Analysis 2019 List, Game Plan and Best 22?

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RUNVS said:
Here is what I think is a very important stat. Here is the kicking efficiency of the Swans players in 2018. For the purposes of this I did not include players like Cameron and Ried, who technically have stats but they both played too little for the stats to be relevant.

1. Grundy - 81.6%
2. Melican - 80.8%
3. Rampe - 77.1%
4. Lloyd - 75.7%
5. McVeigh - 75.7%
6. Fox - 74.1%
7. Marsh - 73.9%
8. Jones - 73.7%
9. Aliir - 73.6%
10. Cunningham - 72.9%
11. Mills - 72.3%
12. Newman - 70.1%
13. Dawson - 69.7%
14. Hewett - 69.4%
15. Robinson - 68.2%
16. Towers - 66.7%
17. Smith - 65.9%
18. Hayward - 64.7%
19. Papley - 63.9%
20. Rohan - 60.6%
21. McCartin - 59.4%
22. Sinclair - 59.3%
23. Johnson - 58.3%
24. Franklin - 57.3%
25. Heeney - 56.9%
26. Parker - 56.7%
27. Florent - 56.5%
28. Ronke - 53.3%
29. Hannebery - 50.4%
30. Rose - 50.0%
31. Stoddart - 50.0%
32. Kennedy - 48.0%
33. Jack - 47.0%
34. O'Riordan - 45.8%

What concerns me most on that list is look at our high disposal midfielders. Other than Lloyd they are all awful kicks with Heeney the best of the bunch at 56.9%.
Click to expand...

57% is considered the average for a full time mid. While Smith at 66% is below average for a defender.

28 and lower are the problem areas.
 
Still a lot of unknowns at the moment, early impression on best 22

B: Smith, Melican, Jones
HB: Mills, Aliir, Rampe
C: Lloyd, Kennedy, Hewett
HF: Hayward, Franklin, McCartin
F: Papley, Reid, Ronke
R: Sinclair, Parker, Heeney

I: Clarke, McVeigh, Florent, Dawson

Depth

Ruck: Naismith, Cameron

Defence:
- talls; Grundy, Maibaum*
- flanks; Thurlow, O'Riordan, Stoddart, Ling*

Mids: K.Jack, Fox, Cunningham, Bell*

Forwards: Rose, Amartey*, Pink*

*yet to play at AFL level
 
Last edited:
Cloud_ said:
Still a lot of unknowns at the moment, early impression on best 22

B: Smith, Melican, Jones
HB: Mills, Aliir, Rampe
C: Lloyd, Kennedy, Hewett
HF: Hayward, Franklin, McCartin
F: Papley, Reid, Ronke
R: Sinclair, Parker, Heeney

I: Clarke, McVeigh, Cunningham, Dawson

Depth

Ruck: Naismith, Cameron

Defence:
- talls; Grundy, Maibaum*
- flanks; Thurlow, O'Riordan, Stoddart, Ling*

Mids: K.Jack, Fox, Bell*

Forwards: Rose, Amartey*, Pink*

*yet to play at AFL level
Click to expand...

Florent?
 

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RUNVS said:
Better than me. Once in 2012 or something I was doing a best 22 for the Swans and I somehow managed to forget Goodes.
Click to expand...
Pretty easy to do that I find. Once I get to about 16-17 players in the team I start thinking of fringe players and assume all the locks are already in. Then without fail always miss someone obvious.
 
A few more thoughts taking another look at the team heading into 2019

Forward line

Despite our issues with scoring I think we had a decent mix up forward with Buddy and McCartin along with Papley, Ronke and Hayward as the smart speedy smalls accompanying them. The only thing I'd like to see change next year is for Reid to return and stay deep to help us maintain a forward structure. McCartin should be a third tall leading up as he's still too raw to be taking the opposition's second defender each week. However, that is dependent on Reid actually being fit which is a long shot these days.

With Parker and Heeney rotating through there throughout games, I see our forward line being quite effective and dangerous if they actually stay in the forward half of the ground.

Ruck

Nothing much changes in terms of the ruck arrangement, Sinclair is clearly number 1 and has shown himself to have the durability to go the entire season. Naismith is the second choice and a better tap ruck but he needs to show himself to be dominant in that aspect or improve him marking ability to challenge Sinclair.

Midfield

This was the root of all our problems in 2018. The midfield was very inconsistent and the weakest its been in a number of years. We spent a lot of games being henned in our backline because the midfield were beaten, forcing the forwards to come up the ground to hunt the ball and end up leaving us with no structure. We got rid of Hanners and Robinson over the off season and brought in Clarke which isn't a significant immediate upgrade. Our depth in terms of inside midfielders is quite ordinary in my view with Kennedy getting a year older and Jack being on his last legs and spending less time in the middle in recent seasons. Most of our draft points will be spent on getting Blakey so this year we won't be expecting too much elite midfield talent coming to us through the draft.

