Post Match. Pies down to Hawks - All comments please.

[Dave The Man]

1. Lack of mongrel - At times I saw Hawks players mouthing off at our players and they just took it. I felt like our players were afraid to apply hard bone crunching tackles on the Hawks players as they pushed us aside at crucial stages of the match. To be a strong team, every club needs to have some mongrel and toughness about them, but we don't have it. We seem to go into shell and lose confidence when the cards are stacked against us.

They played like they did not care much about the Result at All

[Dave The Man]

Lack of mongrel - we lack any true leaders. Pendles is either injured and/or looks disinterested. And the disposal efficiency of our midfield leaders is shocking.
6...

Pendles is a Terrible Captain though Gun Player

[AN_Inkling]

One that I missed earlier: Tom Philips was also one of our best. Gets lumped with Smith a lot, but he is a much better player. Only a decent user of the ball but his gut running is very important.

[Dave The Man]

[Pappatannas]

[AN_Inkling]

Reid dropped a couple, but he did take 6 marks. Cox took 0. That's extraordinary.

It was a slippery night, some dropped marks were to be expected (Moore dropped a couple as well). It's not like the Hawks talls were grabbing many either.

[Dave The Man]

I am thinking Pendles is a Terrible Captain. Did nothing to Inspire his Teammates and We where not up for it at the Start

[WarrenerraW]

No, not really.

If Buckley/Maguire were in charge they would have f#$%^d up the invasion of Poland 6 years previously

Oh lordy - I give up. Go for it you pessimists and negative critics!!! Any chance of doing me a favour and being constructive in your criticism and not personally rubbishing the greats (of various ilks) of our club while you're doing it? I just can't understand how that amounts to supporting a club. Just my personal bent.

I loved Buckley the player. He is one of our all time greats. I supported his appointment as coach. It took me a couple of seasons though to realise that Buckley the coach was not Buckley the player and that as a coach he was doomed to fail. That is not me being pessimistic or negative. It is me making a rational assessment based on what is occurring.

Some of you are deluded and think that after all this time Buckley needs even more time. Already the same posters are saying "give him x more weeks and after then we will know". When that period expires it will be "give him x more weeks and after then we will know". Each time there is a reason he requires more time. Usually, that reason encompasses an injury list that includes fringe AFL players or players that will never play many games due to their injury history. We are so unlucky to be the only club whose players ever receive injuries. Other coached never have to deal with that.

Last year when it was first mentioned that the club would have a review I posted that the terms of the review would be secret, the decisions and reasons would not be made public but that it would be used by the club (the president) to retain Buckley as coach. The response from the deluded on this board was"oh no they wouldn't do that". Well, what happened? Buckley was reappointed in circumstances where even he had thought that he would be leaving. The club did sack some assistants and a bean counter though.

There is quite a bit of support elsewhere for Buckley though. I was at a friend's house last night watching the game. Quite a few there believe that Buckley's contract extension was not long enough. They are not deluded though. They are quite rational in their thinking. Of course, they support Carlton, Richmond and Hawthorn.

You're right. There's absolutely no question about Buckley being an all time great player for our club, but he clearly lacks the skills to be a great coach. As much as we all want the fairytale to come true, it ain't; and the longer this drags on the more it drags our once great club into the abyss. Year after year we keep going backwards. Why can't people see that?

He's had enough time and if we weren't talking about Buckley - a favourite son of the club - then they would've been sacked years ago. He knew his head was on the chopping block and should've offered his resignation there and then. Then along comes glorious leader kim jong ed and his review.

It's a shame we'll never know the full extent of the review and what took place. Only what glorious leader tells us. What questions were asked and how they came to justify extending the contract of a coach who is leading this club on a downward spiral. We have a president who marches to the beat of his own drum. Making captains calls and appointing all his mates without following protocol.

It's pathetic and almost like he can't accept being wrong. He made a monumental f*** up by appointing Buckley as coach because kim jong ed didn't want him going anywhere else. MM knew better than to hang around and play second fiddle to Buckley. Half a dozen director of coaches later, mentors, you name it. I've had enough.

[WarrenerraW]

I am thinking Pendles is a Terrible Captain. Did nothing to Inspire his Teammates and We where not up for it at the Start

Pendles looked slow and underdone. He was getting found out a lot and made a few uncharacteristic errors that he wouldn't have done in years gone by. That miss for goal from a set shot said it all really.

But I think it's a bit rough to say he's a terrible captain. He generally leads by example and his actions speak for themselves. He's not the vocally loud type, never has been.

