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OK, showed excelkent commitment against Regals, fixed up Freo Thunder, Handled Dogs but this week will surely tell us exactly where we sit. Demons going well so looking forward to a very good contest.....hopefully. Elder statesmen going ok but need them to continue and not rely on youthful excuberance alone. Go the Ducks!

SO its the Mortons in one corner and the Jetta's and Blakely's in the other. If both teams are at their best this should be a ripper game. I have been rapt with the way the Ducks have played up to now, but even with the team attitude they have displayed so far, we have to accept that the young players will be a little inconsistent at various times.

We started very poorly last week and were lucky that Souths could only kick 1 goal 7 in the first quarter. If they had scored 5 or 6 goals instead it could have been a totally different game. I saw Perth beat Claremont a few weeks ago and they looked very accomplished on that day so if they can reproduce that performance on Sunday, Swans could be in for a tough time.

Decided!!

I must admit I thought we were done and dusted when Florio got that free kick in front and put Perth 3 goals ahead at the 20 minute mark of the last qtr but we dug deep and ended up getting a lot of the footy from the centre clearances in that last 5-10 minutes putting the Perth defence under all sorts of pressure with plenty of inside 50's and Davo, Notte, Cary & Swoop looking like taking a grab when one out with their opponent.
A great first 10 minutes of the match were we played some of our best footy in years and a good last 10 minutes to finish the game but for the other 100 minutes of the match we went missing for most of it ..but full credit to Perth for taking over control!

It was a weird game really, more twists and turns than an Agatha Christie novel. Pretty good crowd I thought although the West reported it at 2000 (approx). Seemed like there were more than that. In the first ten minutes of the game, Swans were irrepressible, I didn’t look at the time clock when Davis scored the first goal but it must have only taken about 30 seconds. Perth may have been suffering from post bye syndrome as they had not played for a few weeks. Once the Demons got into stride they started to dominate. It was bizarre looking at the scoreboard which said Swans 5 -1 to Perth 0-2 and at that stage the black ducks were struggling to get the ball out of the opposition forward 50. If the Dee’s had kicked straight they would have surely taken the lead at quarter time which would have been incredible given their start.

The 2nd quarter was a mistake fest for both sides but particularly Perth. They were struggling to find a target in the forward line and were therefore chipping the ball a lot around their forward 50. This must have been a bit frustrating for their supporters to watch and I could hear some groans coming from the Perth enclosure when players were fumbling and marks were dropped. Swans on the other hand appeared more efficient with their ball use and had Geappan and Cary to aim for in the forward line. They did miss out on one certain goal when young Anderson chose to shoot instead of hand balling to a player running on into the goal square, he will learn from that.

In the third quarter it was a bit of an arm wrestle for the first 15 minutes as the teams traded goals but there was a breeze blowing up to the end that Perth were kicking to and they gradually got on top. It didn’t help that Elari and Ames had to come off when they clashed heads but Perth were seriously threatening to take the game away in this period. To their credit they sensed that Swans were a bit fatigued and created some space in their 50 for guys like Moody to run into.

So Perth went into the last quarter with a one point lead. Swans had the use of a slight breeze but in the early part of the quarter Perth looked by far the stronger team. They were running harder and by the 15 minute mark they had taken a 17 point lead and they looked like they were going to go on with it. I remember looking at the scoreboard when it was close to time on and the Dees were up 90 to 73 and I thought that they needed to push for one more goal to ice it. I just felt that they pulled back a little bit at this stage rather than go for that killer goal. I thought they were passing it around a bit trying to protect their lead but were also giving Swans a bit of a breather and actually gave them a sniff that if they could score a quick goal that the game would be on again. This is exactly what happened, an uncontested mark about 20 metres out and it was back to 11 points. From there on in Swans had all the momentum and snatched an unlikely win.

