Can/Should we learn from the Swans ?

[cub]

Dont get me wrong here - I love the game plan Wallace is trying to instill in the team, but having said that can we take something from the Swans game style.

More than happy with the shootouts and can cop a loss in that situation ie: west Coast game at the G, but in the blowouts to say Melbourne at Telstra, Geelong rnd 1, Adelaide, StKilda - could we learn to shut these games down the way the Swans do and give our selves a chance in a tight game istead of sticking to trying to blow it open.

I think in the last game against the pussies we did this quite well - Another string to the Bow would not hurt when the business end of the season comes around and may even get us there on the way.

In the end if I was a  swans supporters I wouldn't give a flying fruit what anyone said if it was us holding the cup aloft in that 1 day in September. And that is ALL I WANT 

[Razorblade]

The old "offense gets you to the finals, and defense wins finals" analogy!

[mightytiges]

Agree CUB that if the Tiges won a flag I couldn't care less if the media and opposition supporters hated the way we played.

The things we can take from the Swans win is that work ethic and discipline to act out a gameplan to the letter is unreal. Having clean skills allows them to do so as they commit very few turnovers (the Ablett "pass" to Cousins beign the exception). Their depth and evenness across the park is also very good. There's hardly a weak spot despite not being the most polished side with superstars. Compare that to the Eagles with their awesome midfield but inept forward fine minus Matera. The Swans are also a extremely tightknit and selfless group. They genuinely appeared this final series to want to do their part for the team and each other and succeed together moreso than any of the other finals sides IMO. Paul Roos said that belief was built up over 3 years.

Still I wouldn't like to go into a GF or even a finals series based on the Swans tactics. Everything has to go right and you need a fair bit of luck. If West Coast had kicked straight and Worsfold hadn't made a blue in the first half of again going with a forward set-up of talls with turning circles of the QE2 like he did 3 weeks ago the result could have been very different. Sydney only kicked 2 goals after half time although O'Loughlin missed a couple of gettable shots.

A good mobile strong marking key forward can bring the Swans gameplan undone as Richo has done a number of times. Fortunately for Sydney this time around, the Cats and Eagles didn't have a decent key forward while the Saints played Riewoldt and Gehrig amongst others when unfit while Hamill and Kosi were missing.   

[PuntRdRoar]

i reckon most times about 13-14 goals wins a grand final these days. atm we dont have the players to do either a shoot out game or a defensive game, frawley tried the defensive game but left us in the learch- i feel we still need atleast 6 or 7 players to be serious finals players.

[Tiger Spirit]

Agree with MT’s comments.  You can learn much from any Premiership team.  What I hope other Clubs don’t learn is their game style.  Howl me down if you like, but no way known am I ever going to agree with those sorts of tactics.  You wouldn’t go back and watch the 2005 GF unless you were a diehard.  The best thing about that game was the final siren.

This is supposed to be Aussie Rules, not 4 quarters of arm wrestling.  I switched over at various stages and watched some movie from I don’t when, but it was in b+w, because that story was more inspiring.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what the Swans players did and their achievement, but it was almost like holding your breath for 4 quarters and just hanging on till the final siren to see which team lady luck was gonna smile on.  Is that what this game has come to and will it get even worse now that a team has won a GF by kicking 8 goals in 4 quarters of football?

Good luck to the Swans and their supporters.  They won because they were the best team.  I have no issue with that.  But as MT said, there’s a fair amount of luck involved in the way the Swans play.  And one more wrong move and we could’ve been saying these things about the Eagles.  This style is like living on the edge for every minute of every game.  To me it’s such a selfish style because who gets to enjoy it and how, as a supporter, are you supposed to enjoy it?  Just wait for the final siren and hope your team’s in front?

Those players are good enough to do what they did as a united and committed group because they have faith in one another.  But not enough faith is shown in them to play proper Aussie Rules.  To me, that’s sad and frustrating.  They are a good enough team to achieve the same result playing Aussie Rules.

Well done Swans, the best team won.

[Tiger Spirit]

i reckon most times about 13-14 goals wins a grand final these days. atm we dont have the players to do either a shoot out game or a defensive game, frawley tried the defensive game but left us in the learch- i feel we still need atleast 6 or 7 players to be serious finals players.

Without doubt, we need to improve our depth, but if we can learn anything from the Swans it’s that what you need most of all is a group of players who have faith in each other, are committed to the team and disciplined in their efforts, on and off the field. 

Without those qualities, it doesn’t seem to matter how good the players within any team are.

[Mopsy]

Gets' back to the old: 'A champion team will beat a team of champions'

[mightytiges]

i reckon most times about 13-14 goals wins a grand final these days. atm we dont have the players to do either a shoot out game or a defensive game, frawley tried the defensive game but left us in the learch- i feel we still need atleast 6 or 7 players to be serious finals players.

Agree RT.

Roos rotates his players on and off the bench like no one else. As someone said on 3aw today, it kept his players going and on the park not only well into the final quarter but also right through the four close hard fought finals they played. You'd expect other clubs to follow rotating their players like crazy but it'll only work for those clubs with depth and that ain't us yet.   

[mightytiges]

What I hope other Clubs don’t learn is their game style.  Howl me down if you like, but no way known am I ever going to agree with those sorts of tactics.  You wouldn’t go back and watch the 2005 GF unless you were a diehard.  The best thing about that game was the final siren.

