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finals series is pretty much decided next Saturday one way or the other - East Perth would basically need a 15 goal win or more to have a sniff
makes for a good challenge for both sides

GTR, your boys have done it tough the last few years but this year has seen good progression, cant expect to jump straight up and beat everyone, first you beat the teams you feel your better than or equal to and you've done that this season and have the ability to beat anyone on your day as you did v Subi, hence your finals bound, nothing to lose everything to gain, thats how you should see the finals. Next year the aim is to beat more of the top teams on a more regular basis while continuing to beat the rest and have a bigger impact in September ... likely you will play either Joondy or Claremont, in the elim final, anything can happen on the day.
 

SS I dont think any of us diehard Swans fans think we are realistically a top 4 team as yet (SU, SF, WP & CL) but we do ourselves no favours at times with some of the footy we play.
When we do play proper footy that is fast, long and direct to our forwards we can trouble most sides but unfortunately we are too fascinated with winning the most useless, backwards handballs to a team mate in trouble stats far too often!
We looked so far and away better in the last 20 minutes yesterday when we played proper footy and not surprisingly the scoreboard ticked over and it was attractive football to watch.....why on earth we wouldnt attempt to do that more often has me and most SD supporters beat?!

A couple of final take outs from the game

Dugan definitely worth persisting with
Germs and the mids need to work out a better system for clearances. Opposition teams are sharking too many of his taps
I agree with the comment that Reidy could be given a role which gets him into the play more.
Noble is our best forward and should be stationed up there permanently without having to pinch hit in the ruck.
Finally and most importantly next week, can the Swans boys play 4 quarters of the style of footy that they exhibited in the last term against Peel and put on a show for the 1961 legends and the rest of us?

Mike from what I've seen of Reidy which isn't much I'll admit but I think he could go into the midfield with a decent preseason under his belt. His size and body shape reminds me of Greg Clark a little bit who's having an outstanding season and see no reason why Reidy couldn't develop into something similar. Interested in your thoughts.

Apologies for wandering off topic. Swans upcoming week 19 match being a Home game, should see them having a win. Although after the wk 18 fixtures, hope no-one follows my tips. Someone said the last 20 matches between Swan Districts and the Royals has seen Swans only win 5.. Not sure if that is true? Hopefully they can make it 6 from 21 this weekend. They need to get into some strong  consistent form and ready themselves for the Finals.

Should be a ripper game, EP have improved significantly as the season has progressed so will be well match with Swans.
equal game of the round along with Souths and Joondy.

we've got the bye this week mate - South play the Cardinals next week in the revised fixtures

BC wrote:

Mike from what I've seen of Reidy which isn't much I'll admit but I think he could go into the midfield with a decent preseason under his belt. His size and body shape reminds me of Greg Clark a little bit who's having an outstanding season and see no reason why Reidy couldn't develop into something similar. Interested in your thoughts.

I agree BC, he has played 48 games over 4 seasons averaging just over 10 possessions per game. He kicked 4 goals on debut against Peel when he was just out of Aquinas College. The only thing holding him back I reckon is a little bit of self belief at this level. A solid pre - season program to build up his fitness and muscle may give him that confidence. He does have a lot of ability IMO.