Unofficial Preview SEASON 2025 - Best 22, Game Plan, Personnel

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Ed_Gein said:
I think we'll be lucky to play finals.

We have too many players that just aren't good enough either skill wise or with their execution / footy IQ in general.

There wouldn't be many of our current day players that would walk into our 2012 Premiership side when you try to draw comparisons.
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We will not play finals. Be Lucky to play in the AFL after our early season form. SHIT

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The King! said:
Amartey kicking 100 still
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If he doesn't play ruck yes. **** you. He is our best forward, why put him in the ruck. He is playing ruck for far too long in the third, 10 minutes. If Grundy is not up for it get rid of him and replace him with Ladhams. Amartey should never ruck. He is too spent by the time he lines up. This is stupid.

I have not seen anything that gives me any confidence in Cox. We will by 0-7. Believe me.

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wolftone57 said:
If he doesn't play ruck yes. **** you. He is our best forward, why put him in the ruck. He is playing ruck for far too long in the third, 10 minutes. If Grundy is not up for it get rid of him and replace him with Ladhams. Amartey should never ruck. He is too spent by the time he lines up. This is stupid.

I have not seen anything that gives me any confidence in Cox. We will by 0-7. Believe me.

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Like I said after the Suns pre season game you said cox had turned this side around with his moves and shown what a good coach he is.
 
The King! said:
Like I said after the Suns pre season game you said cox had turned this side around with his moves and shown what a good coach he is.
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It looked good. But he was not able to make moves tonight that made a difference. I agree with his idea that the play must be more competitive. But over the past two weeks he has not been able to make moves that count. He made a bad decision in not picking a second ruck. Amartey can't play 2nd ruck and kick goals. He kicked plenty in the pre-season because he was not second ruck. He should just front the coach and say BO SECOND RUCK. This has always been a bugbear with me. A true key forward should NEVER be used in the ruck. Far too dangerous for knee injuries.

I am angry at Cox, a ****ing ruckman, who seems to disregard the chance of injury to his best Key Forward. A ****ing idiot

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Great to see the effort and application yesterday. Pressure, tackling and lots of stoppages. Resembled days of old.

In, what I called last week and stick by, is a development year, We’ve got to get the pieces right as we change our game style to more contested. Loving Hanily, wicks, I rate Cleary highly and Bice was explosive. There is also room for more of Gus and maybe Jesse if fit.

Hanily, Wicks and other newcomers showing the more experienced the grit needed to compete. Jmac, O Flo, Hayward and paps under pressure to perform, that’s what you want.

If all we achieve this year is a transition to a high pressure / contested style then I would be over the moon.

If it comes together earlier and we make a late run, even better.
 
I think it is going to be an interesting time regarding team selection in the coming weeks with players returning. Mills, McDonald, Adams, Cunningham, McLean, Fox and Cleary are all to due back soon and each has some claim to a first team spot. Which if any will come straight back into the side? Will Cox show integrity in selection and drop some underperforming stars?

Personally, I'd like to see all players come back via the VFL if possible, not withstanding the team could be struggling and need an injection of experience straight up. I'd also like to see an underforming star dropped (McInerney, Florent, Wilbur or even Papley) rather than take the easy option an demote someone like Hanily, Co Warner or Hamling. If managed properly, there will be pressure to perform, a larger pool of players we can call on during a long season and in turn, allow us to rest key players especially if we are actually contending.
 

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wolftone57 said:
It looked good. But he was not able to make moves tonight that made a difference. I agree with his idea that the play must be more competitive. But over the past two weeks he has not been able to make moves that count. He made a bad decision in not picking a second ruck. Amartey can't play 2nd ruck and kick goals. He kicked plenty in the pre-season because he was not second ruck. He should just front the coach and say BO SECOND RUCK. This has always been a bugbear with me. A true key forward should NEVER be used in the ruck. Far too dangerous for knee injuries.