This is supposed to be Aussie Rules, not 4 quarters of arm wrestling.  I switched over at various stages and watched some movie from I don’t when, but it was in b+w, because that story was more inspiring.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate what the Swans players did and their achievement, but it was almost like holding your breath for 4 quarters and just hanging on till the final siren to see which team lady luck was gonna smile on.  Is that what this game has come to and will it get even worse now that a team has won a GF by kicking 8 goals in 4 quarters of football?

I wasn't bored watching it (lol TS) but I agree it was a frustrating game to watch at times.

I know I harp on about the standard of goalkicking a fair bit but sheesh for what were meant to be the two best sides in the comp on display it was nothing short of pathetic. Sorry this pressure excuse is crap. Not making the distance or missing the goals completely from less than 30m out is inexcusible. They are meant to be pros who train most days on every skill of the game.

If there's two things to take out of yesterday, it's 1) the need for a strong mobile marking key forward and 2) focussing on making sure every player in your team nails the gettable goals every single time.

[the_boy_jake]

Short answer is yes, we can, but we should be selective.

IMO this was a pretty weak season. Although they had considerable success in regular season matches agains the Lions over the past 4-5 years, I couldn't see this side making much of an impact against them in Septmeber, or for that matter against Port last season, Essendon in 2000 and North in 1999.

I think this equalisation process has got to the point where the comp is so even that a just above average side in good form at the right time of year can win it, and I don't think that is good for the game at all.   

Football is cyclical and I suspect that this high possession fad will not last, and once the proponents of long kicking football - Pagan, Matthews, Wallace etc. get the cattle we will see things drift back to the way they were.

[Tiger Spirit]

I wasn't bored watching it (lol TS) but I agree it was a frustrating game to watch at times.

I wasn’t really bored either MT.  The skill errors didn’t even bother me so much, but I was frustrated that their games can be so predictable in the way they unfold.  You don’t even need to sit through the first 3 quarters.  Just save some time and switch on at any stage in the last quarter.

People rave about the finish, but what about the previous 3 and a half quarters?  They’ve done the same thing in a number of games through the season.  It’s not really a great surprise any more and you have to be prepared to sit through an arm wrestle before you get to the good bit. I like to see a competitive and hard game as much as anyone, but they just take things to extremes.  I’ll admit that my heart was racing in the last few minutes, but the rest of the time I was just hoping to see some good footy played.  Just as well Judd and Wirrpunda were out there.

No doubt, the Swans players were selfless and totally committed to what Paul Roos asked of them.  For that you can admire them.  But where’s the courage to allow the players to play ‘footy’ and to have faith in them to carry out any style of game?  That’s what I’m wondering.

[Tiger Spirit]

I think this equalisation process has got to the point where the comp is so even that a just above average side in good form at the right time of year can win it, and I don't think that is good for the game at all.

Football is cyclical and I suspect that this high possession fad will not last, and once the proponents of long kicking football - Pagan, Matthews, Wallace etc. get the cattle we will see things drift back to the way they were.

I hope you’re right Jake, because I’m a bit worried about what all this means as well.  If other clubs with similar type lists now follow their lead, we could be subjected to even more of this style of game for the next few seasons.  They should save themselves the trouble though, because unless those teams have the leadership group and style that the Swans players have developed in the last few seasons then they shouldn’t expect to have the same level of success, because what they did requires a level of selflessness that isn’t easily manufactured.

Even though they may not be the most talented team going around, they deserved to win because they lasted the distance and did as much as was necessary to achieve that success.

However, for the long term good of the game, we cannot afford to have the game played in this way on a regular basis.  Watching that sort of game isn’t an issue if it’s every now and then, but you wouldn’t want to see it every week.  And if we want to see that sort of thing week in and week out then we can take on Rugby League or some other code that has a negative bent to it.  But some of us just want to see pure Aussie Rules.  And they’re the sort of people that are being turned off the game the way it is headed right now.

Aussie Rules is the most breath taking and exhilarating game ever put on the face of the earth.  Without wanting to sound too over the top about it, to see it being reduced to 120 minutes of arm wrestling would be a great sporting tragedy.

[mightytiges]

I hope you’re right Jake, because I’m a bit worried about what all this means as well.  If other clubs with similar type lists now follow their lead, we could be subjected to even more of this style of game for the next few seasons. 

Aussie Rules is the most breath taking and exhilarating game ever put on the face of the earth.  Without wanting to sound too over the top about it, to see it being reduced to 120 minutes of arm wrestling would be a great sporting tragedy.

Agree with Jake that footy goes in cycles. Put any of these negating sides against a team with a good spine, a strong midfield that's good at winning both contested and uncontested footy and a top CHF/forward and they won't win a flag. The flooding may work to get them into the finals but that's about it. Unfortunately this year the teams that played the more attractive kick it long style had to many deficiencies.  The Swans while deserving winners based on this year would not have lasted a quarter against Port Adelaide or Brisbane of the last few years.

Remember we have knocked off the Swans a few times in recent years and we did this year even without Browny. All thanks mainly to Richo . It was the hard-running into open space sides that smashed us; not the grand finalists . 

[WilliamPowell]

The only thing you would want to learn off the Swans is the discipline side of things - they are very good at that but.........

It was one of the worst Grand Finals to watch - it was boring, it was ugly.  The last quarter - actually the last 10 minutes were exciting the rest of it .... well... 

Don't forget we beat the Swans during the season by playing fast attacking footy as opposed to their stop start chip kicking ugly play. When they finally decided to attack they actually got back into the contest and almost stole the game.

There was one other thing that the Swans taught us on the weekend and that was what an over rated hack that Michael Gardiner really is and for that I say thanks Swannies