DeeSpencer

Umps let the play go in the wet on Saturday night. That’s what a lot of fans want. I thought it wasn’t ideal, but the players knew where they stood. Better than paying everything. MRP is a mess but there’s no simple solution. ‘Stick with the oringial umps call’ isn’t a good process, the umps miss a heap of on field stuff. They can’t see everything. Every little incident is different so I don’t believe in the desire for consistency. One little change can make the difference between 2 weeks and nothing. It’s fine lines.

Geelong wear white shorts at home to avoid teams changing jumpers. If Sydney want to wear red shorts and their home kit I’m ok with accomodating them by changing socks. Why the Swans don’t wear their predominantly white jumper and white shorts more often I don’t know, but I guess they want to look as much as Sydney as possible.

Lemmens picks Butler up and just drops him on his backside, players get far more physical than that in their grappling training. There's no chance of him injuring his neck. The Rampe one is different. I'd love an explanation of that.

Absolutely nothing in that with Lemmens. He just lifted him up and dropped him. The May one does look a bit nasty but I agree he should’ve got some benefit for doing his best to not bump high or cause any damage. And players have to be able to pressure.

If we played 22 key forwards then we'd have lots of fire power! We'd never lose.

Without looking at the stats it seems to be first quarter - not often right away, but sometimes, then particularly third and fourth quarters very quickly after the bounce. Apart from losing centre bounces there doesn’t seem to be any particular reason for it. It’s not one on one defending. It seems to be a balance of team defending and turnovers. James Jordon - sloppy handball out, and Brayshaw - fumble and Hollywood handball - were the main culprits in the 1st and last. Both mids did their job of getting back to support then stuffed it up.

Should we rest Hibberd and bring Jetta in to take Eddie Betts? Hibberd did a great job on Papley but he’s definitely in veteran territory. Where as Nev has been an Eddie specialist. Also thinking Petracca is going to be 50:50 at best. I’m not convinced that’s a corkie that will settle quickly.

No, I want Harmes to give the first option. He’s not a good kick and he’s not as good as escaping pressure as he thinks he is. He burnt half the team last night and end result was a lot of turnovers or hospital handballs.

There’s plenty of rucks who excel as the main man but don’t like to share. Gawn being a little down and Jackson coming on, when combined with the 2 big forwards means Gawn has to share more. It also means less game time for all 4 big guys + Fritsch, but especially Gawn who was playing nearly 100% and Jackson. With the interchange cap it means long spells on the bench too. 7 minutes at times out of the play. Just something to consider and monitor. I really think Fritsch or Jackson need to take some wing or half back rotations just to stay involved in the game. Plus it will give the mids a little extra rest too.

He had some brilliant moments that didn’t quite work out - weaving through traffic on the members wing - seemingly evading about 5 tackles before narrowly missing the kick out on the full. Overall he did go in to his shell a little last night, rather than keep backing himself for more. Sydney are so good defensively and lock in early with tackles well off the ball so it’s not easy. If it’s not on ball we should think about a little bit of wing or half back time for moments when he’s not in the game. Or just roll him up to midfield stoppages as an extra off the back of the stoppage. Oliver or Petracca feeding a handball to Kossie from a midfield stoppage could be very fun.

Looked every bit of 15+ to me, but is was worth penalising for burning the free running Jackson alone. Harmes needs to remember he’s a tagger not Dustin Martin.

Most of the second half was spent trying to defend and get it out of our backline. But one thing I didn’t like about Brown is his defensive game seems to be just dropping really deep rather than staying up and pressuring. Sydney had the ball on a slow play at their half back and Brown will be on the fat side all the way at the back of the centre square. He even pushed inside d50 when we had Max and the key defenders back. Aerial defending isn’t what we need from him, we need him marking the hacked kicks from the backline, or streaming forward once we counter. Goodwin countered in the last term by keeping 6 forwards which helped counter Sydney’s deep defensive drop. Brown took some important marks in transition in the last quarter.

