TOPIC:

4 premiership points and the John Todd cup is the motivation for these teams on Saturday. Sadly finals have been out of the equation for both clubs for some time now.
It is still important to finish the season on a good note to take some momentum into pre season.
From Swans point of view, if they could win 2 or 3 of their remaining games and finish the season on 8 or 9 victories it would look a lot better than it was appearing after round 7 when we were languishing at 1- 6 albeit after some heart breaking close losses.
Souths were pretty gallant last week up against one of the flag fancies and Swans will have to lift their rating from the near defeat to West Coast at their last start

fingers crossed we get a couple back in and put in something for Toddy

Thought we were going to have yet another nail biting finish with the margin less than a goal at 3 quarter time, thankfully Swans ran away with the game in the last quarter. I thought we had control of the game all day as we had a lot more of the ball but we kept Souths in the game with a number of mistakes and turnovers which handed easy goals to the Doggies
Clarke and Turner had their own ball to play with and Tobe Watson led the defence well. Good to see 8 players kick goals today, only 1 from Tom this time.
So after our disasterous start to the season, Swans have now won 6 of their last 8 games and have only been beaten by the two flag favourites.
We are playing Perth, Claremont and Peel in our last three games and have a real opportunity to shape the top 5 and perhaps do West Perth a massive favour.
 

Mike, I cant see us scraping in, it is a distinct possibility we could lose the remaining 3 games, a mountain to high to climb I think

Yeah its a tough ask Whinnen but still mathematically possible. You should be able to knock off South but then it gets difficult.

Have been out of town for a few days.Great to see Swans late season form continue. 

Swans still have the frustrating habit of zoning out of games for periods of time, when they fiddle around with silly handballs and short kicks which often are intercepted by the opposition. When they are switched on and play a fast running style of footy as they did in the first and last quarters, they look as good as any team in the competition.

The challenge for 2024 ( and for the last 3 games this year of course) will be to try and play that up tempo style for longer in games and go down the middle of the ground more. When Swans are playing poorly they tend to head for the flanks and try and go the long way to goal. Unless it is on a counter attack this method generally gives our forwards little chance.

I really think we have the components of a team capable of playing finals but IMO there needs to be a rejig of their style of play to look at more attacking options in the game plan. We now have a good defence, a capable midfield and a group of forwards capable of kicking winning scores if they are given  a chance.

We missed 2 easy at the end so could have been a bigger margin.
South undermanned, especially around the middle which meant that getting well beaten in the hit outs didn’t affect the game but against top teams it’s an issue.
McLachlan has really added a lot and compliments Clarke and Lynch has now found his feet and much better than those playing in his position from early in the year.
All too late for this year unfortunately, when we are on we are great but our game plan needs to stand up for 4 quarters which has not happened too often.
Thought Kelly was very good for South and no 40 showed some promise with some good marks.
Interesting to see what happens at the end of the year as we need to address our skill level in all parts of the ground

We went down as expected but just wanted to pass on what a good day out it was at Basso.

First time up there for a while and really enjoyed the set up, great out door bars on a nice day and the new reno on the Basso Hotel made for a enjoyable day.

Yeah I was at the Bassendean Hotel for lunch and it is a great place to sit outside on a sunny day. I was watching some of the Eagles brave effort on the big screen there. The atmosphere at the oval was the best I have seen all year, probably enhanced by the juniors day.
Close contest in colts and ressies and up to 3 quarter time in the league.