TOPIC:

24 hours on and I am still wondering how the hell Swans won that game. For 3 and a bit quarters, Souths showed us how to play wet weather footy. They were hard at it, no frills and set the standard in desperation. Yes they were getting a lot of frees but they were playing in front and so deserved most of them. The conditions also suited their big blokes and they physically dominated Swans, particularly in the first half . Sellars was a stand out performer and it is a pity for the Bulldogs that his season has been so cruelled by injury.

Swans were overusing the slippery ball, trying to play a slick handball dry weather type game and this was leading to fumbles and turnovers. Their first quarter was abject, the second was not much better. South Freo should have put us away by half time and if that 4- 14 had instead been 10 – 8 or 9 – 9 as it could have easily been, there would have been no way back for Swans.

The 3rd quarter was played in continual rain and even though we only added 1 goal into the breeze ( a lovely long shot from Cary), we only allowed Souths 2 more and Swans played with a lot more intensity in this quarter than they had in the entire 1st half. Even so the Bulldogs 3 quarter time lead of 32 points looked more than adequate given the wet day, slippery ground and the fact that Swans had only managed 19 points in the first 3 quarters of footy.

Some good moves by Harding to shift Ugle and Simpson up forward paid dividends in the last quarter but to be honest, even though we made some inroads into their lead, the Doggies still appeared to have the game under control. They were 20 points up going into time on and I really thought that they had it sewn up.

Luckily for Swans though, the weather had cleared a bit and I noticed going into time on that some of the Souths players looked spent. In contrast Swans looked full of energy and at last some of their fast flowing play was evident and they were hitting targets all of a sudden. Even so in that situation, Swans needed everything to go right and luckily it did, we kicked them from everywhere, in contrast to Souths who had wasted so many opportunities early.

Once Ryan Davis took the mark and kicked the goal to put us in front, I had no doubt that we would hang on as the Bulldogs looked as though they could barely lift their legs. I felt a bit sorry for Souths in the end because without doubt they were the better team over the 4 quarters but their fatal error was to keep us in the game by their poor kicking for goal. It is a tribute to the Swans players persistence and belief that they could come through with a victory even though many of them were having a dirty day.

Kirk Ugle was magnificent all day, he played well even when the team were not and he topped it off with 2 clutch goals in the last quarter. Nathan Blakely battled manfully against the Souths big blokes and ended up with 20 possessions and 29 hit outs. Tony Notte took some good contested marks on a wet day, Faulkner Elari, Riggio and Boekhurst battled hard when things weren’t going our way and the backline led by Ames generally kept things tight, especially in the 2nd half.

The players will quite rightly enjoy this win, but I hope Harding will bring a sense of perspective to it. They just cannot afford to go out and play like they did in the first half and expect that they will prevail. I have noticed a trend in their game over the last 3- 4 weeks where they have started very slowly and good teams will punish them if they don’t turn up with the right attitude.

As mentioned elsewhere we were playing dry weather footy early (when we could actually get our hands on the footy) with overuse of the handball and trying dinky little kicks.
Finally the penny dropped in the last qtr that long and direct in those Victorian like conditions was the way to go and hey presto we started looking dangerous up forward as SF tired and couldnt get their numbers back quick enough.
It isnt rocket science in playing wet weather footy!

Geez did you blokes have Harry Houdini take training last week, amazing escape trick again!! looking much safer in 2nd spot with a comfortable 8 point gap over us and the Gummies

think it was more that South couldnt kick straight and ran out of gas.
though only they can explain why they have all these skilled young guns left sitting in their colts team instead of playing league footy.

Hey Beasley/Hutton I'm still here! I know you miss me but running a nationalist/socialist/stalinist country that wants to nuke the whole world isn't as easy as it appears. Therefore I'm not on as much as I used to be. I still check the wafl results occassionally from my bunker though and am pleased to see swannies are doing well.

Beasley Hutton wrote: As mentioned elsewhere we were playing dry weather footy early (when we could actually get our hands on the footy) with overuse of the handball and trying dinky little kicks.
Finally the penny dropped in the last qtr that long and direct in those Victorian like conditions was the way to go and hey presto we started looking dangerous up forward as SF tired and couldnt get their numbers back quick enough.
It isnt rocket science in playing wet weather footy!

yeah BH....... kick goals instead of points......doesn't matter how the ball gets in there, when it does kick straight...which is what SD did in the last quarter and SF didnt do for the whole freaking game.....SD just got lucky SF couldn't kick straight in the first quarter.....aint the first time SF have butchered their goals this season.

Freezin wrote:

Beasley Hutton wrote: As mentioned elsewhere we were playing dry weather footy early (when we could actually get our hands on the footy) with overuse of the handball and trying dinky little kicks.
Finally the penny dropped in the last qtr that long and direct in those Victorian like conditions was the way to go and hey presto we started looking dangerous up forward as SF tired and couldnt get their numbers back quick enough.
It isnt rocket science in playing wet weather footy!

yeah BH....... kick goals instead of points......doesn't matter how the ball gets in there, when it does kick straight...which is what SD did in the last quarter and SF didnt do for the whole freaking game.....SD just got lucky SF couldn't kick straight in the first quarter.....aint the first time SF have butchered their goals this season.

6.1 to zip in the last Q in the most atrocious conditions I have seen for years aint Luck my friend!!

SF kicking 3.9 to zip in the first Q is indeed luck my friend..... for SD ......pure arse in fact....but hey no big deal TBH.....just wish you Swannie boys could really see how lucky you were winning that game on the weekend....or should I say SF losing that game on the weekend......but that's footy

Freeze tell us all from your account of no doubt seeing the game where were SF kicking those points from in the 1st qtr????
From dead in front??? ..or maybe just maybe they were forced into that dead pocket at the Town Hall end thus having to kick into that stiff breeze that was blowing across the ground early in the game!!

Any time a team kicks 3.9 to zip is an opportunity missed to end the game there and then BH.....oh well I am not too sure why the SF fans are so pissed then with the,loss, sounds to me they should be grateful just to find the scoreboard then........apologies to yourself for assuming SF were on top with 12 scoring shots to SD zip....sounds like SD were more than holding their own by dictating where SF were kicking for goal then! Why all the hoo haa about SD last quarter then? Sounds like the boys had the game well in hand and it was .all part of Hardings master plan