caesar88
Moderator
- Apr 26, 2016
- 36,670
- 72,991
- AFL Club
- Sydney
- Moderator
- #1
The Context
Well what a boring and frustrating few weeks it's been without Swans footy. Unfortunately, not nearly as boring and frustrating as the few weeks that preceded it, when we actually had Swans footy!
The bye came at a good time for Swans fans, whose lives may very well have been in ruins if we had to put up with one more week of the Swans outfit that was anywhere from complacent to overrated - depending on who you asked. TV survival rates in Swans-supporter households have increased by over 300% in the past fortnight, whilst Ashley & Martin have reported less new clients wearing red & white in that same time period, so at least something good has come out of the much-maligned early-season bye.
The question is, how did we get to a point where the bye was desperately needed and arrived at just the right time, when it should've been an undesirable interruption to a 5-0 start? Well, like a rebellious teenager stumbling across a Gatorade bottle and a $40 POPE garden hose, the Swans have taken something that should be enjoyable and wholesome, and turned it into something terrible to watch and leaving us feeling sick to our stomachs for hours afterwards.
OK OK, I know I'm being dramatic. In all seriousness, things aren't that bad at all. We are 4-1, having beaten two sides (Melbourne & Collingwood - or have we given up on the latter?) who I expect will be contending in finals this year. There's also Essendon, who might make finals, but I said contending in finals. We've played some outstanding footy, we'll have more leadership and experience in the side for the next five weeks than we had for the first five, and we also have the clear best player in the competition right now (Jake Lloyd.) Other teams around us are also blowing relatively winnable games, hence we still find ourselves in the top 4 despite not playing a game this weekend, so we're not alone on the "disappointing losses" front.
But it does feel like we are at something of an important junction in the context of the season, or to borrow from my favourite Sopranos quote - the precipice of an enormous crossroads. If things are going to turn around, and we are to rediscover our best footy, and start amassing more wins and doing so convincingly, you suspect it'll have to start this week. Because more of the last two weeks pre-bye won't get us very far. When grand finals are won and the winning team goes up to hold up the premiership cup, it's rarely met with a sense of "How'd that happen?" Because they usually 'look the part' of the best team - or close to it - for most of the season. We don't yet know if we're in this category, and that's exactly why we need to start proving that we are.
In some ways, Gold Coast are the perfect side for us to prove our status against. They're good enough to easily beat us if we are off our game, and even seriously test us even if we are on our game, but they're not so good that we couldn't have a big statement win here if things fire the way we hope they do.
The Matchup
So, how can we make this statement?
Well, there's two areas I think will be of most concern to Gold Coast specifically.
1. The midfield - Jarrod Witts is a very handy ruckman, mainly because his sheer size means he can dictate things a bit. At his feet are three of the better mids in the comp in Touk Miller, Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell. Not only are they good in name, but also in system. Rowell is a great first possession player at the coalface, and he has an uncanny ability to feed it out to his best mate Anderson, who has an uncanny ability to get into the right positions to receive and then link up with Miller, who has an uncanny ability to take it from inside to outside with his run and carry. In short, while there are more hyped midfield trios in the comp, this lot's midfield craft can be as good as any on their day.
But one player I'm a little on alert for is Bailey Humphrey. He's not much more than a promising young player at the minute, but if there's a player our midfield has seemed to struggle to contain this year, it's been the new X-factor player who we haven't faced in past games and seasons. Names like Will Setterfield, Thomson Dow and Harley Reid combined for 18 clearances against us. I could see Humphrey being this player against us this time around, if only because he's a different look we might not be as prepared for as opposed to the other three very quality, but familiar, faces.
This is not to say we don't have weapons in the midfield. We have a 2x All Australian ruckman Grundy, the 2nd-best player in the competition in Heeney, last year's All Australian Gulden, Warner and Rowbottom. And that is before you get to Adams and Parker, who may very well be in the midfield mix in this game. But for some reason, they just can't quite get it together. There's few midfields in the comp that get caught out of position and forced into scrappy clearances than ours. I won't pretend to know why it happens, I just hope this is the week things change. Miracles can happen. I once prayed that Rihanna would accept my invitation for a date. It has only been 12 years without a reply, so there's plenty of time still for her to accept.
