly at Sydney Uni NEAFL, plus 5 or 6 at the Swans. That'll test depth for sure.
Love us finally being in the conversation, but you'd think we'd have to show a fair bit before we'd get alongside ECE or St George for flag favouritism. St George beat us by plenty in the prelim and were comfortably beaten themselves by ECE, so we've got a lot of improving to do.
Flag favourites have to be ECE, especially with Stubbs back, then St George. Agree the comp should be more even this year too, so outside of those two, no guarantees for the 5.
I think this season will be more even on a number of fronts, St George from reports very fit lost a few and gained some, ECE the same, North Shore the recruiting from all accounts has been driven very hard and they were up there last year, Wests gained some quality so will be a much better team, Easts apart from losing a lot to NEAFL have done very well with some good young ins to the club, Pennant Hills always competive, Manly no one has reall heard much there got a gun coach just unsure on the cattle, UTS always a lot of ins and outs and Syd Uni with influx of kids and payers trying to play NEAFL will be interesting how many are there for the Prems side. I think it will be a lot close for all teams this season which is a good thing
I guess the other question that goes with all this is, is Premier Division, and Sydney AFL more broadly, a stronger comp than say 10 years ago?
We have had about 7 years of Swans and GWS Academy feeding players in to the comp, there has been a lot learnt in terms of better coaching techniques, 6 years of NEAFL, and player development and conditioning knowledge improves continually.
So are the players better? Are the coaches better? Is there more depth? Is The whole competition in Sydney stronger?
An important discussion topic I would have thought.
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Last edited by andreww1; 14th March 2017 at 08:36 AM.
Just a thought, what is the difference between poaching and recruiting?
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