I am angry at Cox, a ****ing ruckman, who seems to disregard the chance of injury to his best Key Forward. A ****ing idiot

On Infinix X6525 using BigFooty.com mobile app
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Mr Hyde
 
JackHiscoxWasFast said:
In, what I called last week and stick by, is a development year,
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I think this is it. If you went into the year expecting a GF or thereabouts, you'd be disappointed. I obviously hoped for those things, but the preseason having a number of injuries and the change in coach tempered them. Even if the process was smooth and Cox was familiar, it's still a new person with their own ideas, biases, and whatever else. Of course I still hold out hope for a deep run into the finals, but most of the time I'll be looking for improvement in individul players and how the whole team adapts to the new set ups.
 
People angry or upset with Cox need to take a chill pill. Everyone was flat and depressed after the GF. We needed a shake-up and at least he is trying things.

1. Despite the Vic media agenda, McCartin hasn't been that bad in the forward line. He presents higher up the ground and relieves pressure for the backline. Yes his decision making and goal kicking technique can be suspect at times, but I've personally liked what he has brought to the team. He is taking a top line defender also which hopefully frees up Amartey and Co.
2. We have been competitive and could have easily been 2-0. We are not so the narrative will always be against us.
3. Has picked players like Sheldrick, Hamling, Hanily, Bice and played them. That would have never happened under Longmire. It's a long season and very even, we just need to crack our first win and hopefully we are away.
4. Our backline has held up well, really just some freak performances from Siciliy, Bailey have hurt us. If Melican is out that will be huge loss as he typically has 4-6 week injuries not 1-2 weeks.
5. Appointing a decent reserves coach and preperaing players for seniors is important for our club
6. We have been unlucky with injuries, but I'd rather finish stronger towards the end of the season than repeat what happened last year where we sort of ran out of gas later in the year.
7. Let's judge Cox after 8-10 weeks and i urge people to keep an open mind
8. Fix our schoolboy errors like fumbling, kicking to opposition players and shanking shots on goals will go a long way to us improving
9. We need to drop unfit players and play fit players. This will happen I suspect now that we have blooded some new players already.
10. Our depth will be crazy good when we get back players like Mills, Gulden, Cunningham, Buller, Edwards, Snell, Fox, McClean etc Competition for spots is not something we have seen a lot of recently.

Keep taking chances Coxy, you have my support!!
 
GreyGooseGuy88 said:
People angry or upset with Cox need to take a chill pill. Everyone was flat and depressed after the GF. We needed a shake-up and at least he is trying things.

1. Despite the Vic media agenda, McCartin hasn't been that bad in the forward line. He presents higher up the ground and relieves pressure for the backline. Yes his decision making and goal kicking technique can be suspect at times, but I've personally liked what he has brought to the team. He is taking a top line defender also which hopefully frees up Amartey and Co.
2. We have been competitive and could have easily been 2-0. We are not so the narrative will always be against us.
3. Has picked players like Sheldrick, Hamling, Hanily, Bice and played them. That would have never happened under Longmire. It's a long season and very even, we just need to crack our first win and hopefully we are away.
4. Our backline has held up well, really just some freak performances from Siciliy, Bailey have hurt us. If Melican is out that will be huge loss as he typically has 4-6 week injuries not 1-2 weeks.
5. Appointing a decent reserves coach and preperaing players for seniors is important for our club
6. We have been unlucky with injuries, but I'd rather finish stronger towards the end of the season than repeat what happened last year where we sort of ran out of gas later in the year.
7. Let's judge Cox after 8-10 weeks and i urge people to keep an open mind
8. Fix our schoolboy errors like fumbling, kicking to opposition players and shanking shots on goals will go a long way to us improving
9. We need to drop unfit players and play fit players. This will happen I suspect now that we have blooded some new players already.
10. Our depth will be crazy good when we get back players like Mills, Gulden, Cunningham, Buller, Edwards, Snell, Fox, McClean etc Competition for spots is not something we have seen a lot of recently.

