TOPIC:

Given Swans are on a lengthy bye at the moment, I thought I would canvass our supporters on here to see what they think of the season so far. I was away for a month so I have only seen two games, Round 1 v Perth and the last game against SF so I would be interested in the thoughts of those who have seen them more.

It appears to me that the players are taking on board what the new coaches plans are and have certainly played a more attacking style of footy from what I have seen. They have had a few disappointing performances against Subiaco and West Perth but they have been good in all the other matches and at 3 wins 3 losses are well placed to push for a finals spot at this stage.

Palmer and Payne seem to have added depth to the midfield, Palmer has shown his class in a few games. Ellard had a slow start to the season due to injury but he will build as the season goes on. Gault is going from strength to strength and is the guy we could least afford to lose with injury IMO.

Of the younger brigade Tobe Watson, Warwick WIlson and Braydon Hackett all appear to have improved from 2017 and are now more or less in the team every week. On the other hand Adam Faulkner seems to have fallen out of favour and is no longer in the best 22.

The three weeks after the bye see us playing East Perth at Leederville, Perth at Bassendean and Claremont at Claremont. Ideally we would like to win a minimum of 2 of those 3 games to keep our win/loss ratio over 50%. I think this is well within the ability of this group, the only misgiving I would have is that our record at Leederville and Claremont (Showgrounds or Oval) over the last 4 or 5 years has been pretty poor.

Swans will shape the top 5 - a very big chance of playing finals

mikeh wrote: Given Swans are on a lengthy bye at the moment, I thought I would canvass our supporters on here to see what they think of the season so far. I was away for a month so I have only seen two games, Round 1 v Perth and the last game against SF so I would be interested in the thoughts of those who have seen them more.

It appears to me that the players are taking on board what the new coaches plans are and have certainly played a more attacking style of footy from what I have seen. They have had a few disappointing performances against Subiaco and West Perth but they have been good in all the other matches and at 3 wins 3 losses are well placed to push for a finals spot at this stage.

Palmer and Payne seem to have added depth to the midfield, Palmer has shown his class in a few games. Ellard had a slow start to the season due to injury but he will build as the season goes on. Gault is going from strength to strength and is the guy we could least afford to lose with injury IMO.

Of the younger brigade Tobe Watson, Warwick WIlson and Braydon Hackett all appear to have improved from 2017 and are now more or less in the team every week. On the other hand Adam Faulkner seems to have fallen out of favour and is no longer in the best 22.

The three weeks after the bye see us playing East Perth at Leederville, Perth at Bassendean and Claremont at Claremont. Ideally we would like to win a minimum of 2 of those 3 games to keep our win/loss ratio over 50%. I think this is well within the ability of this group, the only misgiving I would have is that our record at Leederville and Claremont (Showgrounds or Oval) over the last 4 or 5 years has been pretty poor.

One of the most important changes this year has been having Blakely and Gault playing together. As we gain more confidence in both Noble and Gault up forward we will develop an even more attacking game.

With respect to Faulkner I think that he has been challenged to not only improve his disposal but other areas as well. There is no knock on his commitment to the ball. Another player who needs to improve greatly is Taryce Stewart. he has plenty to offer but the effort thus far has been to put it politely very spasmodic.

To date I think most Swans's supporters would be reasonably happy.

I will be interested in seeing what BH, MO and DW have to say.

swan42 wrote:

mikeh wrote: Given Swans are on a lengthy bye at the moment, I thought I would canvass our supporters on here to see what they think of the season so far. I was away for a month so I have only seen two games, Round 1 v Perth and the last game against SF so I would be interested in the thoughts of those who have seen them more.

It appears to me that the players are taking on board what the new coaches plans are and have certainly played a more attacking style of footy from what I have seen. They have had a few disappointing performances against Subiaco and West Perth but they have been good in all the other matches and at 3 wins 3 losses are well placed to push for a finals spot at this stage.

Palmer and Payne seem to have added depth to the midfield, Palmer has shown his class in a few games. Ellard had a slow start to the season due to injury but he will build as the season goes on. Gault is going from strength to strength and is the guy we could least afford to lose with injury IMO.

