I was at the game and I’m going in to bat for Melican here.
When Rohan was on the ground Melican was his match up on a number of occasions. He wore him like a glove and succeeded in shutting Rohan out of the game. He may make a few errors but you can’t question his effort. He marks himself harder than anyone on this board could. He castigates himself even when his opponent gets the ball through no fault of his own.
On the Buddy booing. It was very targeted. I’ve checked the replay to make sure I wasn’t being over touchy. When our players lined up for a kick at goal only Buddy copped the booing. It was Geelong’s equivalent of our Marngrook game too. Pity their supporters didn’t embrace their own pre-game ceremony.
Last edited by baskin; 2nd June 2019 at 01:21 PM.
Our main problem is not our defence nor our forwards. It is in our midfield where the opposition runs riot for periods in the game. This would put any defensive player under pressure. Also we don't get enough inside
50s and our delivery is poor when we do. Our young guys will still improve but if the team is to imp more rapidly, I reckon we need to trade in at least one more established mid, preferably a pacy one who can hunt the ball with speed. Our center square clearances are also ordinary. Sinclair busts a gut and hats off to him but a bigger reasonably skilled ruckman is needed. Naismith hopefully but maybe 'grassy "!
It's actually more endemic than that. We've received the worst ratio of frees for/against in the league for at least the last decade. And not by a small amount either, our ratio is about 40% worse than the next team.
There must be a reason for this but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's because we don't have a large or intimidating supporter base like the clubs in AFL states? Maybe it even dates back to when the other clubs complained in the 90s to the AFL about the number of frees we were getting? Maybe it's our colours? Who knows.
Watched the replay this afternoon and thought overall we did pretty well. If we had of kicked straight we would of been a huge chance. Disappointing not to get the win, but there is some good signs in there for the future.
Blakey drops in and out of matches, but by gee when he gets a moment or two, he shows what a superstar he could become. That run down the wing, then the kick to Hayward
"You get the feeling that like Monty Python's Black Knight, the Swans would regard amputation as merely a flesh wound."
I really wish we could work out a way of clearing the ball effeciently out of our defensive 50. If there is a stat that measured this, I'd be surprised if we weren't in the bottom part of the league. It just seems that teams know that once they get the ball forward, that they will eventually score from it, especially last night with the cats scoring relatively easily from stoppages.
Our centre square work has been poor the last couple of seasons. Last year we were very good at making sure the oppositions clearance wasn't effective, such as a high, wide, loopy kick that our defence could clear easily. The advent of 6-6-6 has made that a lot harder to do and too often this year we have seen the opposition take the ball out of the middle with ease.
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