How on earth do you deduce that a team that hasn't lost a game for 3 seasons and finished with a percentage of over 400% is going to get slaughtered if it moves up a level?
I am not suggesting that they are going to dominate the way they currently do but maybe we should at least let them have a go - if it eventuates - before condemning their chances.
If you are basing it on the relative closeness of today's game, as Ugg has pointed out, it was barely a 50% Swans listed team. Most of our youngsters with even some senior experience who would have been eligible were missing - LRT, Jack, Schmidt, Laidlaw, Moore, Doyle, Phillips - which left just Grundy, Vogels and Barlow as having had even a glimpse. Most of those missing have been the core of the team that has driven them to where they've got to, so to have them all missing and play with 10 U18 top-ups, none of whom (Bird apart) represents anything like the elite of U18 players, was quite an achievement. Apart from Rowe and Shaw, who both came off injured, and Brabzon and Thornton who came off for very short spells after being poleaxed (deliberately and hard) by opponents, none of the listed guys had any rest time during the game at all.
I noticed that Allison was very non-committal in his post-match acceptance comments about them fronting up in the ACTAFL next year. I hadn't seen the updates to this thread (ie confirmation that the Swans have put in a request) but his vagueness made me wonder if something was afoot.
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