TOPIC:

One of the truly great fixtures in my football calendar, the days watching Melrose, Blackaby and the mirror man in the middle always made for a great game against an often EP team that relied on pride in the jumper to get the job done.

This week will be no different we have three grade all trying their collective hearts out for their jumpers.

In the colts we have in my opinion 2 of the 3 better teams in the competition. It will be hard to pick and given the EP boys have a week extra to contemplate the loss to EF I suspect they will want to atone. Swans have 2 weeks without a game so they will dying to get back into it. A game worth the free entry if you are a member.

A somewhat humiliating loss to EF in the last game will see changes but I am reasonably confident that the boys can come out and do the job. League selections will play a big part on the make up of the team.

Even an avid EP (which I am) would not be overly confident with this game and yet in games past we have done the job against the odds. Yes Robertson will be back but I suspect one of the Swannies boys will target him and this time he will be out for 3 weeks. The loss of Hayden will be an issue but Albertson in the ressies upto last game showed a lot of promise.  

It is a game that could be worth the watching and I hope that it is a win for the Royals but ..........

wrote:

One of the truly great fixtures in my football calendar, the days watching Melrose, Blackaby and the mirror man in the middle always made for a great game against an often EP team that relied on pride in the jumper to get the job done.

This week will be no different we have three grade all trying their collective hearts out for their jumpers.

In the colts we have in my opinion 2 of the 3 better teams in the competition. It will be hard to pick and given the EP boys have a week extra to contemplate the loss to EF I suspect they will want to atone. Swans have 2 weeks without a game so they will dying to get back into it. A game worth the free entry if you are a member.

A somewhat humiliating loss to EF in the last game will see changes but I am reasonably confident that the boys can come out and do the job. League selections will play a big part on the make up of the team.

Even an avid EP (which I am) would not be overly confident with this game and yet in games past we have done the job against the odds. Yes Robertson will be back but I suspect one of the Swannies boys will target him and this time he will be out for 3 weeks. The loss of Hayden will be an issue but Albertson in the ressies upto last game showed a lot of promise.  

It is a game that could be worth the watching and I hope that it is a win for the Royals but ..........

Would that have been Richo Grump?

Yep it certainly was, it in no way detracts from his football it was just a good fit for him.

As I said on the Swans thread Grump, I think East Perth at home have every chance of notching their first win of the season on Saturday. As usual between these two sides, it will be a very hard contested game. Looking forward to it ( assuming we can actually go of course)

Looks like around 7 changes from the team that beat Swans last year,while they appear to be stronger after recruiting the likes of Palmer and Jetta,and i would probably rate them more highly than the Sharks,but i think we'll find a way to get over the line in a tough match.

RL the Royals had a lot of footy in the 2nd+3rd qtrs.A late Swans goal on halftime against the run of play.Did think EP would run away in the last QTR,at 3/4 time.

Catch-up footy takes its toll, gtrxuone, and ultimately Swans' six unanswered goals in the first quarter proved the difference.
The Royals kicking 2.10 in a dominant third quarter didn't help.
Though Eddie Simpson (five goals) was the outstanding forward on the ground, Swans had a more even spread of goalkickers.
We didn't get one goal from our crumbers, nor did we run the ball the length of the ground to kick a goal as Swans did at least twice.

GTR well done to your mob who have recruited well with players of the calibre of Fisher,Anderson and Palmer from the VFL,but from our end you can't kick to 2.10 in a quarter as we did in the 3rd[which included 2 posters] and not expect it to come back and haunt you and shouldn't be dropping games when you have had 13 more inside fifties than your opposition but i thought we played O.K for $6 pops.

Had a real chance in the third but too many points - that killed it 
we had one of them against Claremont a few weeks back 
good signs nevertheless after a one point first quarter and six goal deficit

Leederville certainly was a good place to be for both sets of supporters, the games were great well two outta three ain't bad as Jim Steinman suggested.

The colts game which promised so much for me was a game that we set up with a 4 goal to zip first quarter (funny that it would reappear later to bite us in the rrr's) with a good attack on the ball and the ball carrier. Swans to their enormous credit came back in the second, the third was even but the last quarter we challenged the Swans boys and were able go away with the game. The skills on display were outstanding, yep there were mistakes, errant kicks but this was due to the pressure being brought to bear by both sides. If you are Swans person Metcalf, Chipper, Hannan and Humphries all showed that they players to watch and build a team around. The battle of the FF's was interesting with Amiss shading Taylor with 4 to three goals but it was great to see them in action. For EP it was a team effort and it showed that after last week we understood that NO side is an easy one. The usual suspects Dittmar, Druzianich, Littleton and Tunstill all had good or better games. For me Riley May and Peake had the sort of games that link the play, defend and just run all game. Great game by BOTH sides.

The reserves was a very one sided game and it would appear that wheels have gone back to the shed for our boys. I am not sure why but one thing that is obvious is that one or two players who were given a league game, rewarded with elevation to league squad as emergencies as a reward for their earlier good reserves form have decided oh well look what I have done and decided that is enough for me. One in particular who most would say is skilled and COULD be a good league player is just playing for himself and certainly not the team. Getting caught with the ball, running to far without looking how he was going to give the ball to an EP rather than what happened, silly stuff from a player who should be playing league - be  team player and not selfish!

Well the league is easy to describe, pathetic first quarter, again, 2 quarters of breaking even, perhaps even winning one of the but 2.10 isn't going to win many games with a last quarter where Swans just showed that they have more players who are just a cut above what we had to offer. 

I am really proud of the three quarters and that we were able to beat a very good team for long periods but the 1st stanza was just really hard to get over. 

The ruck duel was great, Gault did the task all day without much of a chop out and whilst we won the numbers it did show that he is a vg player. I thought Jonesy did well, he took some good telling marks when required and used his body well, he just needs to build on this game and he will be the player we know he can be!

The swans group of Anderson, Cipro, Fisher and Beck are just irrepressible and we could not counter their collective influence. They allowed other players to either contribute to the teamwork or finish their work. 

For me our best were clearly Taylor North, Jacob Msando, Dobbo, Lynch and Ameduri. Yes Simpson kicked 5 and provided a presence BUT he needs to do the same next week and the next and so on and then perhaps he is what we need. I also thought Merritt showed that Merritt.

We lost Willcocks to a shoulder and given up until this week he was our consistently best player one wonders what effect that had in the last quarter when we needed to be solid in the mid field.

As always if you were not there you missed a great day of wafl football with the better sides on the day winning the chocolates.