2. Gold Coast's defence - According to Fox (Footy, that is) the Suns are the best team in the comp at negating opposition forward 50 entries. Fox (News, this time) report that the Suns are actually a front for an illegal nuclear facility approved by the Biden administration. No word yet on which Suns we are supposed to be most scared of.
Their somewhat stingy defence could be a problem given our forward deficiencies of the last two weeks. Our delivery into the forward line has been average at best, the leading patterns and 1v1 contests from the tall forwards a mess, and our lack of ground level pressure meaning we can't really lock it in in the times when it is in our forward 50. This has "recipe for disaster" written all over it if we don't improve in these areas.
Below are ways I think we can address each of these weaknesses prevalent in our forward half over the last two games, and to help me, I've enlisted something I personally despise but I know others appreciate... it's time for...
(EVERYBODAAAAYYY!)
Delivery into the forward line - This one is quite simple. We just need our best ball users to use the ball better. At the height of our long and prosperous 3-0 reign over the competition, Garry Lyon cited six Swans players he considered to be elite kicks - Gulden, Blakey, McInerney, Warner (confusedmathslady.gif), Campbell and Roberts. He cited their ability to hit targets inside 50 and create goals. Indeed, the six of them combined for an average of 5.3 goal assists a game in the first three weeks. That number more than halved in the last two games before the bye, down to 2.5 goal assists a game.
Contested efforts from talls - Again, quite a simple fix. Our talls just need to pull their fingers out a bit. They need to be more physical, not allow themselves to get monstered out of contests by their opponents, and FFS, stick some marks! Would you be alarmed if I told you that Robbie Fox - he of the Quick Brown dynasty - took the most contested marks out of any Swans player in the last two games? No? What if I told you that midfielders Taylor Adams, James Rowbottom and Chad Warner had the same amount of contested marks in that time as tall forwards Hayden McLean and Logan McDonald? Still not apoplectic? What if I told you that Joel Amartey and Brodie Grundy didn't take ANY contested marks in that time? I've defended and advocated for them so much that I've fielded probes from the ATO about being on the Hydra's payroll. But fair is fair and form is form, and their form has not been anywhere near good enough.
(Worth mentioning here that part of the reason for Gold Coast's sturdy defence is that Charlie Ballard is third in the competition for total intercept marks over the last five years. I don't wish to see a new Hydra being made in the form of he, Nick Vlastuin and Jeremy McGovern.)
Lack of ground level pressure - I shan't beat a dead horse here, because if that horse is anything like the horse we have in our coaches box, it probably won't have much interest in small forwards anyway. I will just say that I think Sam Wicks would be a handy inclusion here, and between he and Fox, could add some much needed physicality and defensive intent to our forward line.
The Changes
Who even knows.
Perhaps a good place to start would be our most recent injury list.
I suspect Parker is the only relevant name out of that lot, and if he's considered "match fit" or not probably won't be known until the final training session before the game.
The AFL site also forgot to add James Rowbottom to the above injury list. It's believed the club is still looking for his face after this happened the last time he played the Suns:
Hopefully they find it out there on the SCG turf before bounce down on Sunday so he can take part in the game.
So who comes out if Parker returns? Take your pick. The 'great problem to have' from the start of the year is now just an annoying problem to have - too many guys who haven't been delivering enough and demanding that someone like Parker is kept out of the team. So just like Adams, Parker won't have to earn his way back in, and will probably come in for:
Fox - If the coaches think Parker can adequately fill that forward role.
Campbell - Nothing against him at all, but there may be only so many times he can be in the bottom handful of players in the team.
Lloyd - Same as Campbell.
Jordon - Same as Lloyd.
Hayward - Same as Jordon.
Amartey - Same as Hayward.
The other potential change could be Wicks in for Amartey, who has been the least impressive of the three talls, as McDonald hits the scoreboard more, and McLean offers more as a second ruck. It's all very unknown, and there's a number of different possibilities we could go with, but I won't bore you all with conjecture.
Let's just hope we win, and this is the start of a run so famous that Usain Bolt and Cathy Freeman retreat from the public eye in shame, and whatever the heck happened before the bye becomes a distant memory.
Swans by 359 points.
Finally, thoughts are with anyone who was effected by the attack in Bondi Junction over the weekend, and a wholehearted thank you to the emergency services on scene, as well as the ordinary civilians, who helped save lives.