Keep taking chances Coxy, you have my support!!
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He's been a bit hit and miss but to be fair, he's taken over one of the most successful coaches of all time. His moves of Wicks, Campbell at HF look promising. He has also blooded debutants with some success and got some game time into fringe players. Not convinced about McCartin move but that may be out of necessity given our injury list. Like how he wasn't too pig headed to admit going in with one genuine tall defender was a mistake and brought in Hamling for a debut.

So a few positives for Coxy and he might just start to peak as a coach in the latter half of the year and hopefully aporoach finals (like the players) with momentum.
 
Some major overreactions. Don't think some realise how make shift we are at the moment. Stick Cunningham, Fox, Mills and Mcdonald into the first 2 rounds and i'm pretty confident we'd ended up winning both. We lost by a combined 24 against 2 teams touted as premiership favourites. And that was with inexperienced players struggling to make an impact, and a few who like paps and hayward who have started slow. I'm actually quite pleased that we were able to put ourselves into a winning position in both games.

Our fortunes will come down to how many wins we can grind out in the first half of the season. If the first 2 games are anything to go by im pretty confident that we'll dominate once fully fit. Just have to hope we beat the teams we're expected to beat, come 2nd half of the year we will explode.
 
zyzzbruh said:
Some major overreactions. Don't think some realise how make shift we are at the moment. Stick Cunningham, Fox, Mills and Mcdonald into the first 2 rounds and i'm pretty confident we'd ended up winning both. We lost by a combined 24 against 2 teams touted as premiership favourites. And that was with inexperienced players struggling to make an impact, and a few who like paps and hayward who have started slow. I'm actually quite pleased that we were able to put ourselves into a winning position in both games.

Our fortunes will come down to how many wins we can grind out in the first half of the season. If the first 2 games are anything to go by im pretty confident that we'll dominate once fully fit. Just have to hope we beat the teams we're expected to beat, come 2nd half of the year we will explode.
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Exactly my thoughts , too many doomsday posters that haven't done the hard yards
 
There has been a bit of discussion re our injuries, how bad are they, are they overstated, do we have the talent out on the park to be able to win games still, who carries us, etc.

So I thought I would look back at three periods over the last three seasons when we were able to string together winning streaks/relative dominance over the competition, and try to identify who the key players in those periods were, and how many/few of them are out there and available for us at the moment.

The three periods in question were: Round 17 - Prelim Final, 2022 (9-0), Round 18 - Round 23, 2023 (6-0), and Opening Round - Round 15, 2024 (13-1)

The top ten was reached by combining every Swans player's rankings in POTY votes, for a fan perspective, and AFLCA votes, for the coaches' perspectives, from the periods in question.

1st - Gulden
2nd - Heeney, Rowbottom, Warner
5th - Mills
6th - Parker
8th - Blakey, McLean
10th - Grundy, Hayward

We have three of our top ten unavailable or no longer on the list, including half of our top six, and the number one player in Gulden.

Parker's are primarily from 2022 & 2023, we already know what happened last year. We probably can't use him as an excuse, as we should be able to replace the impact of a player who will be 33 this year; plus we voluntarily let him leave, so that was our call.

McLean has "technically" been unavailable, but he made it into the top ten on the back of his stellar form run in the 2023 period. It would be folly on my behalf to say that it's our misfortune that McLean's been unavailable and deprived us of that player, because outside of a few games here or there, he's never been that player before or since. What it does suggest is that we are better for having a contested marking tall in the front half. McLean was that for a month or so, but I don't think he is a reliable option to be that player.

So what of the rest who ARE available?

Grundy & Hayward have been discussed to death and I don't want this to turn into a bashing session over those two. We know and I am sure even they know they need to be a LOT better.