Oliver’s clear throw called a throw? You can’t flick pass it 10m That said, Sydney have been clean dropping the ball in tackles for over a decade now. And the umps threw out most of the rule book last night. Paid next to nothing. Deliberate, holding the ball, protected area, stand, high contact and even marks not paid!

Tough competition in the Swans forward line with Hayward the other main contender and Wicks and McLean up and comers. McLean strutted around like he was Buddy when he’s had 1 decent game in his career and Wicks was belting Salem in the back all game

Sparrow in for Melk would provide 5 primary on ballers - Oliver, Petracca, JJ, Harmes and Sparrow. That way we can keep them all fresher with lots of forward rotations. Petracca brings a lot of pressure and spark to a forward line, he can do that whilst still having a week with less miles on the legs. I’m not suggesting anything drastic just taking 10-20% of his game time on ball, same as Harmes. That way you get a fraction more midfield minutes for Sparrow than would’ve been offered to Melk.

Melksham‘s mark for goal was a standing uncontested mark. His hanger was nice but he had the sit. Im talking about flying in contests where his body is genuinely on the line. He doesn’t do it. He doesn’t hit ground balls at pace or chase with intensity either. Fritsch had a poor game, not sure why he’s been bought in to this. He has to lift his defensive work too but overall he’s had a great season. I’ve been defensive of Melksham in other weeks. Pretty sure I didn’t want him dropped this week. But his intensity should be lifting and it’s not, and he spilled a simple chest mark that just can’t be tolerated. We’re playing blue collar team footy that relies on every player rolling up their sleeves. Melksham did that in 2018 but hasn’t since. A week off to set that standard isn’t a huge deal to me. Better to do that now than passively waiting for him to get to a level I believe he can.

Fritsch is poor defensively but he flies for his marks with rare courage. Melksham can’t take a chest mark in 20m of space. Not the first time and unless something is done about it, won’t be the last. We need his skills in the side but the coaches aren’t doing him or the team favours if they don’t set basics standards on intensity and courage.

6. Tommy 5. Salem 4. May 3. Langdon 2. Oliver 1. Nibbler Too much love for the inside mids. They had a poor game.

Harmes’ worse was dreadful and overall it wasn’t a good game. I agree it’s staggering he was picked ahead of Sparrow. But....his work rate is good, his tackling is strong and in the second half he put away the desire to break 7 tackles and gave a few more first options. We need midfield fitness and experience with Viney out. And the ability to swap mids and forwards on ball remains a key part of our game. Now that Harmes is in I’d stick with him for another week. Bring Sparrow in for Melksham and rotate Harmes and Petracca through the forward line more to keep the legs fresh.

Sparrow for Melksham. Petracca could do with a light week playing forward. The extra predominant mid will help. Plus it’s clear we need more pressure and run if we’re sticking with the tall forward line.

They said 2 weeks after last week. So at least 1 week to go. My guess is they’ll be cautious and give it another again. Why would you rush Viney with a foot injury. That’s never worked well for us

Drop Melksham for being a pea heart. You don’t get to play if you don’t respect the jumper. Start a go fund me for Nasher’s blindness.

Second week in a row Lever has been tagged - by athletic mid sized forwards in Zuhaar and Hayward. Petty’s lack of speed means we can’t swap him over as easily as Tomlinson, which means Lever can’t rotate on to the bad tall. Just something to watch in the way teams are targeting the guy who might’ve been our best player through 6 weeks.

Sydney drop a number back and often concede stoppage clearances, plus they’re a lot easier to win in your backline. The +11 stoppage clearances pretty much balance the -13 centre clearances. Where as when we play well we win in the centre and lose the stoppages because we have a lot inside 50

His best was brilliant, but it was a 2020 game of sublime and awful. A lot of the centre clearances were on him failing to capitalise on getting the hit to him. And his kicking simply needs to be better too.