We dominated them in the first half but couldn't put enough space between them and us. They had their turn in the second half and capitalised. They are a contender but we fumbled a lot uncharacteristically. We also overused the ball when it became greasy. Game was umpired differently in that they let a lot go. They received more soft frees than us which was frustrating. Competition is a lot more even this year so not the end of the world.Originally Posted by ugg
Poor incipit loss atrocious after half time. I have been saying for along time our backline is weak against pressure. Why fox and not newman ? We cant let Buddy do it all himself why no biog man in when reid not available,
Very disappointing tonight and we disappear when it becomes wet and slippery.
I agree with you on Smooch but you'd have to agree, since 2014, we have not been the umpires favourites. I believe in that time, there have been many close games we have lost which could be directly attributed to umpiring, think Hawthorn twice last year and their crowning glory, the 2016 GF. Swans fans have a right to be peeved in the way we are adjudicated, today sounds like it was more of the same......IMO, we are still being punished for recruiting Buddy and Tippett in successive years.
Head of Coaching and Development John Blakey said Fox had proven what he could bring to the side.
"Foxy gives us some good bounce off half back, he is very athletic and that is what he has bought all pre-season," Blakey said.
"We will be looking for him to do that again today."
Didn�t happen for Fox today but it didn�t even happen for Rampe today.........but more importantly Blakeys comments indicate even more so the direction we are heading re run from the backs
We were complacent. We thought we'd win until it was too late.
Seemed like after releasing the anxiety of last week, we didn't get up. Thought McVeigh was clearly our best. Kennedy, Buddy were ok, but not great. Most others beaten. Florent got a fair bit of it and chased well, but rushed his possessions.
The defence was uniformly poor. Rampe was lackadaisical and gifted them 2-3. Melican kicked terribly, as did Smith. Mills won fewer contested possessions than usual, Grundy looked off-pace.
That was disappointing; a feeling amplified by the effort to get here and the effort spent by others to look after my kids while I did.
unfortunately we buckled under ports pressure today but will hopefully get better from the experience going forward.also we did not take our chances in the first half especially the first quarter.
I think that Rohan gets a game to easily when not in form. he did not much in the pre season and not much today.
he obviously has other, much more important, things on his mind but that aside I think he should play 2s for a while as does not consistently offer us enough. paply and hayward give us good pressure on the forward line so he is not needed for that and he does not get enough of the footy to damage the opposition .
if its pace we want then play stodart or ling when fit. for marking reid to come back or give mccartin a game as he looks like he would give it a full on go.
Port were great today. They out muscled us and shadowed us, and it really seemed to upset our players. Credit to them, that was a well coached and well played win.
Sydney?...Well, What the ever loving whatever was Rampe doing so close to the line and not killing the ball? That was the worst defensive play I think I've seen...terrible!
And the umpires? Well as I said earlier, they were putting the reasons for free kicks on the big screen today...which I think is a good idea, until nobody knows why there is a free kick and the screen is blank....This is something that will really annoy the crowd. It really really annoyed me...
If you can't give a reason for the free, maybe there shouldn't be one? I'm looking at you umpire who gave that 50 to Port for no discernible reason. As the game went into the 3rd and 4th quarter, the explanations for free kicks stopped appearing on the board...Interesting what?
I agree that we seem to be harshly dealt with by the umps. I agree that we have a right to be peeved.
You don�t have to agree, but whining about it almost every time we loose since 2014 gets tiresome to at least me. It makes absolutely no difference to a result. It doesn�t change subsequent games umpiring. And I really doubt it makes anyone feel better.
I could be wrong
Swans had wobbly legs after being run off their feet. Not a good sign of match fitness. Didn't notice any lack of talent though. Fitness is another story. Probably all the choccy Easter eggs they consumed. Be better in upcoming matches.
Fumbling cost us big time, only a few guys were clean today.
Setup around the contest was ordinary too, we were like the swans of old, 4 guys at the ball no one on the exists.
Why Hannas insists on being at the bottom of the pack at his size I don't know, he needs to get back to an outside gut running winger and leave the inside stuff to parks and kennedy
I think this has been more of a problem than we think and was bound to catch up with us. We weren't good last week either. It was just Buddy's magnificence that got us the win. As MattW says, we were uniformly poor. We are having serious problems clearing the ball out of our defensive zone.
It usually takes Reg 5 or 6 games to get going, but it's going to be excruciating waiting for it to happen. And maybe it won't. We know one day it won't happen. It could be this year, maybe next. That incident that Ugg mentioned with Reg, where he got out-muscled by a skinny Todd Marshall didn't look good. Sadly, Melican had his worst game in quite a while. Hopefully it's a one off. And so too for Rampe and Smith. What happened to our intercept marking?
I think we need some fresh blood in defence. For one, Aliir is a must inclusion once fit. I would also consider trying Rohan once again in defence. He doesn't do much in the forward line and will have even less of a role once Reid comes back. Hopefully he could give us some dash out of defence. I would seriously consider dropping Reg and going with Melican, Aliir, Rampe and Rohan as the core of our defence for this year.
Ollie would be good in defence if he could only handle the physical pressure. Even if Stoddart and Ling are given a go this year, we can't expect too much from 1st year players. I thought Fox was okay. I don't know if Newman would have done any better. I didn't think Fox was the problem.
It can be hard to analyse a game where our ball handling was so awful, which led to having to kick under pressure and to no one in particular.
I also thought that Buddy's 8 goal spectacle last week may have hurt us this week, because we didn't seem to have any plan other than kicking it to Buddy. I don't know what happened to the precise ball movement game plan we displayed in the JLT, but I guess if you can't pick up the ball without dropping it again, it's hard to execute that kind of a game plan.
PS: And McVeigh shouldn't do interviews anymore, especially ones like this: Swans want teams to fear playing at SCG - sydneyswans.com.au
Whenever he opens his mouth about this sort of stuff, it backfires.
Last edited by Ludwig; 1st April 2018 at 09:53 PM.
Better selection policy needed. I've been a mcveigh critic, but he was good today. I actually don't mind him playing at the SCG, where the lack of space suits his game style.
Other selections... Illogical.
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