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This was the worst game of footy I have seen for a long time. Both sides seemed determined to turn the ball over to the opposition. I have never seen so much fumbling, poor field kicking, dropped marks and errant handballing by both teams. From Swans point of view, there was only the 2nd quarter when they resembled a decent football team, for the rest of the game they were in a similar mindset to where they were last week and the week before, it was just that the opposition was not as strong so they were able to wriggle out of it with the 4 points.

At the start of the game I had barely taken my seat by the time Souths were 3 goals to zip in front. There are a lot of young players in the Bulldogs team but they were certainly attacking the game with more enthusiasm than Swans who had many players who were not accountable for their opponents and just looking for easy uncontested possessions. There were very few players prepared to pressure the ball carrier with the result that South got some easy goals. We were lucky to only be a few goals down at quarter time. Harding was as animated as I have seen him in the quarter time huddle. He had no problems naming what he ‘termed’ the passengers in the team.

In the 2nd quarter the whole team lifted, became a heck of a lot more direct with their use of the ball and the goals started flowing. Riggio started getting involved after a very ordinary first quarter. Great to see Robbo coming back to his best, Elari is a really gutsy player. Lachie Neale was getting his hands on it and Jetts also seemed to have the ball on a string. Ugle was a great presence in the forward line alongside the key forwards Daly and Geappan and the longer the quarter went the more Souths looked completely rattled. 7 goals 3 to one point says it all and the boys would have gone off at half time thinking they were going to pump the Bulldogs by 10+ goals.

Unfortunately Swans came out for the 3rd quarter with the same half-cocked attitude that they had at the start of the game, gave South a sniff and that’s all they needed. 4 goals to nothing in the first 15 minutes and we also lost Casserly with what looks like a nasty ankle injury. Haselby had the full ground press operating and instead of running at the defence and trying to get over the top of it, Swans would try and finesse and chip the ball around the middle which invariably put themselves under pressure. I am a big fan of Wes but a couple of times he got the ball in this quarter, he tried to be too cute and kick the ball short or handball in the backline. This led to at least 2 turnovers and easy goals to the Bulldogs. The Swans players seem unsure what Wes is going to do when he gets the ball, so when he handballs it ends up going in a different direction to where the teammate is! This is something that needs to be discussed in team meetings because Wes is an asset to the team with his whole hearted approach and rucking ability.

Swans steadied a bit towards the end of the 3rd quarter and again Neale was prominent and young Cameron set up a goal for Ugle which was handy. Still 17 points was not a match winning lead at 3 quarter time but at least Swans were kicking to the end where 16 out of the 21 goals had been kicked! Amazing, very little breeze and what there was seemed to be blowing across the ground.

The last quarter was rather forgettable. In defence of the players it was a hot sticky day (27 degrees with 70% humidity) and everyone looked as if they were struggling. It really looked like a wet ball the way that the players mishandled it. Even Shaun Hildebrandt, who normally picks out a team mate with his silky passing, was guilty of a couple of clangers where he kicked straight to an opposition player in Swans forward 50. We had many opportunities to sew the game up early in the last quarter as it looked like Souths had run out of puff and our defence led by Ames and Jetta had set up a brick wall over the half back line. All we could get was points though, although finally Swoop potted one and we were 26 points up just about to go into time on and that looked like it sealed the game. To their credit though, the Dogs came again. They kicked a goal from a 50 metre penalty and followed up with another 2 quick ones to close to within 9 points and there were a few nervous twitches in the McDonald Stand. Soon after though Ugle kicked his 5th to wrap the game up much to my relief.

So Swans are now 2 wins and 2 losses and in a reasonable position going into the next few games. Of concern to Harding would be the way that Swans just completely switch off for large parts of matches. In the last 3 weeks, I reckon that we would have only played about 3 and a half quarters of what I would consider to be football that this team is capable of playing. The first quarter against Claremont was good. The last quarter and a half against Perth and the 2nd quarter today. They have to be switched on more often to challenge the better teams in the WAFL.

One guy I wanted to give a mention to is Tony Notte. He has improved so much as a player in the last few years. He presents well as a key forward, is a good mark and kick and is a lot stronger as well. He also seems to think his way through situations .You can see the potential that West Coast saw in him a few years back and I reckon he wouldn’t be a bad mature age recruit for an AFL club.

So my best for Swans were Robbo, Neale, Elari and Ugle. For South I saw a lot of Ryan Cook, Schloithe and Toby Bairstow was good too. Mccarrey didn’t look fit to me. Some of the young guys showed promise. Kingsley Smith I think it was kicked a lovely goal from the forward pocket at one stage. Stay with them Bulldogs fans, Haselby has got the rebuild going nicely and next year they will be a lot stronger.

The immediate future for Swans is a game against Peel next Sunday, then they have to front up 4 days later at Joondalup, what an insane piece of fixturing. I know Swans agreed to play the ANZAC day game against West Perth, but you would think that they would at least shift the Peel game back to the Saturday to have the same recovery time as the Falcons.

Swans then have plenty of recovery time from the Joondalup game as there will be 23 days between that and their next game against East Perth on May 18!!!

Very good summary of that game mike tho I think you are being kind saying we have played 3 and a half qtrs since rnd 1 more like 2 and a half as we were kicking with a hefty breeze in the 1st qtr vs Claremont & they had 7 scoring shots to our 4!
At the moment with the way we are playing we will be fighting it out for the wooden spoon unless we pull our fingers out & get our forwards especially to apply some defensive pressure which apart from new fan favourite Charlie Cameron has been nothing short of abysmal!

I think the maxim 'a win is a win' sums up the game on Saturday. From today's West it doesn't look like good news for Cass.

Whilst most of the players need to improve of particular concern for me is the work rate of Garlett. He had a reasonable last quarter but the first three weren't particularly good. Whilst I am a supporter of Lammie and he works extremely hard throughout all the games there were several errors in his game on Saturday which directly or indirectly in South's goals.

Our work rate is just nowhere near what he should be for most of the quarters of football we have played this year.

Agree with comments about Notte; since he was removed from the Eagles' environment his play and confidence has improved dramatically.

All the players should take a look at Geappen's work rate and if all the other players emulated that we would be a far better team. The number of injuries we are getting in each match is a concern. Ironically, we seem to work harder in the latter part of our matches generally where the injuries we have sustained in the matches should have had an impact. I suppose this has been compensated by our lack of work done in the first halves of our matches this year.

2/2 is not a bad position at the moment and hopefully with the double break coming up soon we may get some players back. One pleasing aspect has been the very good form shown by our younger players.