I think this deserves a thread of its own, as it seems to be a different discussion from best 22 and list management.

The problem as of rounds 1 and 2 is that we seem to be overstocked with talls, which reflects the list generally. Some of these talls are quite versatile, but not enough of them are, and of those that are, we're not using them as such.

On Sunday, our forward line was essentially:

HF: Lamb Everitt Wright
FF: C.Curnow Casboult Boekhorst

With Everitt and Wright pushing well outside the 50 most of the game, and Boekhorst rotating out to the wing so names like Phillips, Kreuzer, Murphy, Kerridge, Gibbs and Cripps could rotate in for 5-10 minutes instead of heading to the bench.

Meanwhile at the other end, it was:

FB: White Jamison Rowe
HB: Tuohy Weitering Simpson

with Thomas and Docherty sitting in front of their structures to tighten the zone, with White swapping with Weitering from time to time to take different medium/smalls taking up position deeper in the Swans forward line, and to buy Weitering some respite.

We're running a zonal defensive structure, and for the most part it is solid, but when the high press gets caught out, the recovery speed is lacking, and the primary offenders are Rowe and White. Rowe has height on his side, meanwhile White needs to get aerially more often (and he did yesterday, to his credit), but sadly I don't think he's quicker than Rowe, nor a better read of the play.

So that puts him on the chopping block first, at least in terms of defensive structures (and we can rule him out of the midfield as well, he is appalling there).

Up forward, yesterday's structure robbed us of our previous week's best forward (Wright) so that C.Curnow could play and we had enough run through the middle. This is another sign that we went too tall, and sure enough Lamb didn't pick up the slack in the crumbing stakes. We're running a structure that heavily prioritises securing a mark inside 50 in order to take pressure off our shots on goal and guarantee more scores relative to last year, but that doesn't mean we should forego small forwards altogether.

Lamb isn't creating the scoring opportunities that the MC seemed to expect of him, so he needs to go back and work on getting his motor on, or we need to deploy him in the role that Wright played yesterday so we can bring Wright closer to goal.

A big problem right now is that we are getting so little out of our ruck rotation beyond raw taps, which weren't going to advantage (1 in 4 yesterday). These guys need to be taking turns up forward for longer periods of the game (yesterday it was 46% of the time, and I suspect that's a competition low for a ruck tandem) and offering a real mismatch to release others, or they need to not be in the team.

Levi is a mismatch, and he can ruck, so there's one. Phillips jumps high and does nothing else, so he's out. There's the ruck issues solved, and the forward line issues mostly solved.

Out: Phillips, White
In: Walker, Byrne

Some weeks, White will be preferred to Rowe, while Lamb should be supplanted by Sumner, and Everitt will be put under pressure by Jaksch and McKay over time. In the mean time, we should be looking to inject pace and skill into the side, and the easiest place to start is at either end where we are lumbering and disjointed.

EDIT: Fixed the title in case some were still struggling with the delusion that I thought I was the Match Committee

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

I think we've been going too tall as well. Rowe, White, Jamison, Phillips and Kruezer are too lumbering and don't make up for it enough in the air.

If we had a better medium defender than White who could 'play tall' in the zone, then we'd be free to drop Rowe and add more leg speed. Sydney had a guy who really fits that mould, I think his name's Laidler? He goes alright where'd he come from?

Laidler's even slower, he just suits the Swans' structure subject to the surrounding personnel, though he does have better foot skills and probably a better read of the zone. He was outpointed by us yesterday. I understand why Malthouse moved him on, but doubt he'd offer much improvement if any.

We've got Plowman, Sheehan and Byrne who can come in an do what White does and then some. We've also got Docherty in the team existing. We can push a few guys up into defensive midfield roles and few defensive midfielders into more attacking roles by bringing some of those names in.

The only problem is that'll push Rowe out, and that leaves us starved of defensive options on players over around about 198 cms (Weitering, and only Weitering). Long term, JGM is an option there, and we'll continue to recruit for it, but right now there's a dearth.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Now's the time to play the talls. Get games into them while we can. Give them long enough to settle, so we can see who can really play. They need longer anyway. It'll mean we're a little imbalanced for a while. But that's okay. It's unlikely to cost us many wins anyway. It's not as though we're keeping a bunch of super talented, ready-to-go midfield runners out of the side at the moment anyway.

Long term development. Short term mild tank. It's what you do in year 1 of a 3-5 year rebuild.

Obviously we can slowly shift White and Rowe out of the team. And probably Jamo as well. But it's not going to help anyone if the new players have to play without any big-bodied senior protection beside them anyway. Everett's the one who's really vulnerable at the moment, since he's playing in a way that provides no protection for the younger players anyway.

I also think Phillips has more potential than Kreuzer as a 'pure' ruckman.

Byrne and Buckley could come in and add something from defence and midfield respectively. We need more pace, and we need somewhere other than the bench to hide our ruck tandem so that it can be used to rest youngsters and our mids. Then we can release Everitt, Walker, Lamb, C.Curnow and the like to run right up to HB to create release options and help stretch the opposition's zones.


He needs to go back to the VFL and show it, because he is a shit show at AFL level currently. What's wrong with Levi taking ruck minutes given said tall forward line?

Isn't 5-10 minutes a quarter without the big forward target a good experience for the developing types?

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

agree with most of this, but we need to be thinking about the forward line of the future first and how we get the ball to them. That essentially means we build a defence around that.

