Round 5: Swans vs Suns

[imuninformedtwo]

Yes, I thought both played strong roles, in making sure that we were the ones doing the overpowering on the narrow ground. Roberts set the tone early, with an excellent chase down tackle. While both of them doing their jobs, probably allows McInerney to spend a bit more time in a central role; where he's very dangerous joining possession chains at pace.

Roberts has been a bit of surprise to me this year. I don't think I really saw him as best 23 at the start of the year, but he looks to have added some pace, and possibly stamina, and now he's playing some quality football. While I'm increasingly confident that the Serong trade, will be seen as a similar level of value, as the Craig Bolton and Ted Richards trades.

I was a bit dubious on his prospects but apparently from as soon as they got back to training it was clear to the club he'd done a mountain of work to lift his running power and he went on to have a huge preseason. I also think him playing on a wing suits his kicking skills, that had degraded a bit under the pressure of playing down back. I guess it's easy to forget that coming into his draft year, a lot of recruiters had him inside their top 10. He faded for various reasons that season, and has some limits, but hopefully he and the coaching staff have cracked a bit of the code to getting the best out of him. It's early days, but fingers crossed.

[dejavoodoo44]

Agree with everything you said, and would like to add one of the moves that is really playing off is Roberts and Serong playing on the wing. Both are big bodied players with penetrating kicks.
The forward line is also very mobile creating space for the smaller players to run into by dragging the key defenders out of their comfort zone. This was really noticeable in the last quarter yesterday.
This was a very good win against a good team

Yes, I thought both played strong roles, in making sure that we were the ones doing the overpowering on the narrow ground. Roberts set the tone early, with an excellent chase down tackle. While both of them doing their jobs, probably allows McInerney to spend a bit more time in a central role; where he's very dangerous joining possession chains at pace.

Roberts has been a bit of surprise to me this year. I don't think I really saw him as best 23 at the start of the year, but he looks to have added some pace, and possibly stamina, and now he's playing some quality football. While I'm increasingly confident that the Serong trade, will be seen as a similar level of value, as the Craig Bolton and Ted Richards trades.

[crackedactor 01]

maybe mclean is that back up ruck takes a good grad and KICKS GOALS something that CUrno and Amerty did not do. Maybe they both need a run in th seconds to get back to kickibng goals but we havent got ready made replacements. Macca could replace Corey W.

One thing I have noticed this season is we never really have a bad player. Corey Warner received the lowest ranking, But he was far from terrible.

[BRS328]

Completely agree, re Cox. I've been impressed.

Improving the team's resilience has been a focus of his from the start, and yesterday was as hard as I've seen us at it with and without the ball for a long time. As well as the lopsided tackle count, the 10-0 contested marks stat reflects that - crashed the packs and spoiled effectively.

He also started trialling a revised game style once we missed finals last year and the team now seems to be well drilled and organised, and it's been effective. As you say, he had to make adaptations to it yesterday, and got it spot on. Based on the interviews after the game, the team seems to believe.

Agree with everything you said, and would like to add one of the moves that is really playing off is Roberts and Serong playing on the wing. Both are big bodied players with penetrating kicks.
The forward line is also very mobile creating space for the smaller players to run into by dragging the key defenders out of their comfort zone. This was really noticeable in the last quarter yesterday.
This was a very good win against a good team

[BRS328]

Or simply play two rucks. Part-time rucks don't cut it against good teams. Gold Coast scored three quick goals in the second quarter when Amartey was rucking against Andrew while Grundy was resting.


A solid performance. Sydney handled the conditions better than Gold Coast. Suns seem not to be a wet-weather team on a narrow ground.


Those games are Giants and Dogs. Should beat the Giants, though they always lift against the Swans.

Dogs are a decent team. Here's their form so far.

Round 0: beat the Lions at the Gabba by 5 points.
Round 1: Flogged the Giants by 81 points. Giants had several players out injured.
Round 2: Beat the Crows away by 6 points.
Round 4: Beat Essendon by 34 points, but Essendon won the second half.

The Dogs have some decent wins, but could easily have been 2-2 if they had lost their close games. Nevertheless, they are the team to beat.

I was at the game and apart from a brief shower there was no serious rain. What was difficult was the gusty wind swirling around the ground.
The Swans pressure was as good as I have seen forcing the Gold Coast to make many errors

[UUaswan]

We are a much better team with Grundy on the field. Without him we have some problems...we need a good back up ruck

Ladhams needs to play between the bench and ruck.

We are the best team in the comp with Grundy fit, mid table when Logan or Amartey are rucking

Didn't notice Logan ruck much yesterday, at least thats one thing they worked out

[MattW]

Also, should have mentioned this earlier, but that’s the finest coaching effort from Cox so far. He got the players in the right frame of mind, had a game plan for the tighter ground, made a selection call on Hamling that worked, made the right call on who to send JJ to, and is building a resilience in the group that’s impressive.

Good on him.

Completely agree, re Cox. I've been impressed.

Improving the team's resilience has been a focus of his from the start, and yesterday was as hard as I've seen us at it with and without the ball for a long time. As well as the lopsided tackle count, the 10-0 contested marks stat reflects that - crashed the packs and spoiled effectively.

