Tim Lane - What a Tool

[Nolie]

Listening to the game on the radio Tim Lane comes up a comment along these lines:

"Swans are playing a free-flowing play-on brand of football which is more than you can say about their style of a couple of years ago".

What a knob! Hello Tim the Swans won a GF in 2005 and played off in the final of 2006 and were in the finals most years under Roos playing that alleged "style of football". Anyway the supposed "'ugly" football of the Swans is and was just a myth. Like all parrots in the media it just takes one knob to make a statement and all the other media so-called commentators just parrot it. I love all of the styles of football the Swans play (except when they lose) and I am not biased!

Tim Lane you are just an over-inflated and probably over-paid tool. Think up something orignal you twat.

[ScottH]

I don't see what is wrong with that comment.
He is right. We were playing a more free flowing game.

We did used to play ugly. Whilst it was effective, it was dead, dull boring.

[mcs]

I can't see what is wrong with it either. We are certainly a better side to watch then a few years ago. I do think we use to play 'uglier' football as such- but it was damn effective and I don't care because we got a flag from it (and should have had 2!).

I don't take much offense to comments like that, but I do take offense to those that dribble out the rubbish about us always 'flooding' as they are being very much selectively critical of the Swans when every team pretty much does it at times during almost every match.

[Jewels]

I made a comment watching the Cats/Saints game the other night about how boring it was, my brother (bombers fan) was down for the weekend and he laughed and replied "This is just like watching a Swans/West Coast game five years ago and you never thought they were boring".
I quickly shut up!

[The Big Cat]

We have never played this forward press, flood the forward 50 rubbish. We played stoppage football not the ugly tripe from St Kilda.

[Nico]

Yesterday in the last quarter, large sections of time were played where all 36 players were in Melbourne's forward half. It is now not flooding but the "forward press" which appears to be more acceptable to the media and public. What this is meant to mean is the forwards are trying to score whilst attempting to stop the backs clearing it. It has exactly the same affect as flooding in that it is designed to restrict scoring. The Geelong/Stkilda game was played by 2 sides who are top 4 sides so they did it better than our game in the scoring was severely restricted. In our game both sides were good at it for periods, however, if both sides took their opportunities from set shots (How good for us was Jamar's miss) then it would have been a high scoring game which would have meant the forward presses failed. In some ways it is all in the semantics of how the game is described.

Hawthorn for example were not able to sustain the forward press and Adelaide against the wind in the last broke them open mainly because of Hawthorn's fatigue factor. The intelligent discussion in the media is that it is an energy sapping game plan and can clubs do it week in week out for a season, and the conscensus is, no. Throw in the sub rule that appears to sap the energy of the midfielders and you have a recipe for game plan changes, injuries, burn out as the year goes on etc. etc. A young bloke who turned up late in our game is an Essendon supporter who went to the Ethihad Stadium game first. I asked him what sort of game it was and he said it was hard to gauge because after quarter time it was played in Essendon's half. The Doggies couldn't cope with the relentless forward press of Essendon. Next week will be interesting because it could come down to the relative brute strength of the sides.

I guess as the year pans out we will see whether footy will be ugly as per the Geelong/Stkilda game, but one thing is plainly obvious to me, and that is it will be the survival of the fittest teams in the top bracket that will determine the top 4. Fortunately for us we had no injuries yesterday. Yes injuries play a big part in a season and the Premiers are usually a team that has few injuries, but this year it looks to be even more so.

[Big Al]

What Lane said is accurate certainly but the dickhead meant it as a put down so I agree with the premise that he is a tool.

Also if this years football goes down the lines of that Saints/Cats rubbish then i'll be painting a wall and watching it dry.

[liz]

Yesterday in the last quarter, large sections of time were played where all 36 players were in Melbourne's forward half. It is now not flooding but the "forward press" which appears to be more acceptable to the media and public.

There were times when the same thing was happening at the other end (ie close to 36 players in our forward line).

I think the main difference between the way the two teams tried to break it, especially as the game wore on, is that the Dees backed themselves to run out in waves and retain possession when they did manage to get hold of the ball. It didn't always work but did enough of the time to make them look dangerous on the break. The Swans, on the other hand, were just bombing out long kicks which was a pointless tactic as the Dees had a wall of three or four players there to regain possession. If we learned anything from that, it is that either we need to leave our forwards further out to give some chance of retaining possession, or at least preventing the opposition taking easy uncontested marks. Or we need to try to run the ball out a bit more often. I think that is where we missed Malceski and Kennelly (as I commented earlier) - they are often the architects of running the ball out.

[Cant turn right]

I agree with Big Al's original post. I thought the premise that there has been some massive shift in the gameplan now that horse has taken over was what was so wrong.

[Donners]

I'm more amused by Mark Fine on SEN, who bashed Sydney's style for years, and now has to watch St Kilda do it even worse than we ever did.

[Wardy]

I made a comment watching the Cats/Saints game the other night about how boring it was, my brother (bombers fan) was down for the weekend and he laughed and replied "This is just like watching a Swans/West Coast game five years ago and you never thought they were boring".
I quickly shut up!

I said to some Cats supporters sitting behind me on Friday night "I drove all the way from Sydney to watch this when I could have stayed home and watched a DVD from a couple of years back!"
Whilst we loved (in some instances tolerated )the way our lads played to get us the flag, doesnt mean that its beyond criticism. So lane wasn't entirely wrong in what he said.

Our playing style may change quite a bit this year due to a new coach and new kids who like to go for a run - All I can see are the positives.

[ShockOfHair]

Tim Lane expended his entire knowledge of the Swans in the first quarter of the first game of the year. Just how many other team's past gameplans does he feel the need to reference?

A good commentator can find an opportunity to make a point about current issues. Dim Tim has forgotten that it was the rule changes introduced to combat the Swans' style that sped up the game to the point where the League is now trying to slow it down. If it were Carlton whose success had prompted the rule changes Tim would've been the first to mention it.

I never had a problem with the way the Swans played, which made every possession a contest. Inevitably another team was going to trump them with a different style, and Geelong did. It was the AFL's kneejerk reaction that created today's problems.

[satchmopugdog]

I will broke no criticism of Tim Lane or Martin Flanagan.....us Tasmanians have to stick together. Not a logical reply I know but when was that ever my strong suit

[Bas]

.....us Tasmanians have to stick together.

I think that caused the problem in the first place............ :D:D

Present company (satchmo) excluded naturally.

[tasswan]

I think that caused the problem in the first place............ :D:D

Present company (satchmo) excluded naturally.

thanks:rolleyes: