No, throw him on the ball.Originally Posted by swansrule100
No, throw him on the ball.
yeah but name more than one team they have beaten below them on the ladderAt least Richmond can beat teams above themselves on the ladder!
As for playing the young guys - other than the ones they have played, many of the others have succummed to injury just as they have started to string together good games at reserve level so you cant expect them to play unknown quantities , first or second or even third week back from injury straight into seniors. This year MOD, Currie , Heath , Rohan and TDL have all sufferred injury , Reid is a first year KP player so you wouldnt expect him to get a run particularly as he is physically undeveloped and LJ is having his first full season after injury. I think Vez has also had injuries but also it has been reported he is not fit enough. You should only be throwing inexperienced players into the mix when they are fit , in form and the ONLY thing preventing them from being ready is a lack of experience at that level.
well he does tend to chase the ball even if its a mile away from him
Theres not much left to say
There is no conclusive evidence that tanking (or playing the kids for the sake of it) to gather early draft picks is the only and best way to build a premiership list.
In fact most evidence points to a mixture of shrewd drafting, trading for etablished players on a needs basis and rookie promotions as the best way to finely tune a list that is required to be able to win a premiership.
We have a solid squad with some good middle aged players and a bunch of young up and comers that show something. In all likelyhood we could be only two gun midfielders away from another tilt at serious finals football if White and Johnstone become what they are capable of and Reid joins Grundy and LRT in defence.
We may even be lucky to land one of those gun midfielder under F/S next year in Tom Mitchell.
The difference between 8th and top 4 is finely balanced and then it comes down to how good you are on the day from the PF onwards.
DST
"Looking forward to a rebuilt, new, fast and exciting Swans model in 2010"
The list is barely half the equation. It's how you put it on the field that counts. That has never been more apparent than in 2010 (although a pretty close second would be the largely insipid performances of Geelong in 2006, when the world-beating, seemingly invincible list of 2007-10 was basically all there). Contrast the best and worst of Richmond, Brisbane, Melbourne, Port Adelaide, Adelaide, Hawthorn and Carlton this year-- each of them has really flown when on song, 6 of them recording wins/draws against one of the top-4 sides that will almost certainly take home the flag. And at their worst, each of them has put in a pretty decent nomination for worst team in the competition.
They've each had a few injuries (who doesn't?), but none of these sides' lists has changed at all this year.
I think people miss the strength of our recruiting last year. Not only did we have a terrific draft but (with the exception of Bradshaw who fell out of the sky) all our trading was aimed at bolstering that AGE GROUP which we have lost from our list due to lack of ability or injury of draftees eg. Laidlaw, Brabazon, DOK, (probably Thornton), Smokey Davis, Schmidt, etc. Thus the influx of early to mid 20s aged recruits.
Those who have the greatest power to hurt us are those we love.
Actually, I think we ARE Tanking at the mid-table level. The Richmond game was winnable (and was won), but our boys stoped playing, and allowed bottom-feeders to get the points. The players COULD have done more against Melbourne, but they elected to follow the same suit as the Richmond game (only with a worse result). I think there is a view to allow us a better chance when it comes to recruitment. Jetta was a 1st year Senior debut pipe-dream. Kirk is done. Playfair is gone. This year is over. The draft will be very interesting. Big player turnover to follow. Hanners, Rohan, Jack, Smith et al = bright future.
Mmmm. Our drafting/trading under Roos 2003 till 07 really missed the mark imo. We had very little success with the national draft, gave away (relatively) good picks for Richards, Chambers, Everitt and Playfair who are all a bust. the key position players we did draft in that time we're all "project players" drafted late and didn't work out. If Grundy hadn't come on the way he has (and plenty thought he wouldn't) can you imagine how @@@@@@ we'd be this year with Boltons injury. And Hall and O'Loughlin we're always going to go, there was no succession plan for them at all (Past White, whom only last year was playing as a Ruck and has a long way to go still).
I also think Roos has failed in his trading for Mattner and Shaw. whilst we got them relatively cheap and they've been basically a success in terms of they're contributing players, the game doesn't revolve around 'Rebounding defenders' and it has unbalanced the team. We have plenty of on-ballers waiting in the wings, Meredith, Vez, MOD, Thornton, Smith, Heath hell even Jack could handle a back flank and they have many more years ahead of them. You could even throw McGlynn back there and TDL could take his spot up forward.
I agree, our problems stem from our recruiting, or lack there of, in particular 06, 07and 08. We recruited the minimum numbers requiired from the draft and topped up with some ordinary players. And when we did decide to move on some players it was Schnieds and Dempster(both in their early 20s) for pick 26.
IMO we missed the boat by drafting so few between 06-08. The last thng we want to do now is bottom out while there is little on offer given all the best 17 year olds, as well as draft picks, are gone). It adds up to a lack of forward thinking/planning that was required 3-4 years ago.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect... MT
I like mattner and shaw. They aren't world beaters but they are comfortably best 22 players and do a good job.
Chambers at the end of the day was the only pick which really sucked, and everitt a year too late - just as the afl was changing the rules around stoppages.
but it was the actually drafting of willoughby, dok etc that were the problems. those busts hollowed out the list in terms of youngsters coming through.
The only thing that will happen if we don't have some sort of cleanout is that a bottoming out will happen anyway it will just take long time then we'll have to rebuild. With so many teams be able to beat us easily and other younger teams passing us in years to come we will bottom out anyway it will take longer maybe 5-10 years before we have a team that can win a flag, if we don't have at least a partial cleanout of a lot of the older, slower or mediocre types.
You never know a partial cleanout could have us knocking on the door for a flag in another 2-5 years
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