He also started trialling a revised game style once we missed finals last year and the team now seems to be well drilled and organised, and it's been effective. As you say, he had to make adaptations to it yesterday, and got it spot on. Based on the interviews after the game, the team seems to believe.

[KSAS]

My bad, i miss read the fixture! Interesting there is 2 Friday night matches this week with Geelong v Bulldogs.

[dejavoodoo44]

Also, should have mentioned this earlier, but that’s the finest coaching effort from Cox so far. He got the players in the right frame of mind, had a game plan for the tighter ground, made a selection call on Hamling that worked, made the right call on who to send JJ to, and is building a resilience in the group that’s impressive.

Good on him.

And being that little bit tougher around the contests, does increase my confidence level for the season ahead. Like, the two dud performances of recent years that unpleasantly linger the most in my mind, are the Geelong games from 2022. First they beat us up around the contests, within the narrow confines of the Cattery. Then they did much the same thing on the not so narrow MCG, where they beat us up around the contests and constantly forced us into hack kicking straight to the next contest.

I now feel a touch more optimistic, that maybe that won't happen this year.

[dejavoodoo44]

Our goal kicking kept them in it. Only one goal combined from our trio of key forwards, from the 9 set shots i'd counted. 2.10 from set shots flashed up in the last qtr. The wind was tricky in the first half but it appeared to have settled down in the 2nd half.

That was the only downside from a convincing win, where our relentless pressure was impressive. Thought Mills played a captain courageous game in able play on from that nasty collision to his back early on. Hope he pulls up ok with only 5 day break ahead.

Thought Hamling played a solid game and will be interesting with the call on Melican this week.

Paps is threatening to kick a bag as he is moving around the best i've seen him in a while.

If Nas & Butters are worth $2m then Heeney is double that!

Yes, the set shot kicking from our tall forwards was painful to watch, but I'm sure they'll come good sometime soon. I think someone in commentary mentioned that they were having plenty of shots before the game and not making many. So my theory is, that they collectively got it into their heads that the gusting wind was a nightmare and they effectively psyched themselves out prior to kick off.

And by the way, we play next Friday, so it's a six day break. We then play the Thursday after that, so we do have the dreaded, two six day breaks. But it should be okay, because so do the Bulldogs.

[imuninformedtwo]

Also, should have mentioned this earlier, but that’s the finest coaching effort from Cox so far. He got the players in the right frame of mind, had a game plan for the tighter ground, made a selection call on Hamling that worked, made the right call on who to send JJ to, and is building a resilience in the group that’s impressive.

Good on him.

[KSAS]

Our goal kicking kept them in it. Only one goal combined from our trio of key forwards, from the 9 set shots i'd counted. 2.10 from set shots flashed up in the last qtr. The wind was tricky in the first half but it appeared to have settled down in the 2nd half.

That was the only downside from a convincing win, where our relentless pressure was impressive. Thought Mills played a captain courageous game in able play on from that nasty collision to his back early on. Hope he pulls up ok with only 5 day break ahead.

Thought Hamling played a solid game and will be interesting with the call on Melican this week.

Paps is threatening to kick a bag as he is moving around the best i've seen him in a while.

If Nas & Butters are worth $2m then Heeney is double that!

[lwjoyner]

maybe mclean is that back up ruck takes a good grad and KICKS GOALS something that CUrno and Amerty did not do. Maybe they both need a run in th seconds to get back to kickibng goals but we havent got ready made replacements. Macca could replace Corey W.

[dejavoodoo44]

One of the things about McInerney is the amount of times he finds himself involved in chains of play streaking through the middle of the ground. His running power at the moment is awesome. It’s a reminder that in each of the past two years, he was sitting inside the top five of our B&Fs before late season injuries.

Yes, he's currently leading the AFL for score involvements. Which I think gives a pretty good indication of how effective he's been.

[imuninformedtwo]

Agree with all that.
Perhaps the thing that Cox would be most happy about is the 97 tackles. The Suns were really battered into submission, on a ground I thought would suit them more than us, as its narrowness stifles a lot of our spread. Last match we were constantly changing the point of attack and really cut the Eagles up. Today we had to go through a very tough side.

Slightly surprising for me, it was Heeney being the chief midfield grunt. In that, he's such a talented player, I can forget that he's also tough around the contests. But 10 clearances, 18 contested possessions and 11 tackles, make a convincing case that he lead the way.

I'll mention a few other players. Once he shook of his injury, I thought that Mills was really good. Had some tough defensive efforts, and he got a few rebounding chains going, with some really incisive handballs. I thought McInerney continued his very good start to the season. Occasionally he ran himself into trouble, but his willingness to attack at pace kept driving us forward. I'm also still liking how Wicks has added more rebounding flair to his game.

Actually, I could name most of the side, as I thought it was a really tough win. And if our key forwards get over their yips, I'm confident that we'll get to 6-1.

One of the things about McInerney is the amount of times he finds himself involved in chains of play streaking through the middle of the ground. His running power at the moment is awesome. It’s a reminder that in each of the past two years, he was sitting inside the top five of our B&Fs before late season injuries.