As Harding said, Perth had the better of all but the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes of the game and were probably unlucky to lose in that case. However Swans made that 20 minutes of dominance that they had in the game really count and in fact scored 8 goals 2 in that period which was over half their score for the entire match. I think he was absolutely spot on in praising the teams resilience because lesser teams would have given up after that last quarter free kick to Florio which resulted in a Perth goal.

Special mentions to Faulkner and Boekhurst who have improved out of sight this year. Faulkner is the real in and under player, reminds me a little of Brad Shine from the 80’s vintage. Boekhurst ( with the man bun!) is a line breaker with heaps of pace who is often the go to player when Swans break quickly out of defence and he carries the ball through the midfield. Ricky Cary gave a contest as he has all season and Tim Geappen is playing better every week. Nathan Blakely is not just a good ruckman, he is a real competitor at ground level as well.

I am enjoying watching this team so much because they are playing footy for the right reasons and the older players have been revitalised by the attitudes of the young blokes, it is a great mix at the moment.

Nice wrap mikeh...spewing I couldn't be at the game yesterday due to work commitments.
Sounds like was a good game of footy and a lot like last years 2 point win which had the Dees supporters on this site accusing their mob of playing yellow footy. In the aftermath of this match they are complaining of a lack of key forwards to kick to rather than the yellow footy thing. Their 'key' forward in last years game was Paul Bevan kicking 7 goals out of a forward pocket who it would be a big stretch to classify as such. IMO, the make up of a key forward or good forward comes down to one non negotiable element, their utmost confidence in themselves that every time they go for the ball they will win it no matter what the odds, be it against flooding or a quality opponent matching you up. If you have that belief, that kind of arrogance, you can play forward, if you don't then forget it. The key forwards want the ball coming to them no matter what their size. Appears to me that may be the issue down at the Dees rather than yellow footy. Yellow footy to me is the Mick Malthouse game plan. Hug boundary lines, eliminate risk first & foremost, trust structure before you back your team mate in to beat his opponent, kick backwards, backwards, backwards, around the boundary line, backwards again, kick long to the big man on the wing 1 metre in from the boundary and knock it over the line to set up defence again and structures. It may be effective over the journey,but its bloody ugly to watch, a real blight on our game nowadays that we prefer now to structure up to avoid defeat. Where is the soul in that, its bloody unaustralian. We are a nation that prides ourselves on the fact that when its our turn to go, we jump up out of our trenches and attack relentlessly. Why cant we play our footy like that, then it truly would be the greatest game on earth rather than just down at Steel Blue Oval (ok gripe over) Forward Structures and such are vitally important, but when the game gets locked down by defence, presses, floods, zones etc, you want blokes up forward who seize the moment rather than hide within their structures half hoping the ball doesn't come there way. Blokes like Tim Geappen have it in spades, that's why I'm so happy he decided to play on. You are never beaten with blokes like him around. You might lose but you always play to win because you know no other way. Having said all this, Dees supporters should note that they played a side who I believe are a much better team this year. The body language of our guys so far this year is exceptional. The gains we have made so far this season with regards to the club and players attitudes have more than offset last year's player losses. Harding has to be given some credit for the positive environment we now have. It's going to be a fun interesting year to be around Bassendean Oval and to think the scribes had us not only competing but as an odds-on favourite for the 'Peel Cup'

Happy to observe our boy Faulkner is on fire so far this season mikeh. Brad Shine likeness is a good call from you. What I've found interesting so far about Faulkner's year is his high mark count. He is not an overhead type so it tells us he is working super hard both in & under as we expect but also around the ground linking up. If he keeps putting up numbers like yesterday he'll be having to beat tags every week which he should be able to handle with his game type as he finds his own ball. His work rate is outstanding, lets hope he can avoid the war wounds and keep reasonably fresh through the winter slog.

Chinese whisper for you all. Boekhurst is on the Freo Docker radar and is being keenly observed throughout 2014.

