Swooper1987

A game and percentage off 5th. A long way to go. Form fluctuating by the week for most sides. Realistically, we are still well in it, for a finals spot at least. From there, who knows?

This old chestnut. Gawn is having a brilliant season by any measure. We are not. Grundy's arrival in Sydney has coincided with brilliant seasons from pretty much the entire Swans team, but especially their mids. There's a very good chance a couple of them will be on the podium for the Brownlow. Grundy was going ok in the media's eyes up until the last two rounds, where he statistically dominated nobody from Geelong and a 6 gamer from Adelaide. His disposal efficiency in both games hovered around the 40% mark. He wins contested footy but more often than not it doesn't actually advantage his team. With a midfield as good as his he should just get out of the way. Chris Scott saw through it and Longmire only rated him the Swans 4th best player against Geelong and I doubt he'll be rated much higher than that for his most recent outing. Grundy is a good ruck, Gawn is a better ruck, a better mark, a better goal kicker and a better player and leader. These are all statistical facts. If Grundy makes the AA team this year it'll be behind Gawn, unless some other disaster befalls him (and us). In Gawn's most recent game, he blitzed Darcy Cameron. In round 1, Darcy Cameron made a mess of Grundy (8 disposals and zero impact). Grundy has Briggs, Darcy/Jackson, Marshall and Xerri in his next 4 games. Let's see how they go.

Don't overrate Grundy's game. He played against a bloke with half a dozen games and didn't do a lot of damage. 61% of his disposals were inefficient. He got 13 disposals in the last quarter when the game was over and only 38% of those were efficient. There is a reason why ruckman need to stay out of the mids way. Especially when you have mids like Warner, Heeney and Gulden. Grundy is useful in so far is own hit zone. Once again zero contested marks and only 180 m gained for 31 disposals. The media will love it and keep talking him up, while oppo coaches will keep being happy if he gets big numbers and keeps giving it back. The swans are playing amazing footy at the moment and everything is papered over by winning. I can recall the 2019 prelim when Grundy's 73 hitouts won the Giants the game! He has a bad habit of creating scores for the opposition through poor ruck work or poor disposal. The goal to Lachie Sholl the perfect example last night. Defensively, he is poor one on one. I look forward to seeing how he fares over the next few games. Briggs; Darcy/Jackson; Marshall then Xerri. All quite a bit better than Strachan. Grundy is in the right place now, but in fairness to both Collingwood and Melbourne, he had been poor since he signed the big contract. Collingwood have proven they are better without him and Melbourne never really found a useful purpose for him and he certainly wasn't demanding selection. And Collingwood are still paying a fair bit for him too!

I'm in the RoCo camp. The season isn't over and we are not a bad team. We are a good team that isn't playing well at the moment. This season, that fluctuates from week to week. Petracca is a loss, no doubt, but plenty of teams have made finals (and won flags) with great players missing. Adelaide's first flag was won with Mark Riccuito; North won in 1977 without Keith Greig; in the last game before the 1987 finals Garry Lyon broke his leg; Bob Murphy missed the 2016 flag. History is littered with great players copping untimely injuries. We still have plenty of terrific players. Viney and Oliver are the potential difference makers here. They have given nothing so far this season. They need to lift. With Lever back, our defence is still among the best in the comp. Melksham is a matter of weeks away. That will help the forward line immeasurably. If we get to 9-7 we are right in it. The next three weeks will tell us plenty. We have a fixture that means we get to play mostly sides with similar win-loss rates to us. It's all in our hands.

Great effort by the Dogs. Bont is an absolute star. No Naughton, no Darcy, no problem. Fremantle looking every bit the ordinary side most of us believed them to be before they massacred us.

Clearly neither coach agreed with you.

Votes look pretty fair to me. Gawn was easily our best and both coaches agreed. Well done to Nibs - his game was certainly vote worthy even if it was only from our coach. Fly was always going to vote for the bovver boy. Crisp, J Daicos and Howe were all very good.

Top 3 in the Bluey I reckon, behind Gawn and Trac, and quite possibly ahead of Trac.

Goodwin did mention centre clearance in the context of us getting first hands on the ball and the losing it. This has been a frustration all season, even in our wins, and largely the responsibility of Viney and Oliver. Goodwin refused to name names, but the press did it for him. Our biggest concern really is the massive drop off of those two. 1 clearance for Viney and 3 for Oliver . Only 3 contested possessions for Viney. At least Oliver his 15. By comparison, Gawn had 6 clearances and 14 contested. Viney is definitely not the player in our side you want getting uncontested ball. Tracc had 0 clearances in the half that he played - understandable today. Stoppage clearance was about even (them 25-23) but centre 14-6 is just too big a gap. That's our biggest issue right now and it sits largely with Viney and Oliver.

6. Gawn 5. ANB 4. JVR 3. Pickett 2. Windsor 1.Salem

I have been a defender of Petty's but I was particularly disappointed in his pea hearted effort in the ruck. The aim was to give Max a chop out, but all he did was enable Darcy and Jackson to increase confidence and influence. Did anyone else notice Max did the entire last quarter on ball? A shocking effort by Petty given how little influence he'd had in any other spot. Hopefully JVR is back next week. His contest work is underrated and a template for blokes like Petty.

