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April 17, 2005
Sorry Swans Sink To New Level
Sydney 11.13 (79) Adelaide 18.12 (120)
Well who didn't see that coming????
If it will make many of you feel better, I'll raise my hand and say I did. But, I will have to qualify that answer with the statement that I wasn't surprised by it either (after all who really is). Too often I get too wrapped up by a good win one week and expect the team to come out firing the next and follow it up with an easy win and keep it up on the way to the long awaited Premiership I and many of my fellow Swans supporters are waiting for. I guess I should stop with the dreaming and finally get the message that this team is shit and certainly isn’t close to the standard required to win a flag and will forever and a day cocktease us poor long suffering supporters.
So how did the Crows beat us and more to the point why did a side many expected to finish towards the bottom of the ladder, come to Sydney and beat us on the ground where we are near on unbeatable? Well to start with, this Crows outfit isn’t a bottom 4 side (guess we figured that out today) and most important of all their midfield was able to pump the ball long all day to their tall forwards who had a clear height advantage over the Swans defenders. I don’t know about Paul Roos, but I certainly wouldn't go into a match with Leo Barry at Full Back and Craig Bolton at Centre Half Back, that’s just asking for trouble. Personally I think the decision to bring in Spriggs for LRT was the wrong decision as it was never going to help either the midfield (and it didn’t), nor the defense (and it certainly didn’t).
Still the game started bright enough with the Swans getting the first two goals from O’Loughlin (dodgy free kick and subsequent 50m penalty) and then Goodes. At that stage a solid win looked on the cards, but from there the Crows just took over in the midfield and got back into the match thanks to two goals from free kicks and a third from an advantage ruling that hurt us. From there it was goal for goal until the quarter time break. The second quarter was a repeat but this time it was the Crows who got off to the good start before the Swans brought that back to level terms before a long goal from Ben Mathews gave us a lead of a goal at half time.
After that well, things just went down hill.
On top of the long term injury to Paul Williams in the second quarter the Swans proceeded to throw away the match with sloppy play. The Crows midfield got on top and did their work at will, with 4 quick goals giving them a 17 point break late in the quarter before the Swans normal comeback. Two quick goals from O’Keefe and Maxfield had us back in the match but on top before two pissweak misses at goal from Hall and Goodes, that I could kick blindfolded. So instead of taking a small lead into the three quarter time break the Swans were down by two goals and that was all she wrote, because even another late charge was snuffed out (notice Brisbane THAT’S how you do it) by the Crows before deciding to bring out the party tricks in garbage time to run out 41 point winners and keep their record against the Swans at 5 out of 6.
Well soon enough Strongbow will dull the pain enough to forget today’s doss put forth by the Swans and we’ll move onto the in form Demons at the SCG who look to be without a few key players (Cam Bruce out for sure), just like us.
Willo looks like he’ll be out for 6-8 weeks, Ball again will take up residence in the medical room for a week or so (more news later in the week) and reports have the non performing and non inspiring captain of ours up on report (so I can only hope he get 20 or so weeks). So that’s as many as three ins come Thursday Night and after today hopefully a few more.
I hereby start the Josh Willoughby bandwagon, hopefully Roos and co see sense and name him to replace a hack like Spriggs.
Ratings
Best Swan on Ground - Jude Bolton
Worst Swan on Ground – David Spriggs
Rising Star – Sean Dempster
Umpires – Shit, but not the difference.
Goals - Goodes, Hall, O’Keefe, O’Loughlin 2 and Ablett, Mathews, Maxfield 1
Posted by robbieando at April 17, 2005 09:51 PM