Roos' Coaching

[tombomb83]

2 weeks ago I wrote a message on here saying Roberts-thompson should play in the ruck more,doyle should be played in the forward line, ablett should get more game time, and maxfield is being carried etc... Most people thought my comments were wrong but I think I have been justified in the past 2 weeks.

LRT was exposed in the backline against melbourne and then subsequently dropped, we also happened to be killed in the ruck in that match. Further I think it is a worrying trend this year that the young players eg. Ablett, Buchannan, McVeigh, LRT are given the least amount of game time but then are the first to get dropped, thats the kind of crap Hawthorn pulls, 2 blokes get dropped one week, then 2 blokes come in, and then they are replaced the following week by blokes who were dropped the week before- net result, no improvement. Either give players an extended run in the reserves or give them plenty of game time in the seniors, at the moment they are doing niether.

Maxfield's field kicking has been, at best, poor all year and shows no signs of improvement. I really don't know what the solution is here. He's the captain so you have to play him. Personally I think we would be far better served by having Buchannan or Ablett in the midfield.

Doyle is too slow to play in the midfield. enough said. Our run against essendon started when he was moved out of the ruck.

Ablett was dropped for the melbourne game after getting basically no game time in the first 4 games. Everyone knows he has got plenty of talent why can't he get a chance deep in the forward line while magic is out.

which brings me to the coaching. Why did sydney persist with short kicking for 3 quarters yesterday, being at the game, it was so predictable what was happening, maxfield takes the kick in and passes about 15 metres to the back pocket, the next kick goes to the the defensive 50 and it continuesfrom there, usually it breaks down around the wing and barry hall has to lead up the ground and then turns around and sees nothing.


- why is saddington already in the backline, one bad game and we panic....its rodney eade all over again. Every time saddo plays in the backline his opponent is nearly always a good player on the day.

- Bolton on hird was incorrect, on a wet day, hird was always going to be at their most dangerous around the contests, Bolton should have been on lucas and saddo should have played forward. Obviously Kirk should have played on hird

Anyways I think I've said enough, thank god we have richmond next week, this is already starting to remind me of the swans circa 1997-1999.

[Wazza]

Bolton on hird was incorrect, on a wet day, hird was always going to be at their most dangerous around the contests, Bolton should have been on lucas and saddo should have played forward. Obviously Kirk should have played on hird

I agree with most of your post but Kirk vs Hird would have been a problem for Kirk overhead, wet or dry Hird is one of the great marks in the comp.

I think Bolton did very well, Hird had 20 odd possensions but didnt stand out as a match winner as he has in his last couple of games.

Who would you leave out off the forward line to make way for Saddington? This didnt work against Melbourne and has only worked against a team we beat by 50+ points.

Danger game this week

[Steve]

In hindsight we were far too Lloyd/Hird/Lucas focussed at selection - in effect we had 4 players (Barry, Saddington, James, Rogers) assigned to Lloyd and Lucas - it would appear that they felt Leo and Saddo would struggle more than they ending up doing, and in the end didn't need Plan B, C D etc.

They probably expected Hille to play forward more than he did also I guess.

The midfield is an ongoing concern - against the better sides we probably need to go completely defensive looking to break even, allowing our running defenders and forwards to be the difference.

In the end though we are what we are - the conditions were never going to suit us, and we've been extremely competitive all year (against winning sides) without playing all that well.

[treespirit]

Originally posted by Wazza
I think Bolton did very well, Hird had 20 odd possensions but didnt stand out as a match winner as he has in his last couple of games.

May not have stood out, but he was a match winner. Killed us at the centre clearances, received a lot on the wing which he delivered straight into the forward line and while he had a few frees against, they made it up to the rest of the team.

[jixygirl]

Originally posted by treespirit
Killed us at the centre clearances

That was the damaging blow. We were not playing our best in the clearances and Hird (and the rest of them) took full advantage.

[sharp9]

Hird killed us at the clearances because HE DID NOT HAVE AN OPPONENT!!!!!!!!!!

Three bombers lined up at their defensive side of the contest and 10 of the first fifteen times the ball went straight to them. Nobody manned up on Hird at the bounces. It was comical. Roosey it was your turn to Scooby-Doo!!! What were you thinking?????????? Why wasn't C. Bolton or Kirk making any sort of attempt to stop Hird getting the ball??????????? You just let him stand 2 metres from his ruckman waiting for a tap..... OMG!!!!!!!!

I mean, really, you just had to laugh at the incompetence.

You all know I am the "clearance angry" man. 37 to 15 it was prior to the 4th Q resurgence when Essendon went to sleep (anyone who deludes themselves that we were all of a sudden fantastic.....geez, I don't know!)

Fosdike plays an entire game as an inside midfielder and has 1 clearance. That is close the most pathetic display I have seen in my 9 seasons watching the Swans. Mathews plays the entire game as a defensive midfielder/half back and has precisely 0 first uses of the footy. Williams and Maxfield 2 or 3 between them (and this after 400 or 500 games of experience). I mean WTF do they get paid to do all day? Stand around and hope their mates will do all the work?

They were disgraceful. Unfortunately they can't be dropped to make way for someone else to come in and play better because a) They are senior players
b) Malceski, Sunny and Schneider are injured, Ablett and McVeigh don't win the ball either

ergo

d) Our season is stuffed unless (miraculously) our five senior (oldest) players who have all had terrible seasons (Williams, Maxfield, Ball, Schauble, O'Loughlin) turn their form/luck around and start playing at their best. After six games there is nothing to suggest that this will happen (other than memories of great performances gone by). I still have hope, but the expectation is fast going out the window.

The so called Running Swans midfield. How many time were Williams and Maxfield running to receive through the corridor as we streamed out of half back? Not very bloody many.

I started saying/thinking this three weeks ago and assumed they would get their groove back. But, as we have seen, not only are they not winning the ball they are consistently messing up when they do get it. Ball has been so bad by foot (all over the park) that he has to be forced to kick now. Williams has the fumbles unbelievably and his disposal has been terrible all year (not as bad as Goodesy, mind you). Maxfield hits targets about 50% as often as he used to do. Ball is getting very few hit-outs to any sort of advantage (against Melbourne we won 9 hit outs in a row at one stage for 1-8 clearances) plus Ball is having no influence round the ground at all and can't be played up forward anymore.

Are we last in the AFL for contested marks and hard ball gets? Surely we must be close to it.

While we're on contested marks, Saddo was outmarked FOUR TIMES IN A ROW in the first half leading to at leat three if not four goals (directly or indirectly) and these were not leads but contested marks. (I'll recant that after I've watched the tape, if I'm wrong). Why was he in defence on Lucas of all people?????? I just couldn't believe it.

While we were losing many clearances Jude was in the forward line watching.....WTF???

James sat on the bench for the entire game. Surely he was ill or that is the single worst piece of coaching the Messiah has ever done. Good idea to put Barry on Lloyd......but James gives us great run too - it could have been an inspired swap of positions. Instead we had only the grit of Bevan coming form the back.

Kennelly was that famous Irish character "Will 'o the Wisp,"

Davis did nothing in the forward line, was not leading or making it to contests at all. Put him in the midfielad and leave him there (along with Bevan, Crouch, Kirk, Bolton, Schneider and Fixter)

O'Keefe was fantastic (apart from his goal-kicking) he just works so hard, huge leads all over the place. Definitely had the better of Wellman on the day.

[NMWBloods]

A few points:

- Hird had only 2 centre clearances. I though C-Bolt did a reasonable job on a guy is very hard to stop. It is difficult to stop a player getting clearances.

- Lucas took 3 contested marks, which is a large number.

- For those who said J Johnson coming back into the team would be good for us as he would be underdone - he managed 23 possessions and 5 clearances.

- We were killed in CB hitouts: 18-9.

- Clearances are a problem - Kirk and Crouch managed 10 between them - a third of our total.

We don't seem to have the team that regularly racks up large numbers of clearances between a few players - for example: Essendon had Hird (6), Solomon (6), J Johnson (5), Misiti (5), Ramanauskas (4), Allen (4). After Kirk and Crouch's 5 each, the next highest are Bevan and Schneider on 3, and after that we drop to 2.

Our clearances were too low, but what was particularly bad was their clearances were too high - it was the highest number of clearances by any team for the year.

