04-07-2019, 10:07 PM
Keep in mind we are in this situation because we chose to be!
Having just re-watched the game, some things;
Overall, not as bad as things seems, defence is looking surprisingly good, the main issues we have seem to be caused by occasions when our mids or senior players give up the chase causing either a shortage of numbers or allowing too much opposition space. Perhaps it's a balance issue.
I realise the Swans are not a classically fast team, but we seem to not get the mix of press/break quite correct and the likes of Parker, Henney and McVeigh exploited those opportunities. We pressed forward, and left them space to rebound. Watching it makes the game look heavily biased towards the Swans, but most of the Swan's transitional kicks and marks would be empty possessions if we had kicked straight. We force a turnovers, but then we miss too many targets and they didn't.
We fail to often at doing the little things, our kids play like kids, they often dispose of the ball then watch momentarily instead of placing a block on opponent or pushing to re-joining the chain of disposals. Oddly, this is starkly highlighted by a 1st year in Walsh, a player who does the right thing every time and highlights the deficiencies of the others. But I note the coach says Walsh is free to play as a newbie, are the others over-coached? The worry is, there are some pretty senior heads who frequently fail to do the right thing.
Even more oddly our F50 looks not too far off being OK as well. In the absence of Charlie I expected the talls to be ordinary having been just average even with Charlie in place. But in fact Charlie's absence seems to have made things better in that they were not getting in each others way. Just as on the day Charlie got injured we looked better, when McGovern went off with hamstring tightness we looked better! Big questions need to asked. In context of this, our single ruck policy isn't working, when McGovern went off moving McKay out of F50 is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Levi didn't have a bad game, he didn't clunk enough marks but he presented well, and as I want he crunched some packs in a way a 200cm x 100kg KPF should. Those actions are enabling McKay to mark, it makes defenders hesitant even if Levi himself doesn't get a result. He wasn't good value in the ruck, in Lobbe's absence whether it be McKay or Levi we basically surrendered the ruck. One problem we have is our young midfield doesn't rove well to the dominant opposition ruck.
Lobbe wasn't bad at stoppages, but was clearly below form and/or fitness and as a result not influential around the ground. If he had been as aggressive as Levi, again even if it had not direct benefit, things might have been different. Sinclair had significant influence due to his physical presence, we did little to curb that influence. Yet I feel we cannot and should not rush SpecialK back. The return of a fit SpecialK might be as influential to our mens team as was the return of Davey to the girls. It could make the second half of this season very interesting!
SPS, Dow, Walsh, Setterfield were all quite good in that they won their fair share of contests, in fact if they had used the ball better we probably would have won the contest. The only concern I have is that they won't find any opponents slower than the Swans, although I concede the Swans are ultra-professional and nearly always do the right thing, the little things.
Having just re-watched the game, some things;
Overall, not as bad as things seems, defence is looking surprisingly good, the main issues we have seem to be caused by occasions when our mids or senior players give up the chase causing either a shortage of numbers or allowing too much opposition space. Perhaps it's a balance issue.
I realise the Swans are not a classically fast team, but we seem to not get the mix of press/break quite correct and the likes of Parker, Henney and McVeigh exploited those opportunities. We pressed forward, and left them space to rebound. Watching it makes the game look heavily biased towards the Swans, but most of the Swan's transitional kicks and marks would be empty possessions if we had kicked straight. We force a turnovers, but then we miss too many targets and they didn't.
We fail to often at doing the little things, our kids play like kids, they often dispose of the ball then watch momentarily instead of placing a block on opponent or pushing to re-joining the chain of disposals. Oddly, this is starkly highlighted by a 1st year in Walsh, a player who does the right thing every time and highlights the deficiencies of the others. But I note the coach says Walsh is free to play as a newbie, are the others over-coached? The worry is, there are some pretty senior heads who frequently fail to do the right thing.
Even more oddly our F50 looks not too far off being OK as well. In the absence of Charlie I expected the talls to be ordinary having been just average even with Charlie in place. But in fact Charlie's absence seems to have made things better in that they were not getting in each others way. Just as on the day Charlie got injured we looked better, when McGovern went off with hamstring tightness we looked better! Big questions need to asked. In context of this, our single ruck policy isn't working, when McGovern went off moving McKay out of F50 is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Levi didn't have a bad game, he didn't clunk enough marks but he presented well, and as I want he crunched some packs in a way a 200cm x 100kg KPF should. Those actions are enabling McKay to mark, it makes defenders hesitant even if Levi himself doesn't get a result. He wasn't good value in the ruck, in Lobbe's absence whether it be McKay or Levi we basically surrendered the ruck. One problem we have is our young midfield doesn't rove well to the dominant opposition ruck.
Lobbe wasn't bad at stoppages, but was clearly below form and/or fitness and as a result not influential around the ground. If he had been as aggressive as Levi, again even if it had not direct benefit, things might have been different. Sinclair had significant influence due to his physical presence, we did little to curb that influence. Yet I feel we cannot and should not rush SpecialK back. The return of a fit SpecialK might be as influential to our mens team as was the return of Davey to the girls. It could make the second half of this season very interesting!
SPS, Dow, Walsh, Setterfield were all quite good in that they won their fair share of contests, in fact if they had used the ball better we probably would have won the contest. The only concern I have is that they won't find any opponents slower than the Swans, although I concede the Swans are ultra-professional and nearly always do the right thing, the little things.
"Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck ....... Ruck, ruck, ruck, ruck"