We look our best when we don't play contested possession like Sydney. Sydney are the best in the league at this. They back themselves by kicking to 50/50 situations and backing that they will win it 8/9 times out of 10. When it is open, they are exposed and we exposed them off half back. Teams like Hawthorn will do that to them on the MCG.

So our launching pad is halfback, hence we need to be quick across half back and we need numbers (runners) around half back. Long-armed athletic medium sized defenders would be ideal. To me that means we really only need that one big dour spoiling defender. Swans ruck division really hurt us, and too many times Docherty was left one out on Sinclair or Tippett. Not sure how and Why that happened. An athletic medium should be filling that hole. I think Everett should be that player- loose player in defence. It is all about getting two players to spoil marking contests.

So our talls back might look like Weitering, Jamison, Everett, White surrounded by Tuohy, Docherty, Buckley, Simpson. There are bunch there that will need to be replaced sooner than later, so the current pool includes Rowe, Foster, Jaksch, Plowman and JGM.

By launching off half back, it means we need to find marking HFs to the wings. Casbolt doesn't fit this, he can not get near the ball. Essentially there are very few forwards in our current team that will be there in the future. Our hopes here are Silvagni, Harry McKay, Walker, Jones, Jaksch (who knows where they will play him), Cripps. Cripps needs to be at bounces, but when the ball comes out of defence, he would be awesome to be coming off HF or sneaking forward to expose a one on one. We clearly need a few more extractors in the midfield for centre bounces and boundary throw ins.

Our Ruck is easy to sort out. We need at least one Ruckman to cause some damage around the ground. Casbolt needs to be 2nd ruck to Kreuzer, it will lead him to the ball. Casbolt has no idea how to get himself into the play, as a ruck, the ball will be thrown to him.

Pace is what we need to build our HF and HB lines around. Forget one on one. Jimmae, you see the reserves more than most, who are the athletic medium/talls that could fill these roles. I think pace is a premium. We need to use and expose oppositions to every piece of the real estate- creating chaos

Jimmae, do you think a forward line of Casboult, Everitt, Walker and Curnow will work?

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@cecil_anderson

Outside of yesterday's 22, the short-term options are:

Walker, Sheehan, Dick, Byrne, Everitt and Gorringe, though obviously Sheehan is 6 weeks away from being a selection chance.

I'm not as keen on Everitt in defence as you seem to be, and I think we'd arguably need to drop Levi to play Gorringe.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

So Phillips who seems to have all the tools is being mentored by that legendary ruck coach capuano?
Anyone tell me what the markers were for capuano to have multiple contract extensions in his very long stint as a ruck coach with us.

I think the club is etching his name into a gold omega seamster to present to him very soon

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Jim you seem to know what's going on everywhere can you answer this?

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I've been confused by it as well. I assume he's cheap.

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Has there ever been a week when you don't want White dropped

I was hoping you'd say different

To keep a guy for 6/7 years and to not have a recruiting head saving money there are just two of the many hints on where were at

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I'm not overly fussed by it Synners considering we have Josh Fraser as one of our senior development coach.

Wasn't the most amazing ruckman, but I'd rather hear from someone who's tried everything under the sun and still made a go at it as a forward/ruck; they usually make better coaches if they've been paying attention at some point in their careers.


Not for a while, but he has a very select group of players that he can play on, and frankly Jamison, Rowe and Weitering are ahead of him.

If he can't find a spot up forward, he goes back to the magoos until a spot opens up for him. Isn't it a good thing that a 190 cm undersized KPD who can't kick or handball well is depth?

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29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

So josh Frazer is ruck coach and sos head recruiter
So why do we have a ruck coach and waiting on our recruiter?

The role according to you is undefined Jim!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

capuano is not an effective coach - a proven wooden spoon assistant

but the powers at be think hes a guru

Usually for somebody to be kept on her has runs on the board.
Capuano has a great record developing which ruckman exactly?
He's been at the club for longer than any other coach. It's six or seven years now.
The question that needs to be asked is "why?'

Maybe Dane can help is out!

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Good lord you've completely misunderstood what I said, not to mention this has absolutely nothing to do with anything this thread was created for.

Capuano and Fraser are both development coaches, part time and full time respectively. They're both ex-AFL rucks, I'm sure Capuano and Fraser work with the rucks, and I'm sure Fraser also works with the tall forwards, as well as the entire academy system we're installing, not to mention being the VFL coach.

I think we're in good hands.

If you want to talk more about coaches, can you please @#$%&! off to this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=34977&start=1020

Thanks.

_________________
29 different attributes,
And only 7 that you like;
20 ways to see the world,
Or 20 ways to start a fight.

Short term implies?

Sheehan is weeks away
Everitt is out of form, so maybe long term
Gorringe cant catch, and theres a reason he isn't a Sun.
Walker broke down 8 months ago

Byrne is a no brainer. Short therm and long term.
He's had success forward. If he can possibly its really worth trying.
Put it this way, I'd like to see it. Better than Matty Clape.

We don't bat deep...and there's still a lot of gaps to fill, looking to pass the baton.

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Everyone looks good in Navy Blue

I think we have a few vanilla footballers in our side and Everitt is number one. He can float in and out and keep his away jumper unwashed all season up forward. At least as a loose tall down back, then he will be made to work- otherwise, goodbye. I actually think he reads the game well and can float in and out of games when he chooses. This position would force him to participate more often but also allow him some freedom to be creative