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March 31, 2006
Team for Round One vs Essendon
Well Round One is finally here and the teams for Saturday Night's clash have been named, so to start this preview here are the team list for both sides:
Sydney
B: Mathews, Richards, Crouch
HB: Barry, Roberts-Thomson, Bolton
C: Ablett, Williams, Schneider
HF: O'Keefe, Goodes, Davis
F: Bolton, Hall, O'Loughlin
R: Jolly, Kirk, Buchanan
I: Chambers, Fosdike, Dempster, McVeigh
EM: Malceski Moore Vogels
Essendon
B: Slattery Fletcher Bradley
HB: Lovett-Murray Solomon McVeigh
C: McPhee Watson Camporeale
HF: M.Johnson Lucas Welsh
F: Monfries Lloyd Hird
R: Hille Stanton Peverill
I: Heffernan J.Johnson Lovett Ryder
EM: Bolton Nash Winderlich
So right off the bat we head into the season with only three changes to to our Grand Final side with Sean Dempster lining up after periously being expected to miss a week. As a result, Vogels misses out on senior selection and Malceski losses his personal fight for a position with McVeigh. Ted Richards has been named to face his old side first up and going by the squad on paper will line up on Lloyd (but we all know what named line ups mean at the Swans).
Eseendon have named James Hird after it looked like he would miss a month of footy a few days ago, but its still expected that he'll pull out late with the "Essendon Flu".
STATS
Some quick stats of interest:
- Sydney have won Five of its past Six matches at Telstra Dome.
- Barry Hall has kicked 7 goals in his past two games at the Dome.
- Sydney have beaten Essendon 4 of the last 5 times the two teams have met.
- Lloyd has kicked 42 goals in 9 games since 1999 against the Swans.
- Lloyd kicked two bags of four goals in the two matches against the Swans last year.
- Sydney are 4/6 in Round since 2000.
- Essendon has lost in Round One each of the past three years
Key Player
Quite simply - Barry Hall.
Has put Essendon to the sword nearly every time the two clubs have met since 2002. He has kicked 29 goals, averaged 17 disposals, 11 marks and received 11 Brownlow vote in the 6 matches the clubs have played in his time at the Swans. To see what impact he can make you only have to look at his effort against Essendon in Round 19 last year with 7 goals in a Best On Ground effort.
Umpires
#9- Matt Stevic
#25- Shaun Ryan
#27- Michael Avon
Clearly you most likely can tell I'm happy that we got this got rather than the normal group of pissweak umps who fuck us up week to week, say for example, Goldspink.
Verdict
Despite the media jumping on the Windy Hill bandwagon, the Swans are in no different a position to where we were 12 months ago with only one major player out with injury and the lost of only one walk up starter to retirement.
Nothing Essendon has done really has impressed me and when I watched the practice match at Princess Park between the two sides a few weeks back it was clear that the Swans were only playing at 75% capacity and lost as a result. However in that same match in the second quarter we played close 100% and outscored Essendon by 6 goals to show that we had plenty in the tank, but clearly didn't want to show our hand with Round One in mind.
Expect a close match as Swans matches always are, but regardless of the media hype the boys should pick up the four points and get our premiership defence off to the perfect start.
Swans by 13 points
Posted by robbieando at March 31, 2006 07:58 AM