Lol is there a reason you don’t want to attribute your quoted comment.

Wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact it came from that utter donkey Craig Kelly would it 😂

Sensational stuff mate – great series and thoroughly have enjoyed every bit of it!

There’s a great old simulator software called ITC that I once used to have a world’s best teams tournament from the old Test Cricket Lists books years and years ago – http://www.cricketgames.com/itc/index.htm

I’m very tempted to get a copy and do the work to put your teams into it and run a series 🙂

The V’Landys original comments seeking support was simply all about trying on the ‘lazy racing trick’ of ‘we need guvment support’. It works for the racing industry, so he thought it could work in this space too. Narrative has improved a lot since then.

So what is the leftist agenda then Rudy? You know it so well from the 30 minutes of TV you watched some time, you must be able to articulate it.

Pull the other one…..

And encourage the pollies to act even more unethically by removing any resemblance of public scrutiny from their role…. yeh great idea given the current pollies in the house…

The slashing of the budget is not a myth – funnily enough its independent of what the ‘actual’ level is at the current time.

And its hardly a fair comparison when the ABC has a raft of non-commercial obligations that the big channels don’t have.

Learning to coach would be my priority…. the guy is an absolute fraud as a head coach. Yet if he wins his first 4, the hierarchy at the club will probably give him a new contract….

I was hopeful of getting past the first comment before I saw the tired cliché pile of ‘lefty green’ crap comments that always fill these articles….. 😡 😡 😡

As always, I fully expect you claim they are not neutral, but on the same hand also claim you don’t watch it because it so ‘biased’…. so how do you know then?

No problem! Phoebe is some talent though – that footage of her technique batting in the nets would make any player at any level proud – impressive stuff!

Great article Mary – its been a good series so far.

One minor clarification – Kinross is not a suburb near Orange, it is a School in Orange. Kinross Wolaroi school.

Awesome. I’ll be very tempted to hunt up a couple of the test cricket simulator programs I have on my computer somewhere, do the work to set all the teams up once you have done them, then run a full blow competition with them.

I did it many a year ago now with the old ‘Test Cricket Lists’ A-Z teams done a long while back, was a lot of fun.

Awesome stuff mate – really enjoyed it. And what great teams. Looking forward to the rest of the articles that are to come as well 🙂

The swans offered 2 first round draft picks for him. On a ‘value’ basis, that is more than reasonable. He is not worth 2 picks + a high calibre player as some suggested was demanded.
One can’t on one hand praise the Bombers for looking after their ‘list management’, then deride Sydney for doing exactly the same. What would the point of getting Daniher be if it meant giving up either a similar player (such as a McCartin) or significantly weakening another part of the ground. They aren’t the giants after all with bundles of talent in reserves waiting for an opportunity.

Sydney offered both Jones and Papley, according to Harley yesterday.

The go home factor is a joke imho. Happy for players to do whatever they want when they are out of contract etc, but when your under contract, with the exception of genuinely obvious cases of personal issues etc, clubs should say no a whole lot more.

I was suprised the Swans chased Daniher at all this year. That isn’t to say I don’t think a fit daniher wouldn’t be a good fit at the Swans – but its not like 2020 is going to see them challenging for the flag (unless they make huge improvements not expected), and he was never going to come cheap.

If I was the swans, when Daniher came to talk, I would of said, cool your heels and we will go hard in offseason 2020 when your a RFA. I guess it might have been pushed a bit by the proposed Papley trade, but even then – why take someone at such great risk now, knowing the Bombers could wear all the risk next season of getting him right, and avoiding paying a years salary at a time when their cap is probably still pretty tight.

“Not irreparable, but they may have done themselves some damage in this one.” I think a D for the Swans is very harsh.

It ignores that they will also take their strongest hand to the draft for quite a while. They have Dalyrymple on board now who built a number of the cogs of the Bulldogs flag team from shrew choices in the draft. If they get this years draft wrong, your argument stands up. But Daniher was an extra luxury then an absolute necessity at this stage in reality – would be great to have him at the club, but I strongly doubt any of their future plans are built around the expectation that Daniher would be there (at this point in time) – and they have enough tall timber quality coming through to build a more than capable forward line, even if they don’t get him next year as a RFA.

As for Papley – the club will back themselves to sort his off field issues out, like they managed to settle O’Keefe down when he wanted to return to Melbourne. Despite all the dribble in the media, he can’t be too unhappy in terms of the working environment in Sydney, given he was off holidaying with a bunch of the other guys for several weeks after the season the season ended. They’ll back themselves to find a way to get him happier off the field – it seems the GF is the real driver of that conversation, rather than him imho. If not, they’ll worry about it next trade window when he requests to go again. They might not get Pick 9 again (highly unlikely indeed), but he will command a reasonable return if the want to retun to Melbourne remains.