[qldmagpie67]

Interesting stat and I raised it in JLT2
When we take 14 or more marks inside 50 (on2017 numbers) we went 7-11-1 when we took 13 or less we went 1-12
It's a stat that can't be ignored as it basically says when we mark it inside 50 we win games when we don't we don't have small forwards or crumbers to kick the goals we need to win games.
JLT1 we took 8 marks inside 50 lost JLT 2 we took 23 marks inside 50 and run away with it.
Yesterday we took 7 marks inside 50
Bucks actually had the right idea moving Moore forward in the last term we needed to take loads of marks inside 50 to be any chance the sad part is was it was too late. We were down by close to 7 goals when he decided to do this got back to 4 goals down then they kicked a couple late ones to push it back out to a 6 goal loss.
Elliott and Faz hurt not being there but size wiser we had more than enough talls to take at least 10-12 marks inside 50. Heck Cox dropped about 7-8 by himself and Grundy 2 that I can think of.
For punishment to myself for over indulging in th red wine last night I watched the game again.
The second time was even more painful than the first time.
Final opinion
Next week Cox Langdon Phillips Smith all go out
(And Maynard Thomas Treloar Adams can thank themselves,lucky we have injuries or they could all have been dropped as well)
Bring in Brown Kirby Daicos Scharenberg
Play Reid at FF WHE at CHF Pendles Daicos Kirby Varcoe as your starting forward line (rotate Sidey Trelaor Stephenson Brown through there as well)
Starting backline
Dunn Murray Howe Moore Scharenberg Crisp
At least Kirby gives us some X factor and Brown Daicos some enthusiasm and Scharenberg some better foot skills and ability to read the game

[AN_Inkling]

A lot of bagging of Cox but our problem was not our tall forwards, it wasn't a night for them to dominate. Roughead did bugger all for the Hawks and Moore was the leading marker for the night with 8 (Reid 6, Cox 0, Roughead 4).

Our problem was a lack of small forwards, or quality forwards of any description. We can say that missing players are not an excuse. But compare Rioli, Burgoyne, Bruest to Crocker and whoever else we had up there and it's a massive discrepancy. That's not coaching, that's lack of personnel. Add Wells, Elliot, Fas, De Goey and the forward lines are not so far a part.

They beat us for run and had more talented forwards. Simple as that. I did not see any coaching failure in this game. Overall it was a fairly even contest and I don't see any reason to think we won't be competitive in most games.

[The Boy Who Cried Wolf]

Funny that, I saw a huge difference in the coaching... one was actively giving his players/bench instructions via his head set for most of the game, the other kept sitting half sideways in his chair and trying to look away.. I'll let you work out who was who

[SonofRowdy]

Terry Wallace's view that "this squad isn't good enough" in sobering.

Honest, objective, feedback from is to be taken on board and we need to come even come to terms it. As such, dropping "x" number of players for poor form when you don't have depth is like looking to change deck chairs on the titanic - it just isn't the long term solution.

Focus needs to intensify on our recruiting, we just aren't getting enough elite talent through the door. I remember listening to draft night on the radio and the commentators surprise that we took Maynard in one draft, Phillips in another and Sier in another. The comments stuck in my mind.. on Maynard they said "well the only thing AFL standard about him is that he is a long kick and has a bit of mongrel about him" I could tell at the time they were surprised and were searching for something positive to say. On Phillips all they could say is that "he works hard and can run all day"... and it was pure shock when we selected Sier... a player they knew little about.

Something is a miss in our recruiting ... how do Sydney do it year after year ? Talent identification is everything and there are clearly things that the Swans (and Hawks for that matter) see in players that we don't. Got to get the fundamentals right otherwise we are going to continue this slow and painful slide down the ladder.

[Dave The Man]

Terry Wallace's view that "this squad isn't good enough" in sobering.

Honest, objective, feedback from is to be taken on board and we need to come even come to terms it. As such, dropping "x" number of players for poor form when you don't have depth is like looking to change deck chairs on the titanic - it just isn't the long term solution.

Focus needs to intensify on our recruiting, we just aren't getting enough elite talent through the door. I remember listening to draft night on the radio and the commentators surprise that we took Maynard in one draft, Phillips in another and Sier in another. The comments stuck in my mind.. on Maynard they said "well the only thing AFL standard about him is that he is a long kick and has a bit of mongrel about him" I could tell at the time they were surprised and were searching for something positive to say. On Phillips all they could say is that "he works hard and can run all day"... and it was pure shock when we selected Sier... a player they knew little about.

Something is a miss in our recruiting ... how do Sydney do it year after year ? Talent identification is everything and there are clearly things that the Swans (and Hawks for that matter) see in players that we don't. Got to get the fundamentals right otherwise we are going to continue this slow and painful slide down the ladder.

I think everyone knows that except for the People who work at the Club

[Jpies]

Something is a miss in our recruiting ... how do Sydney do it year after year ? Talent identification is everything and there are clearly things that the Swans (and Hawks for that matter) see in players that we don't. Got to get the fundamentals right otherwise we are going to continue this slow and painful slide down the ladder.

Yep, not only at the draft, but in experienced players/trades. The Mayne deal has been talked about to death on here, but I think it's important to look a bit earlier too. IMO neither Aish or WHE have been great acquisitions. I know some posters on here are fans of WHE, but I've never been sold on him having the potential to become a match winner. Do hope I'm wrong on that one, but he's 24 so not expecting drastic improvement from here.

Wells and Dunn I think were both good pickups in the circumstances, but more short term, proven solutions. The issue seems to be with recruiting players that we expect improvement and 5+ years of service from, and that improvement never eventuating. Is it that we can't identify the right players? Or that we can't develop them?

That said, Stephensen and Murray both looked good last night, so *hopefully* this is a reflection of some improvement in recruitment. Looking forward to seeing them both play more this year.