Gawn wasn't outplayed. He was clearly the dominant ruck on the ground. Darcy and Jackson's only periods of dominance in the ruck came against Petty, or when Jackson played as a forward. Gawn beat them both convincingly in every other measure. the Dockers didn't win the game because of the ruck battle. There were about 50 other reasons. And yes, that's way more than three words: Gawn - busted his guts

We had a few triers today. I'll give it a go. 6. Salem - thought he held up well. Only 6 contested but went at 78% 5. Gawn - despite the rubbish commentary, Gawn defeated both Darcy and Jackson when either was against him. The damage they did was largely against Petty, or when Jackson was forward. Down in clearances, but maintained the rage. Max is a victim of his own insane standards. 4. Viney - again only 8 contested but tackled well. Tried hard 3. Petracca - low contested numbers as well but worked hard. 2. McDonald - kicked a couple of goals 1. McVee - absent in the first quarter but put up solid numbers in the last three and went at 100%.

Agree 100%. They are a quality side playing high class footy. If they get the timing right they could very well threaten at the business end.

6,Gawn - masterclass and against probably the second best performed ruckman of the season. 5. McDonald - has wound back the clock 4. Tomlinson - super performance from a man who has been very unlucky. 3.Viney - when it was a contest he was instrumental 2. Salem - great to have him back 1. ANB - terrific season continues.

They are an accurate reflection of the game. Wouldn't have had a Demon anywhere near the top 6 or 7 players on the ground.

Best 7 were Gawn, ANB, Pickett, Rivers, Viney, Oliver and Fritsch, but all were a fair way behind the Eagles best. Probably go: 6. ANB 5. Gawn 4. Pickett 3. Fritsch 2. Viney 1. Rivers Having said that, it was a poor a performance as we've seen since the dross we served up in Cairns in 2020. May - worst game in a very long time and he had plenty of mates. Our mids were flogged by the Boy Wonder and his counterparts.

I coached the young fellow in junior footy and cricket. He's a terrific kid. Played for Gippsland Power and represented Vic Country in the National Champs. I messaged his mum yesterday to see how he was. He's seeing the specialist Monday to work out the damage but it'll be sometime before he hits the field again. They are very much a "what happens on the field stays on the field" family. Poor form from a very experienced (and very good) AFL player. If that isn't worth 7-8 weeks I don't know what is.

I never thought I'd see a better Melbourne player than Robbie Flower, and I probably still haven't, but Max is by far the most influential - on and off field.

If it was an award that wasn't exclusively mids then Max would be looking at top 3 right now behind Heeney and Merrett. He is having a superb season.

6. Tracc 5. ANB 4. Gawn 3. May 2. Viney 1. Windsor

Good to see the Footy Show gave it to the HS today for failing to include Gawn in the best player list. Their votes by the way went to Lever(9), May(8), Z. Guthrie(8) and Gawn(8).

Again, at the game and haven't seen a replay or read any commentary. 6. Lever - was outstanding in the air and sure on the ground. 5. May - again controlled Hawkins, although the Tomahawk is rapidly coming to the end. 4. Gawn - a quiet first half by his monumental standards, but dominated when it mattered and was easily the most influential player on the ground in the last quarter - not for the first time in his career he was the difference. 3. Petty - great to see him hit the packs hard with arms extended. 2. Oliver - welcome back Clarry! 1. McDonald - although Cameron contributed to his quiet night with some unbelievable misses, Tom had the leg rope pretty tight all night. I really rated Viney, Windsor and Langdon. The defensive efforts of Chandler, Pickett and Neal-Bullen stood out. Petracca seemed off, but I notice some people have him in the votes so I'll watch for that on the replay.

Rivers played well but had 3 contested possessions, and one contested mark and one tackle and went at 79% Lever was great but no tackles and 15 of his 26 possessions were uncontested. 2 of his 10 marks were contested. Obviously the 15 intercepts were a highlight and I thought he was in the top 3 on the ground. By way of comparison, Gawn won the ball 23 times, 16 being contested. He took 10 marks, 4 being contested. He laid 3 tackles, 5 clearances and kicked an important goal. I think whoever decided the medal got it right.

Was at the game, haven't seen a replay yet. I know I shouldn't be surprised at some of the negative commentary on here, but here I am, surprised again. The first half was an arm wrestle and there were certainly some skill errors, but the Tigers were competitive and have a lot of quality players in that side not withstanding their wretched injury run. 11 premiership players took the field for the Tigers, and that's not counting guys like M. Rioli and Hopper who both played very well. We were off in the first half with our skills and sometimes decision making, and that can sometimes happen in AFL footy. We don't have a great record post bye and we were maybe a little fortunate that we played another team coming off an extended break. But we did have Gawn, and boy is he in some great form. Along with our defence, he really stood up when the game was there to be won. Some nice cameos from some of the younger, less experienced players, a rollicking performance from Ed Langdon and a real injection of speed and sure ball handling from Pickett made the second half a pleasure to watch. Petracca, Viney and Oliver once again not as influential as we'd like but that's also a silver lining. Our improvement is right there for all to see. The night itself was great as always. This has probably turned into my favourite footy night of the year and well done to both clubs for the way they put the show together. Appropriately solemn and respectful and the atmosphere before the game enables some serious reflection about what the evening and the following day means to us all.