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June 12, 2005
Swans ease to 5th Win in 6 matches
Just when things were looking black a fortnight ago the Swans come out and put together solid back to back wins, including today's win against Fremantle. While Freo were under strength, the Swans managed to put together a performance that contiunes to answer our Melbourne based critics for the second week in a row.
The game started on a sour note while Jude Bolton being a late withdrawal after injuring his hamstring during Friday training session and with the week off next week the club decided not to risk him (which shows they have learnt from the Nick Davis affair in Round 7). Anyway on a bright sunny day the Swans like they so do offen got the jump on Freo and got out to a quick lead thanks to some inspired work from Jarrad McVeigh who was starting the game forward. Two goals off his own boot and one goal assist for an O'Loughlin goal had the Swans flying away with the match. Despite a late goal from Troy Longmuir the Swans headed into quarter time with a 13 point lead.
The second quarter was goal for goal with Freo managing to get their small forwards into the game and look like they might over run the Swans, but everytime they landed a punch the Swans landed an even more telling blow. Two of the Swans three second quarter goals came from link play which resulted in Davis and Goodes running into easy goals and when Ben Mathews managed to bob up with a goal from a set shot the Swans looked more in control of the match than the scoreboard suggested. So the Swans went into Half Time with a 14 point lead and looking as if they had just put Freo's main challenge out.
Therefore it was no surprise that the Swans opened up in the third term to kill the game off. Lead by Barry Hall's 3 goals the Swans managed to put the foot down, which saw Hall's 3 goals joined by solo efforts from Davis, Buchanan and Saddington. But the quester belonged to Hall who should of at least matched his goal output from last week except for some pretty poor misses, but despite the misses the Swans weren't in a forgiving mood and Freo never had the chance to get back into the match mainly down to Paul Williams return to the midfield giving the Swans an extra outlet going forward and as also a defence that is so under-rated that you have to wonder if they are rated at all.
The last quarter really was about both sides playing out the match with the Swans not really putting the boot into Freo and Freo hardly made the score seem respectable. At the end of the day the Swans ran out 38 point winners, scored 100 points in their second stright match and most important of all improved their record to 7-5 going into the split round.
Clearly the Swans forwards were too much for the Dockers kid defence and the Freo midfield didn't manage to break the Swans tags to hurt the Swans going forward. Dempster did well in a tagging role Health Black up to this week Freo's leading possession getter and Craig Bolton took Pavlich right out of the match. Also good to see was the first quarter form of Jarrad McVeigh and the return form of Paul Williams who in my eyes was best on ground (not bad for 7 weeks out of the game). Buchanan had his best ever game for the Swans take over Jude Bolton's role in the midfield and Goodes seemed to be everywhere when it counted. Good signs heading into the business end of the season.
Still kind of makes you think what all the fuss was about after the St Kilda (but then again it did bring out into the open what many see as the main fault of the Swans). Still since that match the Swans have really opened up attack wise with now too big wins in a row against what you could call lesser opposition, but at least the Swans aren't relying on the lockdown tactics to win matches and should at least give Roos the confidence to pull a more open gameplan when needed, knowing that the Swans are capable to play it.
Signs looking good and who would of thought a fortnight ago that we would be in a position to challenge for a Top 4 spot come September.
SYDNEY 16.13 (109)
FREMANTLE 10.11 (71)
Goals: B Hall 4 M O'Loughlin 4 N Davis 2 J McVeigh 2 A Buchanan A Goodes B Mathews J Saddington.
Best Swan on Ground: Paul Williams
Posted by robbieando at June 12, 2005 06:30 PM
Comments
Justin Longmuir Robbie.
Troy's the one who went to Carlton.
Posted by: Ert at June 13, 2005 03:04 AM
Bugger
Ah, well it was one of them anyway.
Posted by: robbieando at June 13, 2005 04:51 PM