TOPIC:

Harding said in his coaches blog that Ames, Riggio and Ellis were a chance to come in to the team this week. Swans could do with this injection of experience as Souths midfield is running hot at the moment and are going to be hard to stop especially on their home ground. They will also be keen on retribution after we upset them way back in round 2. On a positive note, a win here and Swans will be in touching distance of booking their place in September action.
Souths will be strong favourites in this game without a doubt. Hopefully the guys can play a better brand of footy than they have shown in the past 2 weeks because they know what they have turned out in the games against Perth and EF will not be good enough against a classy outfit like the Doggies.

mikeh wrote: Harding said in his coaches blog that Ames, Riggio and Ellis were a chance to come in to the team this week. Swans could do with this injection of experience as Souths midfield is running hot at the moment and are going to be hard to stop especially on their home ground. They will also be keen on retribution after we upset them way back in round 2. On a positive note, a win here and Swans will be in touching distance of booking their place in September action.
Souths will be strong favourites in this game without a doubt. Hopefully the guys can play a better brand of footy than they have shown in the past 2 weeks because they know what they have turned out in the games against Perth and EF will not be good enough against a classy outfit like the Doggies.

mikeh it should be a stroll in the park once the boys know that we have the one and only FREEZIN (in company with the mighty black and whites supporter freezin jnr) at Freo to support the boys.

It will be a good guide to see how we perform when we are not expected to win.

Team selection slightly overshadowed by other events tonight, however Ames is back but has been named in the centre (surely not). Riggio not risked which makes sense given the bye next week. Also Chris Yarran has not been named in the reserves. With only 5 games to go after the bye you would have to say that his chance s of playing league in 2017 are now very slim.

Looks like the rain is forecast to hit in the afternoon so it could be a bit of a slog which would may neutralise the big Souths forwards somewhat. Schloithe and Kelly are massive threats and we will need to try and reduce their impact.

Around 10 minutes into the 2nd quarter, Swans led 8-2-50 to South 1-3-9. From that point on South piled on 14 goals 10 to Swans 1 goal 7. Says it all really.

(edited this on Sunday as we were 41 points up at one stage so an 80 point turnaround)

mikeh wrote: Around 10 minutes into the 2nd quarter, Swans led 8-2-50 to South 1-6-12. From that point on South piled on 14 goals 7 to Swans 1 goal 7. Says it all really.

Yep we got smashed in the second half

Hope the altercation over on the wing between spectators early in the last qtr didn't involve any ozfooty crew.

I'm not going to be too critical of the boys because I honestly don't think we are in the same class as the SF boys. I thought their chances of a win today were not great but given the start I came away disappointed at the meek way they capitulated in the last quarter.
The story of the game from where I was looking is that the Dogs were very poor for the first quarter and a bit and Swans were good enough to take advantage of their mistakes with some touches of real class from young Stewart. We were working much harder than they were and Crowley and others were keeping Kelly under control. However Souths clicked into gear in the middle part of the 2nd term and you could sense the momentum had shifted by half time. Souths 3rd quarter against the breeze set up the onslaught in the final term. Swans reverted to desperate indiscriminate kicking which made it so easy for the Dogs defence.
It was all one way traffic in the last quarter as our defence which had been really solid all day finally cracked under the pressure.
Most of our prominent players today were in defence. Notte I thought was fantastic and repelled so many Souths attacks, Ugle attacked the ball ferociously as always, Gault battled hard against the Doggies monsters like Higgins, Faulks, Ellard and Stewart were others worthy of a mention.
Not a bad time for a bye now I reckon to allow the players to take stock and decide how they are going to approach the last 5 games and try to digest the fact their coach is not going to be there next year.I am still struggling with the decision to make it public when Swans season is still alive. I still think that Harding could have told a few key decision makers at the club and kept it under wraps till the end of our season. The danger now is that our season could slip away very quickly if the players stop responding to the coach.

Horrendous mistakes made by experienced players Ames, Faulkner & Crowley evaporated the momentum we had in the 2nd qtr and we never regained it.
Some astonishing selections it has to be said and for the second week in a row we had a third of the side not even having at least 8 possessions in a game of footy remarkable in this day and age where almost no one is accountable for an opponent.
Very impressed by our skipper who leads by example both on the field and off, hopefully the playing group actually listen to his sage advice otherwise they will never go anywhere with their football.

I was rather bemused at the appearance of Smirk in the team this afternoon. I know he was probably picked to fulfil a certain role (i.e stopping someone) but I have always thought he is short of the skill required to play at this level. He was shown up a bit on a few occasions today. Not sure if he was injured but saw nothing of him after half time. Would have been better to give Cipro, Fullgrabe or Erceg a go at it I reckon.

mikeh and co who think it was not a good decision to announce Harding's departure at seasons end,get over it!! He made the call 3-4 weeks ago so why sit on it and not let rumour and innuendo cause distractions?!!!! It will have absolutely no impact on how the boys approach the remaining games. Clearly today we got things right for a portion of the game but then fresher legs and quality,from a team who I think will win the flag,took over. The lads just need to show that kind of application for the remaining games and we should do enough to play finals which is a massive positive in last year!