Well what a boring and frustrating few weeks it's been without Swans footy. Unfortunately, not nearly as boring and frustrating as the few weeks that preceded it, when we actually had Swans footy!
The bye came at a good time for Swans fans, whose lives may very well have been in ruins if we had to put up with one more week of the Swans outfit that was anywhere from complacent to overrated - depending on who you asked. TV survival rates in Swans-supporter households have increased by over 300% in the past fortnight, whilst Ashley & Martin have reported less new clients wearing red & white in that same time period, so at least something good has come out of the much-maligned early-season bye.
The question is, how did we get to a point where the bye was desperately needed and arrived at just the right time, when it should've been an undesirable interruption to a 5-0 start? Well, like a rebellious teenager stumbling across a Gatorade bottle and a $40 POPE garden hose, the Swans have taken something that should be enjoyable and wholesome, and turned it into something terrible to watch and leaving us feeling sick to our stomachs for hours afterwards.
OK OK, I know I'm being dramatic. In all seriousness, things aren't that bad at all. We are 4-1, having beaten two sides (Melbourne & Collingwood - or have we given up on the latter?) who I expect will be contending in finals this year. There's also Essendon, who might make finals, but I said contending in finals. We've played some outstanding footy, we'll have more leadership and experience in the side for the next five weeks than we had for the first five, and we also have the clear best player in the competition right now (Jake Lloyd.) Other teams around us are also blowing relatively winnable games, hence we still find ourselves in the top 4 despite not playing a game this weekend, so we're not alone on the "disappointing losses" front.
But it does feel like we are at something of an important junction in the context of the season, or to borrow from my favourite Sopranos quote - the precipice of an enormous crossroads. If things are going to turn around, and we are to rediscover our best footy, and start amassing more wins and doing so convincingly, you suspect it'll have to start this week. Because more of the last two weeks pre-bye won't get us very far. When grand finals are won and the winning team goes up to hold up the premiership cup, it's rarely met with a sense of "How'd that happen?" Because they usually 'look the part' of the best team - or close to it - for most of the season. We don't yet know if we're in this category, and that's exactly why we need to start proving that we are.
In some ways, Gold Coast are the perfect side for us to prove our status against. They're good enough to easily beat us if we are off our game, and even seriously test us even if we are on our game, but they're not so good that we couldn't have a big statement win here if things fire the way we hope they do.
The Matchup
So, how can we make this statement?
Well, there's two areas I think will be of most concern to Gold Coast specifically.
1. The midfield - Jarrod Witts is a very handy ruckman, mainly because his sheer size means he can dictate things a bit. At his feet are three of the better mids in the comp in Touk Miller, Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell. Not only are they good in name, but also in system. Rowell is a great first possession player at the coalface, and he has an uncanny ability to feed it out to his best mate Anderson, who has an uncanny ability to get into the right positions to receive and then link up with Miller, who has an uncanny ability to take it from inside to outside with his run and carry. In short, while there are more hyped midfield trios in the comp, this lot's midfield craft can be as good as any on their day.
But one player I'm a little on alert for is Bailey Humphrey. He's not much more than a promising young player at the minute, but if there's a player our midfield has seemed to struggle to contain this year, it's been the new X-factor player who we haven't faced in past games and seasons. Names like Will Setterfield, Thomson Dow and Harley Reid combined for 18 clearances against us. I could see Humphrey being this player against us this time around, if only because he's a different look we might not be as prepared for as opposed to the other three very quality, but familiar, faces.
This is not to say we don't have weapons in the midfield. We have a 2x All Australian ruckman Grundy, the 2nd-best player in the competition in Heeney, last year's All Australian Gulden, Warner and Rowbottom. And that is before you get to Adams and Parker, who may very well be in the midfield mix in this game. But for some reason, they just can't quite get it together. There's few midfields in the comp that get caught out of position and forced into scrappy clearances than ours. I won't pretend to know why it happens, I just hope this is the week things change. Miracles can happen. I once prayed that Rihanna would accept my invitation for a date. It has only been 12 years without a reply, so there's plenty of time still for her to accept.
