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My first game since round 1 so I am looking forward to this saturday. Looks like its going to be a nice warm day ideal for footy. Swans had a much needed victory last week but they are facing a pretty stiff task this week against a team which is clearly the 2nd best team in the WAFL behind Subiaco. The boys are going to have to bring their A game to even be competitive in this game. From looking at the stats from the first five rounds it is clear that Palmer, Riggio, Turner, Ellard, Gault,Ugle, Blakely, Howard, Notte Rogers and Banfield as the senior players in the team will have to be at their best to lead the way for the young guys to gain confidence at an intimidating venue against a classy team as SF are.
Last year in the corresponding game I recall that we jumped them in the first quarter and a half and from memory we were around 40 points in front in the early stages of the 2nd quarter. However from there the Doggies came back and won quite comfortably. Swans need to sustain the effort for longer this time to be in the hunt.

Got a feeling this will be a lot closer than people are thinking

Blight has been named on an extended interchange bench. He would be very handy to throw into the mix against the seasoned and talented Doggies midfield. WIll be interesting to see if Suban and Palmer go head to head at any stage. Will be a clash worth watching if they do.

From the evidence of the past few SD v SF games at Fremantle, Swans seem to be able to compete with the Bulldogs for 1 1/2 - 2 quarters but then fall away dramatically, so the boys need to try and hang in deeper into the game. If we can be in touch at the last change than you never know what might happen in the final term. So often in recent times though Souths have put us away in the middle of the game so hopefully that won't happen again.

One thing I have noticed by looking at the stats over the past few days is that Swans are scoring a lot more points this year. In fact they are 2nd only to Subiaco in terms of points for. Our average score over the first 5 weeks has been around 95 points which is probably reflective of Pickerings more attacking game plan. On the flip side though our defence have been conceding an average of 90 points a week although that figure was inflated by the belting we got from the Lions. Whatever the results Swans will certainly be a more attractive team to watch if they can push up towards 100 points every week whereas under Harding they were often struggling to score more than 60 or 70 especially against the better teams

Chance blown?

I tend to agree S t T.
The Home team being up by 4 goals at the long break. Swan Districts had a good second half out scoring Souths.
Swans scoring 9 second half goals to 7. This being an academic question I know. Had the 2 teams compiled the same amount of Ins50's could Swans have won today?
I only caught the third quarter of the match and could not hear the rest. I think Swan Districts were expected to be blown away, but they showed a good fighting spirit.

A much improved effort over last years first semi belting.Look fwd to posts from the fans that took the cut lunch and water bag and found parking down at Freo.

Had our chances Gtr but everytime we got close enough to SF their leaders like Pickett, Higgins, Hockey etc stood up and won the centre clearance and they were able to goal almost immediately after thus snuffing us out. Full credit to SF who were missing a few players and were still able to get the job done but for us yet another missed opportunity with a few boys having untimely quiet games.

Swans will be very much about the place in September - the bones are definitely there , Gault is a weapon

I enjoyed the game yesterday. You could not fault the endeavour of the Swans lads but Souths were just a little cleaner and precise with their skills than we were. A couple of poor decisions with Swans guys kicking the ball to a player under pressure with a resultant turnover cost us a number of goals. Having said that I love the fact that the boys are obviously being encouraged by the coach to take risks in order to take the game on rather than the boring defensive zonal stuff that was common under Harding. The result was that we kicked over 90 points again but the younger guys particularly need to be able to learn when to kick across the ground and when to take the safety first option of kicking down the line. This will come with experience and further skills development.

As BH has identified Souths seemed to be able to find another gear when we challenged them, specifically in the middle of the 2nd quarter when we got within a couple of points, then again at the end of the 3rd when we reduced a 26 point half time lead to 14 points. On those two occasions Souths responded very quickly and scored a number of goals to open up the gap once more. I felt SF were in control of the game all day but I was really pleased with the way the boys fought the game out when several times it looked like the Doggies were going to run away and win by 10+ goals. Even when the game was gone half way through the last quarter, Swans continued to battle away and reduced the final margin.
On an individual level, two of our prime midfielders Turner and Riggio had uncharacteristically quiet days. The others battled hard but were generally outpointed by Suban, Hockey, Cook, Donaldson and Pickett (how good is he!)

Our forward line functioned well with Rogers, Gault, Banfield and Noble all providing options and contributing on the scoreboard. Young Tobe Watson was a stand out in the back line I thought and I was also impressed with Hackett even though he made a few mistakes.

Souths had a lot of big guys in their forward 50 to take marks so with their midfield dominance our backs were under the pump for most of the day.

All in all disappointing to lose of course but if the boys can bring that sort of effort to the table every week, we will be well and truly in the hunt for finals come September.

One player I forgot to mention in yesterdays report was Alby Dean. I always thought he was dealt with harshly by Harding as I thought his ball getting abilities were as good as Faulkner and his disposal was better. However he always seemed to be the first dropped when Swans lost. Great to see him back and although he didnt set the world on fire on Saturday, I noticed how much more developed he was in the upper body so he has clearly done some hard work in the Gym while he was away. I think he will be a handy player for Swans