This was the most disappointing of the 4 home games this year in my opinion. Before I start on Swans shortcomings, I want to give credit where it is due to East Perth who grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck when they had the initiative, were far more desperate than Swans and had a lot more method when they went into attack. Dawson also pulled off some great coaching moves by completely shutting down our 2 key forwards and some good midfield match ups. I felt sad that the little master who was one of Swans best coaches of all time was now plotting our downfall.
In all their home games this year, Swans have been incapable of playing more than 15 or 20 minutes of good footy before they go into a sort of malaise which spreads through the whole team, thus handing the opposition a ticket back into the match. So it was again today. The first quarter Swans were once more slow out of the blocks and wasted whatever opportunities they got. Only young Charlie Cameron kicked a goal and he looked lively in the first term.
In the early part of the 2nd quarter the alarm bells were ringing as East Perth kicked the first few goals to clear out to a 22 point lead. Finally Swans kicked into gear and played 20 minutes of really good football to snatch the lead just before half time. Their football during this period was clean with quick movement into their forward 50, thus creating one on one contests which put the East Perth defence under the pump. Not rocket science eh guys?
I was pretty confident at half time that we would bury them as we had all the momentum in the game and I thought the Royals were showing signs of slowing down with all their big blokes.
The first ten minutes of the 3rd quarter appeared to be following the script as Swans had the ball on a string and East Perth were really struggling. The midfield were continually pumping the ball into the forward 50, the result of all their efforts was a miserable 1 goal 7. One incident that summed up this whole period of play was when Embley grabbed the ball in the forward pocket,handballed to Ugle who was running into an open goal 15 metres out, under minimal pressure. He missed by a long way. Fair dinkum, my granny could have kicked that.
Then East Perth grabbed the midfield momentum back and with Tallen Ames off injured, Smith was running amok and proved to be far more efficient than the Swans forwards. All of a sudden we were trailing by over 20 points again and it was catch up footy again. Finally a straight kick from Garlett got Swans to within 13 points but overall 2 goals 8 was a very poor return for effort.
The last quarter started with Swans getting the ball out of the centre consistently and looking for all intents and purposes again like they were going to overrun the Royals.
3 goals put us in the lead and finally I thought that we had the game. Once again when the killer blow was needed, we failed to deliver.
There were 2 moments in the final 20 minutes which I thought were game definers and stuck in my mind (and my craw). One was when a hurried kick out of defence by East Perth was marked on the 50 by Riggio. Instead of going back and pumping it to the top of the square, he tried some cute dribble kick through a few players which was blocked by an opposition player, the ball was rebounded up the ground and a goal ensued.
The second incident was a bit later but the game was still in doubt. Swans got a good run going out of defence and the ball was delivered into an open forward line with Ugle running on to it. The Swans player had a break on his opponent and if he had been quick enough he would have been able to take a shot or at least dispose of the ball to another teammate. Not only was he run down and tackled by his East Perth opponent, but he coughed up the ball to the oppositions advantage to the extent that they scored a goal 30 seconds later. Game Over.
Might seem like an exaggeration to say that Swans season is on the line and their current standing of 3 wins and 4 losses is only 2 games behind 2nd spot. I just feel a negative vibe coming from the team that wasn’t there last year, they are not playing with anywhere near the same intensity as they were in 2012. They have lost 3 out of 4 home games which is never a good thing. There are guys who are just not contributing consistently to the team and who go missing when the team is in trouble. They are overusing the ball and making so many mistakes as a result. Wes looked totally out of his depth against Johnson today and they really need to blood another big bloke to give him some support.
If the team was short of skills and talent and were having a crack I wouldn’t be so critical, but all Swans supporters know that they are better than what they demonstrated today as they have shown in their away wins at East Fremantle and Joondalup which were really gutsy performances.
There were a lot of guys who got over 20 possessions today but wasted many of them and were therefore ineffective. Aaron Elari is a classic example of a player who gets the ball and is very courageous but needs to make better decisions. He was certainly not the only one.
Harding has got some difficult decisions to make for next weeks game because I think he needs to make a statement to some players that below par performances will not be tolerated.