Dirty Weekender wrote: Nice wrap mikeh...spewing I couldn't be at the game yesterday due to work commitments.
Sounds like was a good game of footy and a lot like last years 2 point win which had the Dees supporters on this site accusing their mob of playing yellow footy. In the aftermath of this match they are complaining of a lack of key forwards to kick to rather than the yellow footy thing. Their 'key' forward in last years game was Paul Bevan kicking 7 goals out of a forward pocket who it would be a big stretch to classify as such. IMO, the make up of a key forward or good forward comes down to one non negotiable element, their utmost confidence in themselves that every time they go for the ball they will win it no matter what the odds, be it against flooding or a quality opponent matching you up. If you have that belief, that kind of arrogance, you can play forward, if you don't then forget it. The key forwards want the ball coming to them no matter what their size. Appears to me that may be the issue down at the Dees rather than yellow footy. Yellow footy to me is the Mick Malthouse game plan. Hug boundary lines, eliminate risk first & foremost, trust structure before you back your team mate in to beat his opponent, kick backwards, backwards, backwards, around the boundary line, backwards again, kick long to the big man on the wing 1 metre in from the boundary and knock it over the line to set up defence again and structures. It may be effective over the journey,but its bloody ugly to watch, a real blight on our game nowadays that we prefer now to structure up to avoid defeat. Where is the soul in that, its bloody unaustralian. We are a nation that prides ourselves on the fact that when its our turn to go, we jump up out of our trenches and attack relentlessly. Why cant we play our footy like that, then it truly would be the greatest game on earth rather than just down at Steel Blue Oval (ok gripe over) Forward Structures and such are vitally important, but when the game gets locked down by defence, presses, floods, zones etc, you want blokes up forward who seize the moment rather than hide within their structures half hoping the ball doesn't come there way. Blokes like Tim Geappen have it in spades, that's why I'm so happy he decided to play on. You are never beaten with blokes like him around. You might lose but you always play to win because you know no other way. Having said all this, Dees supporters should note that they played a side who I believe are a much better team this year. The body language of our guys so far this year is exceptional. The gains we have made so far this season with regards to the club and players attitudes have more than offset last year's player losses. Harding has to be given some credit for the positive environment we now have. It's going to be a fun interesting year to be around Bassendean Oval and to think the scribes had us not only competing but as an odds-on favourite for the 'Peel Cup'

Happy to observe our boy Faulkner is on fire so far this season mikeh. Brad Shine likeness is a good call from you. What I've found interesting so far about Faulkner's year is his high mark count. He is not an overhead type so it tells us he is working super hard both in & under as we expect but also around the ground linking up. If he keeps putting up numbers like yesterday he'll be having to beat tags every week which he should be able to handle with his game type as he finds his own ball. His work rate is outstanding, lets hope he can avoid the war wounds and keep reasonably fresh through the winter slog.

Chinese whisper for you all. Boekhurst is on the Freo Docker radar and is being keenly observed throughout 2014.

Absolutely spot on DW. They look like they are enjoying their footy this year, as opposed to 2012 and 2013 when they had a more talented group but you often got the feeling that they were going through the motions at times.

going through the motions after round 5 mikeh?.....I guess with a few youngsters in the side you are going to have that up and down intensity....should be an interesting game v WP.....think Andy Krak needed the run, be interested to see mentally what Kraks does against you boys.....

G'day freeze, mikeh is referring to the 2012/13 seasons with regards to going through the motions.

This week is a big test for our youngsters but if they keep playing with belief & ownership like they have been so far in 2014 they will walk from the field with heads held high regardless of the score. That's the point here, there is an great spirit amongst this lot at the moment and as a supporter of the club it's good to see these young blokes cracking in like it matters to them. Lets hope our supporters buy in and get down to see the Anzac Day match in big numbers and make it a great day. The players deserve that from us supporters for the way they've started the year. Andy Kraks presence in the opposition should also make the decision to go an easy one. Can't wait to see who goes to him.