The other four, though... Heeney, Rowbottom, Warner & Blakey. All are great players in different ways, but as I've said in the autopsy threads, they've all just been somewhat diluted versions of their best selves so far. Not awful by any means, just not what we know they can be.

Blakey's run & gun style looks as damaging as ever, but some sloppy skill errors from a player of his standard have been costly. Rowbottom has tried hard and looks good with the ball, but hasn't had that manic burst of power and intensity that is so damaging so far this year. Warner looks typically destructive with the ball and hasn't lost his explosiveness, but hasn't been as involved as we'd like. And Heeney has been admirably-industrious and hard-working, but we arguably don't want him to be, because he is simply too brilliant for that kind of role.

So four of our best players have all been about 25% off where we'd want them to be so far, a problem that has been exacerbated by the form of those guys underneath them - Florent, Papley, McInerney, Rampe, Lloyd (who, while not as poor as these others, has escaped some scrutiny IMO these first few weeks.) Jordon, who I actually had in this group at the start of the year, is one of the ones who has actually elevated himself, as well as Melican. At least in my opinion. I've really liked their starts to the year.

All in all, I think there is plenty of upside when you travel down the hierarchy of our team.

Our top group missing some key personnel that would impact any team, and the others not yet being at their best.

A middle group mostly well down on form, not helping that top group enough.

And a bottom group consisting mostly of young, inexperienced players and new recruits showing some promise but not yet capable of picking up everyone else's slack.

I think the upside comes from the top and bottom group, the former of whom I think are all too good to not produce their best more often, and the latter of whom I think can continue to grow and get better if given more opportunities to find their feet. The middle group I think probably lifts as the team lifts.

Go the Bloods.
 
caesar88 said:
There has been a bit of discussion re our injuries, how bad are they, are they overstated, do we have the talent out on the park to be able to win games still, who carries us, etc.

So I thought I would look back at three periods over the last three seasons when we were able to string together winning streaks/relative dominance over the competition, and try to identify who the key players in those periods were, and how many/few of them are out there and available for us at the moment.

The three periods in question were: Round 17 - Prelim Final, 2022 (9-0), Round 18 - Round 23, 2023 (6-0), and Opening Round - Round 15, 2024 (13-1)

The top ten was reached by combining every Swans player's rankings in POTY votes, for a fan perspective, and AFLCA votes, for the coaches' perspectives, from the periods in question.

1st - Gulden
2nd - Heeney, Rowbottom, Warner
5th - Mills
6th - Parker
8th - Blakey, McLean
10th - Grundy, Hayward

We have three of our top ten unavailable or no longer on the list, including half of our top six, and the number one player in Gulden.

Parker's are primarily from 2022 & 2023, we already know what happened last year. We probably can't use him as an excuse, as we should be able to replace the impact of a player who will be 33 this year; plus we voluntarily let him leave, so that was our call.

McLean has "technically" been unavailable, but he made it into the top ten on the back of his stellar form run in the 2023 period. It would be folly on my behalf to say that it's our misfortune that McLean's been unavailable and deprived us of that player, because outside of a few games here or there, he's never been that player before or since. What it does suggest is that we are better for having a contested marking tall in the front half. McLean was that for a month or so, but I don't think he is a reliable option to be that player.

So what of the rest who ARE available?

Grundy & Hayward have been discussed to death and I don't want this to turn into a bashing session over those two. We know and I am sure even they know they need to be a LOT better.

The other four, though... Heeney, Rowbottom, Warner & Blakey. All are great players in different ways, but as I've said in the autopsy threads, they've all just been somewhat diluted versions of their best selves so far. Not awful by any means, just not what we know they can be.

Blakey's run & gun style looks as damaging as ever, but some sloppy skill errors from a player of his standard have been costly. Rowbottom has tried hard and looks good with the ball, but hasn't had that manic burst of power and intensity that is so damaging so far this year. Warner looks typically destructive with the ball and hasn't lost his explosiveness, but hasn't been as involved as we'd like. And Heeney has been admirably-industrious and hard-working, but we arguably don't want him to be, because he is simply too brilliant for that kind of role.