Of the younger brigade Tobe Watson, Warwick WIlson and Braydon Hackett all appear to have improved from 2017 and are now more or less in the team every week. On the other hand Adam Faulkner seems to have fallen out of favour and is no longer in the best 22.

The three weeks after the bye see us playing East Perth at Leederville, Perth at Bassendean and Claremont at Claremont. Ideally we would like to win a minimum of 2 of those 3 games to keep our win/loss ratio over 50%. I think this is well within the ability of this group, the only misgiving I would have is that our record at Leederville and Claremont (Showgrounds or Oval) over the last 4 or 5 years has been pretty poor.

One of the most important changes this year has been having Blakely and Gault playing together. As we gain more confidence in both Noble and Gault up forward we will develop an even more attacking game.

With respect to Faulkner I think that he has been challenged to not only improve his disposal but other areas as well. There is no knock on his commitment to the ball. Another player who needs to improve greatly is Taryce Stewart. he has plenty to offer but the effort thus far has been to put it politely very spasmodic.

To date I think most Swans's supporters would be reasonably happy.

I will be interested in seeing what BH, MO and DW have to say.

I very much doubt that you would be interested in any of my thoughts 42!!

Thanks for your observations Swan42. Any thoughts from other Swans fans? Do people think we are a real chance of going as far as we did last year or dare I say it deeper into September or am I being overly optimistic. There is certainly a large gap between Subiaco then South Freo then the rest and a lot will depend on availability of key players as to where we end up.

A bit too early in the season (6 games in) to make judgement for me so far Mike but with a 3-3 record I think we have played 4 good games and had 2 very poor performances (SU & WP) so far so we still have some way to go to be minimising the difference between our best and worst football. I do like that we are at least playing a more attacking brand of footy and are attempting to hit the scoreboard far more often than was evident in the last couple of years.

good topic Mike.
our best footy has been very impressive, our worst against Subi and WP had us non-competitive in those games.
I do wonder whether the Subi game took a lot out of us physically and mentally and reflected in the poor display against WP as they beat us in all areas of the game that day and worked harder when it counted..Subi physically wore us down the week before.
our best footy is great to watch but we probably have to tighten up defensively.
I was supportive of Pickering being appointed and you can see we have a decent style of footy when we get going.
also happy with the disciplined line he took with Cary and others around the club who were not allowed to play at the start of the year until they met certain fitness targets.

I realise not being a Swans supporter might prohibited a response but ......... When Adam took over the colts at EP it took a little while to get the players on the same page but it did happen, I would always back him to get you deeper this year especially with your recruits.

Thanks BH, MO and Grump. From the little I have seen of Pickering he appears a lot calmer and less combustible than Harding. The players have certainly taken on board his game plan. He seems to have that air of authority which the players would respect and there is a new style about the team this year which I think is exciting.
Ricky Cary would certainly have enjoyed the more attacking game plan if only he had been prepared to knuckle down and do a decent pre-season.

Speaking of Cary does anyone know if he is playing footy at any level this year?

Also I am disappointed that Taryce Stewart has languished in the reserves all year. Sounds like he has been really struggling. A great pity because at his best he has so much to offer Swans in terms of providing an X factor role in the forward line. I hope he rediscovers his motivation form and confidence soon.

mikeh wrote: Thanks BH, MO and Grump. From the little I have seen of Pickering he appears a lot calmer and less combustible than Harding. The players have certainly taken on board his game plan. He seems to have that air of authority which the players would respect and there is a new style about the team this year which I think is exciting.
Ricky Cary would certainly have enjoyed the more attacking game plan if only he had been prepared to knuckle down and do a decent pre-season.

Speaking of Cary does anyone know if he is playing footy at any level this year?

Also I am disappointed that Taryce Stewart has languished in the reserves all year. Sounds like he has been really struggling. A great pity because at his best he has so much to offer Swans in terms of providing an X factor role in the forward line. I hope he rediscovers his motivation form and confidence soon.

Mikeh absolutely no question that Taryce Stewart would add a great deal to our forward line but it is not likely to happen in hte near future unless he starts committing 100% all the time. At the moment it seems to me that he is playing around 40-50% capacity.