The only we're going to improve is if there's a significant jump in the output of one of our young mids; Heeney being the obvious candidate, Hewett could be pleasant surprise as well. Mills and Dawson coming into the middle and having a big impact is another possibility. Lloyd come up the ground onto the wing to give us a bit more run and drive going forward like Hanners use to do for us. If we do manage to win our fair share on the inside we have enough speed and skill to win more games than we lose.

However at this moment my expectation is that the midfield will perform similarly to this year and we'd spend more time than not in defence.

Defence

A miserly back 6/7 has long been our trademark, our defenders are very good at shutting down their own opponents but that only takes you so far in games. When it comes to transitioning from defence we sucked this year. Coupled with inconsistent midfield performances and low scores are no surprise. There hasn't been great improvements in the midfield over the offseason so our transition is going to need to improve in order to get a better result next year.

One way to rectify that in 2019 I see is freeing up is moving Rampe to a third tall role and freeing him up to get more rebounds with his penetrating kick ala 2016, however that would require us to trust Aliir on a opposition key forward and he tends to play a bit loose. Jones, O'Riordan, Stoddart and Thurlow all have a bit of dash as well as Cunningham who played in parts down back so we actually do have a few options in this area. Whether our transition actually improves will be dependent on how willing the coaches are prepared to take risks in our ball movement out of defence.



It's very difficult to say how we'll go next year because the season outcome will be highly dependent on how the core of youngsters we've blooded from 2016-18 have developed. Given we have more reliance on youth in the coming year I expect to see some inconsistency throughout the season; some great wins along with some absolutely shocking losses like this year.
The first SCG game will be very telling in terms of how our fortunes will go. It'll be interesting to see if we get put on the back foot and teams are setting up a zone across our half back line how we create counterattacking opportunities. If we lose games in the same fashion as a lot of 2018 SCG games it would be sign that we're missing finals next year.
I'll be watch Thurlow with great interest, with his size, speed and kicking if he can get himself established in our 22 he should produce some exciting performances
 
Cloud_ said:
A few more thoughts taking another look at the team heading into 2019

Forward line

Despite our issues with scoring I think we had a decent mix up forward with Buddy and McCartin along with Papley, Ronke and Hayward as the smart speedy smalls accompanying them. The only thing I'd like to see change next year is for Reid to return and stay deep to help us maintain a forward structure. McCartin should be a third tall leading up as he's still too raw to be taking the opposition's second defender each week. However, that is dependent on Reid actually being fit which is a long shot these days.

With Parker and Heeney rotating through there throughout games, I see our forward line being quite effective and dangerous if they actually stay in the forward half of the ground.

Ruck

Nothing much changes in terms of the ruck arrangement, Sinclair is clearly number 1 and has shown himself to have the durability to go the entire season. Naismith is the second choice and a better tap ruck but he needs to show himself to be dominant in that aspect or improve him marking ability to challenge Sinclair.

Midfield

This was the root of all our problems in 2018. The midfield was very inconsistent and the weakest its been in a number of years. We spent a lot of games being henned in our backline because the midfield were beaten, forcing the forwards to come up the ground to hunt the ball and end up leaving us with no structure. We got rid of Hanners and Robinson over the off season and brought in Clarke which isn't a significant immediate upgrade. Our depth in terms of inside midfielders is quite ordinary in my view with Kennedy getting a year older and Jack being on his last legs and spending less time in the middle in recent seasons. Most of our draft points will be spent on getting Blakey so this year we won't be expecting too much elite midfield talent coming to us through the draft.

The only we're going to improve is if there's a significant jump in the output of one of our young mids; Heeney being the obvious candidate, Hewett could be pleasant surprise as well. Mills and Dawson coming into the middle and having a big impact is another possibility. Lloyd come up the ground onto the wing to give us a bit more run and drive going forward like Hanners use to do for us. If we do manage to win our fair share on the inside we have enough speed and skill to win more games than we lose.

However at this moment my expectation is that the midfield will perform similarly to this year and we'd spend more time than not in defence.

Defence

A miserly back 6/7 has long been our trademark, our defenders are very good at shutting down their own opponents but that only takes you so far in games. When it comes to transitioning from defence we sucked this year. Coupled with inconsistent midfield performances and low scores are no surprise. There hasn't been great improvements in the midfield over the offseason so our transition is going to need to improve in order to get a better result next year.

One way to rectify that in 2019 I see is freeing up is moving Rampe to a third tall role and freeing him up to get more rebounds with his penetrating kick ala 2016, however that would require us to trust Aliir on a opposition key forward and he tends to play a bit loose. Jones, O'Riordan, Stoddart and Thurlow all have a bit of dash as well as Cunningham who played in parts down back so we actually do have a few options in this area. Whether our transition actually improves will be dependent on how willing the coaches are prepared to take risks in our ball movement out of defence.



