Autopsy Solid win against Freo

[The King!]

Rowbottom's our second-most used mid at CBAs this year, so not likely. Last night he spent more time forward and just less time in general on the field (lowest TOG of any Swan except the subs) and again that was likely because of the corky he copped early on.

Horse loves a defensive stopper and if say Rowbottom got injured then someone else would be doing that role. It's harder to win the ball as you're basically having to gain your possessions from turnover rather than getting into the easier positions to win the ball.

So taking that into account I thought the fact he was able to do both - stop so many of their plays while winning some important balls himself - made things easier for Parker. Ideally Mills finds some form on the inside again next week. That trio were the key to our GF run last year IMO.

Yep he loves Rowbottom defending that's for sure and yep i noticed the TOG felt lower.

Also don't think Parker will have many 1 turnover games

Rowbottom is an important player

 

[the hypnotoad]

Strange analysis. I really don't know what you're talking about. Cunningham was excellent. And Franklin was not erratic. He had a great game and was our best forward. Fitness was fine. We easily repelled their attempts at a comeback and there was never a point where they were running over the top of us.

agreed ... blakey wasn't great but had good moments; to label cunningham "shocking"??? don't get that at all
franklin as good as he's been all year

 

[the hypnotoad]

This is what people miss w Serong, he gets the ball but often doesn’t hurt you……I don’t think we were too concerned about his numbers.

i agree on serong, he's a bit like darcy parish and a few others around the league in that regard

 

[The King!]

i agree on serong, he's a bit like darcy parish and a few others around the league in that regard

He averages one more turnover a game than Luke Parker this year

He also has averaged 5 more disposals per game than him , 3 more contested possessions a game , 1.3 more clearances , and double the metres game.

He turned it over a bit last night but he has elite numbers most of his career. I know the whole Stephens /Serong thing annoys people but we don't have to pretend he isn't damaging imo , he would be loved on here if we had him .

 

[Banyo Bloods]

Honestly thought it would be QLD. Sorry to our Northern mates!!!

You’re a state-ist

 

[monopoly19]

Are we all clear on the match review front? I can see the Saturday report on the AFL website and it doesn’t mention our game at all so hopefully all ok.

 

[Mister B]

Are we all clear on the match review front? I can see the Saturday report on the AFL website and it doesn’t mention our game at all so hopefully all ok.

All clear by the looks.

 

[MR0808]

All clear by the looks.

Brereton won't be happy. He spent ages talking about Parker's tackle

 

[Mister B]

Brereton won't be happy. He spent ages talking about Parker's tackle

It’s amazing. He seemed quite generous to us when we were going shit. We start playing some good footy and he turns.


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[KingV23]

I do not like Serong's attitude. Yesterday there were multiple times when he appealed for frees, mostly payed. But when he got one against him he gobbed off at the umpire. If that was last year it was 50. He is a good player but he turns the ball over and expects to get rewards from the umpires every time he is tackled. He was also anaggressor in contact with Swans players after the ball was deemed out of play or a ball up. Pushing one player to the ground. I was astounded there was no free there as play had stopped.

Are you trying to make yourself feel better about the club picking Stephens over him? just playing.

 

[caesar88]

He averages one more turnover a game than Luke Parker this year

He also has averaged 5 more disposals per game than him , 3 more contested possessions a game , 1.3 more clearances , and double the metres game.

He turned it over a bit last night but he has elite numbers most of his career. I know the whole Stephens /Serong thing annoys people but we don't have to pretend he isn't damaging imo , he would be loved on here if we had him .

I honestly reckon he's better than Brayshaw.

Brayshaw has no turnovers yeah okay but he causes no damage. It's all very safe, dinky handpasses that go nowhere that end up being fed back to him in the vein of Parish, Crouch etc. Serong at least takes the game on and tries things and when they come off it's game-breaking.

I think he reminds me a lot of Warner and it's why I doubt we would've recruited Warner if we already got Serong, and why I doubt the both of them would be getting games for us right now even if we did still recruit Warner.

 

[Kiama Chris]

Parker was great but I don't think he was as lone as people made out. Gulden busted a gut and got to more contests imo but just wasn't clean with a single touch like he usually is. If anything, we need Warner to get to more contests

Warner was desperately short of a run. Amazed he did as much as he did. Looked like he needed another week.

 

[the hypnotoad]

I don't know if I agree with the idea that Parker "needed help" in the mids. I think that statement undersells the game of Rowbottom, who I think was every bit as instrumental in the clinches as Parker was. There was at least five or six occasions where the only thing standing between a Freo mid and a clean break leading to a scoring opportunity was Rowbottom, and he impacted every time.