So four of our best players have all been about 25% off where we'd want them to be so far, a problem that has been exacerbated by the form of those guys underneath them - Florent, Papley, McInerney, Rampe, Lloyd (who, while not as poor as these others, has escaped some scrutiny IMO these first few weeks.) Jordon, who I actually had in this group at the start of the year, is one of the ones who has actually elevated himself, as well as Melican. At least in my opinion. I've really liked their starts to the year.

All in all, I think there is plenty of upside when you travel down the hierarchy of our team.

Our top group missing some key personnel that would impact any team, and the others not yet being at their best.

A middle group mostly well down on form, not helping that top group enough.

And a bottom group consisting mostly of young, inexperienced players and new recruits showing some promise but not yet capable of picking up everyone else's slack.

I think the upside comes from the top and bottom group, the former of whom I think are all too good to not produce their best more often, and the latter of whom I think can continue to grow and get better if given more opportunities to find their feet. The middle group I think probably lifts as the team lifts.

Go the Bloods.
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Good observations. About right IMO.
 
I’m loving the fast forwarding of getting to see our youngsters.
Look forward to every week seeing what the new kids have got and how they go about it.

Who knows they may even show up some of the older and more expensive hands.

It’s early days but I see some of the team in making the transition to contested and others who believe it’s still optional.

If we can get there by year end, then 2026 should be exciting.

Strong tacklers are our future.
 
Will be some interesting times ahead at the selection table..

Wicks v Cunningham
Im a big fan of Cunningham, but will he get back in the team when fit? Wicks is playing the role of a small lockdown defender exceptionally well (Who would've thought that playing a player out of position could be a good thing??),, and how many small lockdown defenders is there room for?

Lloyd v Roberts
who plays wing and half back in a fully fit team?
Bice has been excellent so far and should get better. So theres a squeeze on the half back line. Lloyd, Florent and Campbell have all been pushed forward, so theres a squeeze further up the ground too. JMac and Gulden to return to the wing.
Roberts now plays Lloyds old role of a safe distributer off half back.. Im not as big of a fan of Roberts as some on here, I reckon he lacks leg speed and defensive know how. He has been getting beaten regularly this year. Does Lloyd move back and takes Roberts spot?

Hanily v Cleary v Dattoli
McLean v Ladhams
great to see Hanily get a few games, but is he better than Cleary? or Datolli when fit??
I think Logan & Amartey are our best two tall fwds. I also think Grundy needs support in the ruck. So its either McLean or Ladhams as the fwd/ruck. Mclean a better fwd and Ladhams a better ruck.
Id like to see Ladhams get the gig, McLean certainly has some better attributes, eg, marking, dedication, a bigger brain, but Ladhams offers more versatility. If we need another marking target up fwd, McCartin can always swing fwd (another who would be playing out of position,, or would he be playing in his natural position?).

I reckon having these early season injuries has given opportunities to depth players and they've done pretty well
Hanily - shown enough to warrant his spot on the list
Bice - ditto Hanily, and both would be looking at new contracts
Hamling - has done his job (and probably better than Francis). Will be interesting how the Swans see the tall defenders moving fwd to the next few years - TMac, Melican & Hamling, Francis & Snell, Edwards, Andrew
Corey Warner - won a lot more one on one contests than hes lost, runs all day, and has improved his disposal (the initial knock on him when drafted)
Sheldrick - cant kick (yet?)
Wicks - cemented in his new role
Campbell - continues to get better (much Stronger at the contest than previous years)

Plenty of pressure for spots coming.. Mills, Gulden, McDonald, Cunningham, JMac, Adams, (Fox, Datolli, etc)
 

Unofficial Preview SEASON 2025 - Best 22, Game Plan, Personnel

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