2. Gold Coast's defence - According to Fox (Footy, that is) the Suns are the best team in the comp at negating opposition forward 50 entries. Fox (News, this time) report that the Suns are actually a front for an illegal nuclear facility approved by the Biden administration. No word yet on which Suns we are supposed to be most scared of.
Their somewhat stingy defence could be a problem given our forward deficiencies of the last two weeks. Our delivery into the forward line has been average at best, the leading patterns and 1v1 contests from the tall forwards a mess, and our lack of ground level pressure meaning we can't really lock it in in the times when it is in our forward 50. This has "recipe for disaster" written all over it if we don't improve in these areas.
Below are ways I think we can address each of these weaknesses prevalent in our forward half over the last two games, and to help me, I've enlisted something I personally despise but I know others appreciate... it's time for...
(EVERYBODAAAAYYY!)
Delivery into the forward line - This one is quite simple. We just need our best ball users to use the ball better. At the height of our long and prosperous 3-0 reign over the competition, Garry Lyon cited six Swans players he considered to be elite kicks - Gulden, Blakey, McInerney, Warner (confusedmathslady.gif), Campbell and Roberts. He cited their ability to hit targets inside 50 and create goals. Indeed, the six of them combined for an average of 5.3 goal assists a game in the first three weeks. That number more than halved in the last two games before the bye, down to 2.5 goal assists a game.
Contested efforts from talls - Again, quite a simple fix. Our talls just need to pull their fingers out a bit. They need to be more physical, not allow themselves to get monstered out of contests by their opponents, and FFS, stick some marks! Would you be alarmed if I told you that Robbie Fox - he of the Quick Brown dynasty - took the most contested marks out of any Swans player in the last two games? No? What if I told you that midfielders Taylor Adams, James Rowbottom and Chad Warner had the same amount of contested marks in that time as tall forwards Hayden McLean and Logan McDonald? Still not apoplectic? What if I told you that Joel Amartey and Brodie Grundy didn't take ANY contested marks in that time? I've defended and advocated for them so much that I've fielded probes from the ATO about being on the Hydra's payroll. But fair is fair and form is form, and their form has not been anywhere near good enough.
(Worth mentioning here that part of the reason for Gold Coast's sturdy defence is that Charlie Ballard is third in the competition for total intercept marks over the last five years. I don't wish to see a new Hydra being made in the form of he, Nick Vlastuin and Jeremy McGovern.)
Lack of ground level pressure - I shan't beat a dead horse here, because if that horse is anything like the horse we have in our coaches box, it probably won't have much interest in small forwards anyway. I will just say that I think Sam Wicks would be a handy inclusion here, and between he and Fox, could add some much needed physicality and defensive intent to our forward line.
The Changes
Who even knows.
Perhaps a good place to start would be our most recent injury list.
I suspect Parker is the only relevant name out of that lot, and if he's considered "match fit" or not probably won't be known until the final training session before the game.
The AFL site also forgot to add James Rowbottom to the above injury list. It's believed the club is still looking for his face after this happened the last time he played the Suns:
Hopefully they find it out there on the SCG turf before bounce down on Sunday so he can take part in the game.
So who comes out if Parker returns? Take your pick. The 'great problem to have' from the start of the year is now just an annoying problem to have - too many guys who haven't been delivering enough and demanding that someone like Parker is kept out of the team. So just like Adams, Parker won't have to earn his way back in, and will probably come in for:
Fox - If the coaches think Parker can adequately fill that forward role.
Campbell - Nothing against him at all, but there may be only so many times he can be in the bottom handful of players in the team.
Lloyd - Same as Campbell.
Jordon - Same as Lloyd.
Hayward - Same as Jordon.
Amartey - Same as Hayward.
The other potential change could be Wicks in for Amartey, who has been the least impressive of the three talls, as McDonald hits the scoreboard more, and McLean offers more as a second ruck. It's all very unknown, and there's a number of different possibilities we could go with, but I won't bore you all with conjecture.
Let's just hope we win, and this is the start of a run so famous that Usain Bolt and Cathy Freeman retreat from the public eye in shame, and whatever the heck happened before the bye becomes a distant memory.
Swans by 359 points.
Finally, thoughts are with anyone who was effected by the attack in Bondi Junction over the weekend, and a wholehearted thank you to the emergency services on scene, as well as the ordinary civilians, who helped save lives.