If his game wasn't as 'big' as Parker's, it could be because he simply wasn't in the action as much. He had 10% less time on ground than Parker and 10 less centre bounce attendances than Parker. (Not to mention he also had that corky early on, which was about the seventh time this year he's come off with some sort of injury or ailment during a game, only to come back on and bust an absolute gut for the team.)

That was Parker's "help". Without it I think that midfield battle could've ended up similar to the North game earlier this year, where Parker was Herculean but had to do too much heavy lifting and the midfield was belted.

didn't agree on blakey and cunningham but definitely agree on rowbottom ... he never seems to get enough credit, he's a workhorse and a very important part of our midfield

 

[Dangas]

There is no Buddy HATE, as you put it, on this or any other Swans board. There has been a lot of talk about whether we are a better, more flexible forward line without him. As it turns out we changed our normal delivery patterns when Bud plays to target him far less. This has not only benefitted the team but also benefited Bud as most times we target him now he is in a really good position and is more likely to be one out.

When Bud was out we shared the forward entries around. Most swans supporters were frustrated that this did not happen when he came back. We kept targeting him over 50% of all entries, which is far greater than any other player in the history of the game. What has happened since he has returned is that players are lifting their eyes to see options forward. If Bud is not a free option then they go elsewhere. He was only targeted less than 20% yesterday. This is more like it. He gets targeted less, scores more, or has more score involvement, because he is in a better position to take the ball.

I was referring to the "hate" from outside the club, not on this board or within the Bloods community. Probably choice of words, criticism more the word.

You make valid points though.

 

[Dangas]

Don’t want to drag things off topic, but can we please not misuse this word? No-one hates Buddy Franklin.

Words have meanings.

Ack, bad choice of words from myself.

 

[Swan4Life]

I don't care if they were missing their starting ruck - we haven't had one since Ladhams went down! Which makes a five-goal win away to Freo a bloody good one. It also means that we have only lost one of our last five - which is as good a form line as we have had this year!

That said, here are a few observations:

- Ollie Florent: He used to be a 4 or 5 out of 10 kick. Helicopters and worm burners were a feature of his game. He would now comfortably be a 7 or 8. Combined with his evasiveness in traffic, his value to the team has risen dramatically in the past two seasons. A bit like the difference between the erstwhile Greek Drachma and the almighty US Dollar.

- Harry Cunningham: Started the year off slowly but is now as reliable as anyone in our back six. When we were under the pump early in the first quarter, he took two or three crucial intercept marks to take the heat out of the game. Had Freo gone three goals up, i'm not sure that we would have kicked on the way we did. He may not be popular around here, but he is a quality bottom six player and genuine best 22 - the type you need to play finals.

- Will Hayward

9

Will Hayward

Age

26

Ht

186cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Fwd

Career

Season

Last 5

D

10.6

3star

K

6.6

3star

HB

4.0

3star

M

3.4

3star

T

2.8

4star

G

1.1

4star

D

9.0

2star

K

4.3

2star

HB

4.7

3star

M

2.7

3star

T

2.7

4star

G

0.7

4star

D

9.4

3star

K

6.2

3star

HB

3.2

3star

M

2.6

3star

T

3.4

5star

G

1.4

5star

: I won't lie, he is my current whipping boy. But when he does the simple things right - effort, pressure, taking an outlet mark and kicking gettable goals - he is a barometer for this team. Now he needs to back it up.

Now, let's go smack the drug cheats!

 

[Banyo Bloods]

Florent impressed me the most. I’ve been thinking over the last Month if the guy has a footy brain with some horrendous decision making and poor disposal. Every time he kicks out just goes wrong as his body catches up with his thought process.

He made me eat my words I thought he showed a complete turn around to those thoughts. His best game of the year IMO hope it continues

 

[caesar88]

Florent impressed me the most. I’ve been thinking over the last Month if the guy has a footy brain with some horrendous decision making and poor disposal. Every time he kicks out just goes wrong as his body catches up with his thought process.

He made me eat my words I thought he showed a complete turn around to those thoughts. His best game of the year IMO hope it continues

I noticed he spent a lot of time away from the rest of the team during warm-ups, huddles etc just doing kicking practice with Brett Kirk. Over and over and over.

