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Best SD team performance seen for a long time, with some interesting player placings suggesting a developing coach. Never seen a 5' 7" man start at CHF at the beginning of a game, but McLachlan's pace and use of the body to out-manoeuvre his much taller opponent gave Swans much drive especially in the first quarter. Very glad that Lynch did not produce that performance before the mid-season draft, but South's decision to put M. Kelly on Clarke was strange considering Kelly was gathering many possessions and Clarke at that stage had been ineffective. Robbed Peter to pay Paul...

Old fashioned of me to think that one defender kept the dangerous Main to five possessions, but who ever it was/were (Collins, Stephens - great having him back, or Hilton), well done. And we will continue to disagree about who should be ruckman.

I have to make a comment about the umpiring - and it is not about the farcical Edwards mark on West Road in the first quarter that was considered to be inside the field of play. SD received 7 and Souths 12 frees, while in the match at Mandurah Peel 7 and Perth 14. Really? In a physical contact sport? In the AFL recently the old cliche that 'it's a hard game to umpire' was given a few times as a reason for umpire indecision. That is utter BS, for all the umpires did yesterday at Bassendean were flap their arms, say 'give it to me', or throw the ball into the air. That's not difficult. Few frees mean packs and a slow game; it also means that the game has evolved to emulate another sport that the makers of the code tried distancing itself from - Rugby.

Interesting observation SH regarding our free kick count going our way 14 to 7. Certainly didn't feel like that I guess it's the ones in front of goal you don't get but the opposition gets. Harry Q got one in the goal square for holding but one where a Peel player was running back with the flight with his back to the ball with both arms in the air and making contact with our player no free kick 15 metres out and Brody Gray lifted up by Stubbs by both arms and made no attempt to get rid of it no free kick. Those are the obvious ones they should be paying.

Swans could have disappeared completely down a hole after that gut wrenching post siren loss to the Sharks in round 4. Instead they have won 4 out of the last 5 and jumped back into finals calculations. Their first win at Claremont in a decade was the spark that set them off and also coming back from a virtually impossible deficit against West Perth developed their confidence further.

It was great to see William Collins and Anthony Stephens back yesterday and playing good footy as part of a highly functional defence.

The addition of class players Rokahr and Chalcraft has given the Swans midfield enviable depth and has released Turner and Clarke ( who basically carried the team last year) into roles where they can play with more freedom. Also Cipro, Hewitt , Pina, Mclauglan and Reidy have all contributed to the effort at various times. Reidy and McLaughlan are fantastic in the way they throw themselves into the fray and I saw lots of 2nd and 3rd efforts from them yesterday.
 
The forward line is still a work in progress but with Kohlmanns return ( hopefully soon), he can work with Edwards to take the heat off Tom somewhat and to make the opposition defenders life a bit more difficult.

The only caution I would have at this stage is that if we have a spate of injuries, particularly to key players, there are not a lot of options in the reserves to replace them from what I saw yesterday when they got towelled up by the Souths ressies. Probably only Ayden Cartwright would have come out of that game enhancing his selection prospects. Of course we are already missing a few players including O'Donohue, Erceg, Bright and Kohlmann but generally the injury situation has been kinder than last year ( touch wood!)

With the team in such a confident frame of mind next week will be a good time to test ourselves against one of the premiership fancies East Perth and try to work out how to deal with that man mountain Jones!

Well done SDFC, great tribute to TODDY, outplayed us in the end and our forwards were smashed all day.

Great to see TI up in the SDFC members and a full LUNCH crowd.

Enjoyed the pre game beers at the BASSO pub as well.

See you next year!

Attendance 4,600

GTR I imagine it would have been well over 5k if the rail was open. Good WAFL crowd none the less.

Spot on SS .Seen the chartered buses on the way out of the ground.Looked empty and was only two stretched buses.Train would add another 2,000,imo.
Also clashed with the live telecast of Bulldogs v Freo + Dustys 300 th game.

You are dreaming if you think the train line being open would’ve brought in another 2000, you need to take off a zero. People weren’t going not play ammos, travel out for bush footy, abandon kids sport or not watch their bag run because the trains were running. 4600 was 2500 more than they would’ve got and was a solid crowd.

On the never ending ruck chat. Blakely was amazing in the first quarter and our mids capitalised. From midway through the second though he was noticeably labouring, lost his spring and that was a big reason why the i50 count swung dramatically and was in the end very lopsided. We were able to withstand the pressure because our intent and desire did not waver. 

So much like we carry Germs because of his lack of input in general play, we carry Blakely because he can’t jump and rarely impacts with conviction at stoppage. 

Dangerous game to play giving up big deficits of i50’s and clearances against good teams, or any team for that matter. Remember the Perth loss! Simply can’t be doing the same thing against EP, PT and EF who have the best mids in the comp or the result will likely be the same. 

 

I thought the attendance figure for this match was pretty damn good. Been a long time since Bassendean Oval saw that many at a Wafl game. Apparently there was a total figure of 6,598 for the round of 3 matches. According to the maths, the Swans and Souths game had 69% of the attendance. A good effort.