Swans in crisis: Tippett, Mills ruled out of semi-final

Beat the Crows midfield and they're done. We saw west coast destroy them with first hands on the ball. The Swans mids are better again. Sloan, as good as he is, won't be enough to nullify their inside dominance. I expect Sydney to win, and expect Longmire to admit his mistake and play Franklin forward. Midfield dominance is worthless if there's no one up forward to kick to.

The small ground was last week mate, back at the SCG this week.

GW S were too hard at it and too good on the day. Just hope they bring that sort of intensity when they play the interstate teams.Meanwhile Sydney will regroup for next Satuday against Adelaide and hopefully get a win.

No doubt Crows are a big chance. The stats show that in the earlier game this year there was a cigarette paper between them. Same disposal count, virtually the same contested possession count - the Crows the deserved winners but home ground weighting will cancel that. I'm not sure about Swans and mental strength. Yes they have lost 4 straight finals under Longmire but prior to that won 5 straight. The real story is just how good the Giants were. Despite the Swans' fighting words about going even harder this week could they have done much more on Saturday. GWS were awesome, both in intensity and all round skill . In the end Sydney gradually lost touch in the face of the onslaught. I don't think any of the other finalists would have done any better. But if the Swans bring the level they brought to the 1st half of the qualifying final to the semi final they will win it.

Adelaide looked sharp and on fire, but it was a soft victory at home against a mentally and physically depleted North who couldn't have performed worse if they tried and that is never a good way to prepare for a big finals match. Swans had a tough prep run up against the league superheroes away from their home ground - they'll learn from that and win comfortably at the SCG on Saturday.

I think Crows are a huge chance - I have real question marks on the mental strength of the Swans in finals, and with a couple of key outs, then it'll be close. A huge bearing on the outcome will be how well Nick Smith can control Eddie Betts. Hopefully this time around if Eddie decides to use his hands in the back, the ump will actually pay a free kick haha!

I don't think any can Cat, because it doesn't make a lot of sense, especially in the case of Buddy. Tippo I can sort of understand, as his best form earlier in the season was as a ruck/forward - but I agree as soon as he got dazed, he should of been sent to the Goal Square for the remainder. As for Franklin - he got a hell of a lot of the ball, but was absolutely ineffective as a result of Longmire's bizarre choice to throw him basically into the midfield. Surely will be forced to get back to basics without Tippett there against the Crows - but Longmire does sometimes get some strange ideas in his head.

This is the key point Christo. The Swans struggle against that style, likewise they struggle against the Bulldogs style of play as well - like they used to struggle against the Pies style. There always seems to be a hubris team or two they just can't handle.

Can any Swans fan explain to me why a team is paying $2m to two key forwards and neither of them played forward much despite Sydney desperately lacking a target forward all game? Tippet in the ruck, okay I can sort of understand that to start but after the knee to the scone dazed him he should have been sent forward like Kennedy was. As for Franklin, did Longmire call up Hardwick and ask him how to best misuse a key forward, Franklin was as badly misused as Jack Reiwoldt has been.

I reckon the Swans' style of play struggles against the Giants' style. If the Swans are a little bit off (and it was only a little I thought) and the Giants are on fire, the Giants will win every time. There was a very telling shot of Longmire's face in close-up at the end of the game - it looked like someone who knew deep down that the Giants are simply better than the Swans. I suspect the Swans would feel confident of backing themselves against every other team in the comp - except for the Giants...

swannies are small ground specialists, great at the defensive flood and controlling the ball in their forward 50. Crows will struggle and must bring their A game to stand a chance imo.

I think another issue here is that Sydney never wanted a second NSW team in the comp and GWS would've been fired up knowing that. Sydney no longer have the option of monopolising a state of 7.5 million people and have to develop new strategies to gain/retain an adequate share of their state's market- perhaps these strategies are still years away. The 2014 finals series started with everyone knowing Sydney would throw elbows and other fisticuffs to scare their opposition from the start. That was why Hawthorn had to come out so tough at the start of that GF and that was why it was so fortunate our strategy worked. There is also the fact that they'll have to live without COLA now but everyone knows my opinion on COLA.

Reckon that's the last we'll see of the poster swannies for the year now.

Vindicated in 2014. I know what Andy112 is getting at, a shellacking like 2014 is hard to get over, Longmire said so himself and last year was an annus horribilus for the club around finals. I think they'll have Adelaide's measure, get past Geelong, meet GWS in the grand final, and win it.

The Swans are not soft , they are a small skilled side. The way to close them down is to hit them and given the umpire swallowed his whistle it worked. Some one in the Swans should have knocked Stevie J out, someone should have taken Mumford to task but who, we don't have an enforcer but we need one. The only Swan with the size to fight hack was Buddy. GWS were filthy, in fact we may have our new Hawthorn. The mark not paid to Heaney was very poor, as was the run down tackle as was the holding the ball to Rampe, a bit like the Hawthorn Swans game with two goals from non existent 50 metres. The Melbourne establishment have decided the Swans need a help down. The GWS were the better team on the day, no doubt about that, but the AFL need a send off rule to stop the deliberate injuring of other players. Other wise the Swans need MMA trained midfielders to cope with thugs, . What happens if this happens in a Grand Final, deliberately injuring players, changing results with a worst one free kick, its wrong By the way still say the Swans for the flag

Sydney did not play well yesterday but to claim they are soft is ridiculous!! Hannebery, Parker, Kieran Jack and Buddy to name a few are anything but soft!!! DONT be too hasty to write them off just yet. Perhaps they were more interested in wanting to actually play a good game of footy rather than be faced with thuggery from certain GWS players they broke Kurt Tippetts jaw and resulted in Josh Kennedy leaving the ground with concussion. Unless you have too much of the brown stuff in your eyes both these incidents did not even gain a FREE kick. Wonder how these "soft" players were picked in the All Australian Side ???

I have to agree with Cat here Benny. Andy's theory has plenty of flaws but he's clearly talking about one sided blowout grand finals 2015, 2014, 2007, 2000 that kind of thing.

SGFLS only applies for 40+point GF losers- teams that lose closer GFs- not surprisingly- are less likely to lose faith in where they're at. There is hardly a more telling stat in the game right now.

Tippet is no big loss, , Mills on the other hand is, pretty strong reserves though, Swannies will win though, they are very resilient.

While Andys theory is full of flaws, I'll point out hawthorns 10 point loss in 2012 is not a shell shock loss.