 

[hairy biker]

All good points KC. You're right I was definitely being too simplistic saying Cunningham's game was "absolutely shocking." I just called it as I saw it but I'm not at all discounting the possibility that he was the fall guy a lot of the time for match-up dysfunction (ie the guy left one out with an opponent who isn't his.) As a collective our ground level defenders didn't work well enough but I'll also reiterate that they've been solid as for the last several weeks really, so maybe they're entitled to an off night.

Just watching on TV that was my impression.

He was primarily on Walters and I thought did a good job one on one, but he also looked as if too often he was the guy who had to leave Walters and follow an opposition player's lead, because for some reason our player didn't go with the oppo.

A number of times when he did follow a Freo player he was turning around pointing for one of our guys to pick up Walters.

With the fear of incurring great wrath, the guy who I thought looked a bit lost was Robbie Fox.

On the dysfunction I thought Freo ran a fair few players out and back in their fwd line and I think that did create confusion.
Amiss & Treacy took a mark apiece in our D50, but it was their midsized/smalls who created the most damage.
Fredricks, Schultz, Switkowski & Walters all took 2+ fwd 50 marks.

Finally I noticed Blakey/Corbett was the match up at the start and it did look as if Freo had a plan to take Nick out of the game as much as possible and for the most part we did seem to lack an interceptor down back.

Just my observations from a solid win.

 

[Bandicoot]

You may not know but apparently he was a Swans supporter growing up.

He made it quite clear prior to the draft that he was hoping the Swans would draft him. Instead, we chose to draft a skinny runt in Stephens just because he could kick it well.

 

[Bandicoot]

I think Logan can add that string to his game but I agree, we don't get enough inside contested marks from those 3 to be confident with them as our 3 talls next year.

We shouldn't be relying on buddy the way we still are. If someone else doesn't stand up he might actually get an extension

It's hard for the others to show their wares when Buddy is still the focus of the midfielders kicking it forward.
Anyone care to remember how wonderful the forward line functioned in the first half against Geelong when Bud wasn't there? No bombing it in and simply lowering of the eyes and kicking it to leads or loose players.
It's nice to see that Bud has improved his form over the past couple of weeks but let's not forget how bad he had been playing prior to that.
Thoughts of him playing again next year is just fantasy.

 

[bedford]

I’m not in charge of their travel arrangements so I just said possibly as a reason. Maybe those guys were on a later flight after ?

Do you hang around after the Taylor Swift concert too expecting a wave.
Wouldn’t worry too much about it they rushed through the song too I expect they had some agenda as they normally give a heck of a lot to the fans.

I know Papley was on the plane after lunch yesterday, so maybe a trip to the beach before travel

 

[bedford]

Aye Carumba ! What a first quarter. (watching the game today).
I guess the regular Hayward haters can all sit down and take the weekend off.
Nary a bad player in the team, everyone chipping in with good play when called upon, but Parker and Hayward were fantastic.

No one is a Hayward hater , it's disappointing that he hasn't been converting when he's had chances and for a bloke that has Rohan stats , he has to take them

 

[SGBeach]

Just watching on TV that was my impression.

He was primarily on Walters and I thought did a good job one on one, but he also looked as if too often he was the guy who had to leave Walters and follow an opposition player's lead, because for some reason our player didn't go with the oppo.

A number of times when he did follow a Freo player he was turning around pointing for one of our guys to pick up Walters.

With the fear of incurring great wrath, the guy who I thought looked a bit lost was Robbie Fox.

On the dysfunction I thought Freo ran a fair few players out and back in their fwd line and I think that did create confusion.
Amiss & Treacy took a mark apiece in our D50, but it was their midsized/smalls who created the most damage.
Fredricks, Schultz, Switkowski & Walters all took 2+ fwd 50 marks.

Finally I noticed Blakey/Corbett was the match up at the start and it did look as if Freo had a plan to take Nick out of the game as much as possible and for the most part we did seem to lack an interceptor down back.

Just my observations from a solid win.

Good post..
Agree, I thought Cunningham had a great game
It looked to me that we were a Melican short. Fox came in to cover and had an average/poor game. No Melican might have made it easier for Freo to take Blakey out of the game.

 

[MF]

It's hard for the others to show their wares when Buddy is still the focus of the midfielders kicking it forward.
Anyone care to remember how wonderful the forward line functioned in the first half against Geelong when Bud wasn't there? No bombing it in and simply lowering of the eyes and kicking it to leads or loose players.
It's nice to see that Bud has improved his form over the past couple of weeks but let's not forget how bad he had been playing prior to that.
Thoughts of him playing again next year is just fantasy.

Of course it's fantasy. It's an indictment on the state of our tall forward stocks that he's still in the side this year. That's the point.