[bricon]

Our clearances have been a huge problem all year.

Cresswell?s retirement has hit us harder than any other over the past few years. We are missing Cressa?a contribution more than we did Kell?s, Schwatta?s, Plugger?s etc; we just haven?t been able to cover his loss.

[liz]

Originally posted by bricon
Our clearances have been a huge problem all year.

Cresswell?s retirement has hit us harder than any other over the past few years. We are missing Cressa?a contribution more than we did Kell?s, Schwatta?s, Plugger?s etc; we just haven?t been able to cover his loss.

I thought NMW posted a stat that before this game (or it might have been before the Melbourne game) that we were ranked second in the competition for clearances, compared to around 13th for the whole of last year.

This suggests that the stats don't back this up.

Regardless of that stat, I'm not arguing that we have no issue with clearances - merely that this isn't a new issue that has just arisen with the retirement of Cressa.

[TheHood]

The CB clearances are our single biggest problem, no doubt.

Bally has been effected by the rule changes to the ruck because in 2001 he was on top of his game there. He now is too old and doesn't have a competitive enough leap.

Doyley is way to immobile on a dead track and his tap work is complete guess work. Works on hope and not style IMO.

Goodesy has the leap and by the time he has jumped himself silly, its extra hard to find a target for the tap. As an aside, he is exhausted because he hasn't had the luxury of Ball and Doyle of time on the pine.

How come all of a sudden, Kirky and Crouchy are our number one centre clearance unit? With them attempting to get the ball, they are falling off their opponents who are still the most dangerous players in the league! The balance of negation and offense has been tipped the wrong way.

Disposal issues are to do with time and confidence, both of which we are down on dramatically.

2 major changes from last year need to be overcome:

1. Retirement of Cressa
2. Departure of Steve Malaxos

[madswan]

you have no idea, how many times have you dropped a bead of sweat doing anything other than postig your crap

[NMWBloods]

Originally posted by lizz
I thought NMW posted a stat that before this game (or it might have been before the Melbourne game) that we were ranked second in the competition for clearances, compared to around 13th for the whole of last year.

This suggests that the stats don't back this up.

Regardless of that stat, I'm not arguing that we have no issue with clearances - merely that this isn't a new issue that has just arisen with the retirement of Cressa.

I did post a stat before the Melbourne game that we were second in clearances and had a net positive on clearances. I think last year we were somewhere just below the middle.

Even after the Melbourne game, we were still second in total clearances (36), but 12th in CB clearances (11)

In terms of net clearances, which is possibly more important, we were +4 on total clearances and breakeven on CB clearances.

What is really bad is Essendon weren't doing well on clearances. They were breakeven on total with their opponents and down -2 on CB clearances, and in terms of total clearances they were second last.

One of the things that full-game clearance stats don't bring out is the periods when during the game clearances are imbalanced and what teams do with them.

For example, in the second qtr against Melbourne, they managed the first 5-6 CB clearances, converting 4-5 of them into goals. We managed to catch up on CB clearances, and converted some into goals, but the catchup wasn't as much and I don't think the conversion rate was as high. This sort of translates into the 2 goal loss.

Similarly with Essendon, we were smashed in the first 3 qtrs, we managed to kill them for a period in the last qtr, and then they slowly pegged it back. This roughly corresponded with the periods of dominance and the 2 goal margin.

One thing is interesting, despite being absolutely poleaxed in clearances, 52-30, we still only lost by less than 2 goals. The only occasion during the year when the gap in clearances has been higher was the Brisbane v. WCE game, when Brisbane won clearances 51-28, but lost the game (mainly due to bad kicking).

Therefore, it's not necessarily that you need to have an outright advantage in clearances, what is important is that you don't allow the gap to grow too large, you do something constructive with your own clearances, and you pressure the opposition on theirs.

We failed for most of the game on all three of these aspects.

To improve I don't think we need to suddenly turn into the best clearance team in the comp, but rather we need to play smarter and harder football.

So we need to improve our clearances a bit, we need to pressure our opponents to stop them getting easy clearances, we need to pressure our opponents more when they have the ball, and we need to be more confident to run with the ball, get it moving and push it into our forward line much much quicker.