It's very difficult to say how we'll go next year because the season outcome will be highly dependent on how the core of youngsters we've blooded from 2016-18 have developed. Given we have more reliance on youth in the coming year I expect to see some inconsistency throughout the season; some great wins along with some absolutely shocking losses like this year.
The first SCG game will be very telling in terms of how our fortunes will go. It'll be interesting to see if we get put on the back foot and teams are setting up a zone across our half back line how we create counterattacking opportunities. If we lose games in the same fashion as a lot of 2018 SCG games it would be sign that we're missing finals next year.
I'll be watch Thurlow with great interest, with his size, speed and kicking if he can get himself established in our 22 he should produce some exciting performances
Click to expand...

I particularly like the idea of Lloyd in the Hanners role. He initially played a bit on the wing and high HFF. His disposal inc goal accuracy in those early days was pretty good. He is an excellent runner and on the wing this attribute would help us both defend and attack.
 
RUNVS said:
Here is what I think is a very important stat. Here is the kicking efficiency of the Swans players in 2018. For the purposes of this I did not include players like Cameron and Ried, who technically have stats but they both played too little for the stats to be relevant.

1. Grundy - 81.6%
2. Melican - 80.8%
3. Rampe - 77.1%
4. Lloyd - 75.7%
5. McVeigh - 75.7%
6. Fox - 74.1%
7. Marsh - 73.9%
8. Jones - 73.7%
9. Aliir - 73.6%
10. Cunningham - 72.9%
11. Mills - 72.3%
12. Newman - 70.1%
13. Dawson - 69.7%
14. Hewett - 69.4%
15. Robinson - 68.2%
16. Towers - 66.7%
17. Smith - 65.9%
18. Hayward - 64.7%
19. Papley - 63.9%
20. Rohan - 60.6%
21. McCartin - 59.4%
22. Sinclair - 59.3%
23. Johnson - 58.3%
24. Franklin - 57.3%
25. Heeney - 56.9%
26. Parker - 56.7%
27. Florent - 56.5%
28. Ronke - 53.3%
29. Hannebery - 50.4%
30. Rose - 50.0%
31. Stoddart - 50.0%
32. Kennedy - 48.0%
33. Jack - 47.0%
34. O'Riordan - 45.8%

What concerns me most on that list is look at our high disposal midfielders. Other than Lloyd they are all awful kicks with Heeney the best of the bunch at 56.9%.
Click to expand...
Some very interesting stats there:
I wonder what the Jones critics thinks of his efficiency which is pretty good.
I thought that O'Riordan might be better but I suppose it would be a small sample size for him.
No surprises with Jack, Kennedy and Hannebery.
 
Opts said:
Some very interesting stats there:
I wonder what the Jones critics thinks of his efficiency which is pretty good.
I thought that O'Riordan might be better but I suppose it would be a small sample size for him.
No surprises with Jack, Kennedy and Hannebery.[/QUOTE

Kennedy played predominately at the coal face, so there is some mitigating factor. The two butcher boys played more on the outside. No excuses for them.
Click to expand...
 

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Cloud_ said:
Pretty easy to do that I find. Once I get to about 16-17 players in the team I start thinking of fringe players and assume all the locks are already in. Then without fail always miss someone obvious.
Click to expand...
The trick is to copy and paste from one that someone else has done (checking that no one pointed out any misses in subsequent post) and then cut and paste from that. If there any players left from the original paste then you forgotten him .
 
Opts said:
You had Florent there as interchange. You did forget Blakey though. He would have to at least qualify as depth?
Click to expand...
I initially forgot him and then edited him back in, in place of Cunningham who is very stiff to miss

For now I've gone with who is officially on our list at this point in time, but Blakey will add to our forward depth. But I don't expect him to have a massive impact on our 2019 season as forwards take some time.
 
Superstar swan said:
For us to make a significant step forward next year we need melican and aliir to play 20+games, heeney to reach AA level and become our best mid and a forward not named buddy to kick around 40 goals
Click to expand...

Good points.

What are some reasonable targets for forwards not named Buddy?

Reid - 1.25 goals per game
HayCart - 1.75 gpg
Ronke - 1.5 gpg
Papley - 1.5 gpg

We'd want 2.0 gpg from Menzel if recruited.
 
Before we go swinging the proverbial axe on Cunningham, it’s worth noting he was behind only Kennedy in touches in our last final when it felt like no Swans could even get their hands on the ball.

He would have to eat and drink himself into oblivion over the off-season and come back later this month like Steven Motlop to not be in the best 22 at the start of next year.
 
I would just like for once to have isolation for our forwards. Watching the grand final this year was depressing, seeing how often it was just a contest between one forward and one defender, and the open goal was there. Just an abundance of time and space for the Stephenson and Liam Ryan types to look spectacular. We just don’t have that and never really have. Our forward line only has two modes: vacant, and congested.

The midfielders are Buddy-centric. Horse has never been able to break this cycle. They just bomb it in the air with the reassurance that having a GOAT on the receiving end will somehow make it work, even if he has two opponents on him. That reliance on Buddy then spreads throughout the entire forward group. The smalls don’t lead to create better targets because it will never come in low and hard to them. And when they do get an opportunity, a lot of the time it’s ‘where’s Bud for the giveaway handpass?’

It’s rampant in our side. This is why I actually get kind of excited when Bud’s not playing (for the team, not for Buddy himself). Because we’ll never have a functioning forward line as long as it’s “Buddy featuring..” How can we expect these young guns in our forward line, all capable of tearing a game apart, to grow and accept a greater responsibility within a game if the message basically being sold to them from within is that they basically need to get out of the GOAT’s way??

So the entire forward structure revolves around Buddy. If he drifts up the ground, the rest are sucked up as though they have to leave the forward 50 open for Buddy to do what he does best. And when Buddy is stationed inside 50, there’s no space because no one else is leading and breaking away from the pack that inevitably forms around Buddy.

It’s maddening for the other forwards, and it would definitely be maddening for Buddy himself. I just feel these forwards are so super talented, they really all could be anything, but they’re being coached wrong. They’ve entered into this toxic superstar cult of a forward line that almost seems to be encouraged from the coaching staff. Horse & co can say it’s not just about Buddy, but everything we do on a weekly basis with Buddy tells me they have basically accepted Buddy is not just a cog in the machine (as he was in 2013) but he is the machine. Everyone around him either needs to get on board or flounder.

I know someone will respond to this with some kind of stat or counter-theory to suggest that I’m wrong about this, but I can’t be wrong. This is my opinion based off what my eyes have seen going back to round 1, 2014. Believed it ever since, only now we’re in a new generation of Swans. That means a new crop of young midfielders and young forwards who are being lured into being a supporting cast for their champion forward, like we’re back in the 80s or something.
 
I just found a stat that essentially defines why we are not a top side. Admittedly it isn't an obscure stat, but it does show the problem and that is inside 50's in relation to our opposition

1. Melbourne (12.3)
2. Richmond (10.2)
3. Hawthorn (6.7)
4. Collingwood (4.5)
5. West Coast (2.3)
6. Essendon (1.6)
7. Geelong (1.2)
8. Port Adelaide (0.8)
9. GWS (0.8)
10. Adelaide (0.5)
11. North Melbourne (-0.5)
12. Western Bulldogs (-1.9)
13. St Kilda (-2.1)
14. Brisbane (-4.2)
15. Sydney (-5.7)
16. Fremantle (-6.8)
17. Carlton (-10.2)
18. Gold Coast (-13.8)

We are the only team in the top 8 in 2018 that was in the red when it came to inside 50's. It is clearly such an important stat and a stat where we are stuck with some of the worst teams in the competition.
 
RUNVS said:
I just found a stat that essentially defines why we are not a top side. Admittedly it isn't an obscure stat, but it does show the problem and that is inside 50's in relation to our opposition

1. Melbourne (12.3)
2. Richmond (10.2)
3. Hawthorn (6.7)
4. Collingwood (4.5)
5. West Coast (2.3)
6. Essendon (1.6)
7. Geelong (1.2)
8. Port Adelaide (0.8)
9. GWS (0.8)
10. Adelaide (0.5)
11. North Melbourne (-0.5)
12. Western Bulldogs (-1.9)
13. St Kilda (-2.1)
14. Brisbane (-4.2)
15. Sydney (-5.7)
16. Fremantle (-6.8)
17. Carlton (-10.2)
18. Gold Coast (-13.8)

We are the only team in the top 8 in 2018 that was in the red when it came to inside 50's. It is clearly such an important stat and a stat where we are stuck with some of the worst teams in the competition.
Click to expand...

I felt like we were pretty diabolical really, the only reason I never panicked this season is because I was clinging to some kind of hope that we’d get better as the year went on (we didn’t.)

We won enough games to make the eight, but that’s because we more than any other club in the comp seem to have this inherent Alexa inside the players heads that tells them there is no hole too great to climb out of. That’s one thing Horse has been great at, is instilling that belief into our players. Because over the last two years in particular we have won so many games we had no right winning.

I also have a clear view of the bigger picture, which is that this is simply not our time. We had our time, arguably squandered it, and now we need to get to work on our next opportunity. 2020 onwards....
 

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Analysis 2019 List, Game Plan and Best 22?

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