Looking at the stats it wasn’t Akermanis – but I remember the goal well.

Good memory Paul D!

2003 Preliminary final at the Olympic Stadium, after the Swans upset Port in a magnificent performance in week 1 of the finals. Lions got up easily in the end – 44 points I think it was, even though it was very tight at 3 quarter times (A few points if I remember rightly). Lions went beserk in the last -including a crazy goal if I remember rightly from deep in a pocket on a crazy angle by Akermanis. Largest finals crowd for a game outside of Victoria I believe – 70 thousand odd.

Onto this weekends game – GWS suck on the road, so I’m tipping a win for your boys, and a deserved preliminary final appearance.

Outstanding underlying analysis there…..

“I take issue with the ridiculous trade ban comment. The Swans were rorting the Cola, paying their players less, and skimming some of the cola money to pay overs for Tippet and Buddy.”

Care to provide any proof to support your assertion. The AFL didn’t, so I won’t hold my breath…..

How precisely can one ‘skim’ the COLA money anyway? It was a contract term built into the contracts of every player…

Peter we have missed you over on the guardian by the way – hope you are well!

Would you say the same thing if the Swans had won one or two of the grand finals they played in over that period?

They were the best team in 2014 during the regular season, but blew it badly on the big day. They were close to the best team in 2016, but again blew it on the big day (Though one can argue didn’t have much luck either). Yes the last three years haven’t quite been as good, but there is a clear strategy in place and good signs for the future. And every team has to regenerate at some stage. The reasonable likelihood that may be able to be achieved with just 1 year in the non-competitive wilderness is a strong indicator of a well run club.

I’m not a defender of Longmire’s tactics by the way – I think a reasonable criticism can be made on that basis. However, if you can’t see the approach being taken (discussed at length in this article), then your either Stevie Wonder, Umpire Joel Wilson, or need to go to Specsavers.

Great analysis as always Josh, as and as a Swans fan I completely agree with a large part of the sentiment of it.

I expect a similar sort of season in 2020 to 2019 – but hopefully with a few more wins along the way. We were competitive in most games, and had our chances in most of the close games.

Hopefully with some increasing maturity within the group of players of the ilk of Heeney, Lloyd, Hewett, Papley/Jones, Aliir (If they stay – on that point I think Papley will but Jones will go), and continued progress from the cygnets (In particular those generally on a good upwards trajectory – the likes of Dawson, Florent, Hawyard, Melican, McCartin, O’Riordan, Rowbottom [Who by the way I think will be a very good player – his numbers are good compared to Hannebery’s first handful of games for example) that will mean they can jag a few more wins next season.

There are clearly some obvious issues in parts of the list – the ruck continues to be an issue and I don’t think there is an easy solution there, and there is need for further regeneration in the midfield group, plus still a need for a key defender going forward (Not quite convinced Melican is good enough). But the broad guts of a pretty good team in 2 to 3 years are there, and the Swans rarely over the last couple of decades get their recruitment calls wrong too often.

Its 2021 and onwards that I’m really excited to see what this team can do – especially if the Swans can nail their draft/trading this year. There is a reasonable level of confidence that Braeden Campbell has all the indicators of becoming a good AFL player, and Errol Gulden has potential. I reckon they’ll be keen to secure both next year, so may not have much live currency otherwise in that draft. So getting it right this year is very important.

Patience is needed, especially with the younger guys, as we have all seen how up and down even the best players can be in their first 2 or 3 years. But if the Swans play their cards right, even if they can’t reopen the old ‘premiership window’ before Buddy is done (Looks unlikely to me), his departure will be pretty well timed for giving them a nice pile of $, either to ensure they can keep the ranks of talent they are beginning to build, or to snag those 1 or 2 missing pieces.

It was a frustrating season, no doubts about it – but the broader strategy of the direction the club is going is becoming increasingly clear. And there are lots of young, talented guys that are going to come through together that have all the potential in the world. Turning that into more than just potential is the challenge – but I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.

I expect a fairly similar season to this one Christo – but hopefully with a few more wins along the way (The swans lost a lot of close ones).

Its 2021 and beyond that I think there will be a significant step up in performance – as the younger cygnets start to hit that sweet spot at 50 games and beyond, and the older group (Players like Heeney, Mills, Hewett) start to move right towards the peak of their careers in terms of expected performance.

Certainly some gaps to fill along the way with all the experience going out, but going to be exciting to watch some of the younger guys develop. Blakey and Rowbottom in particular were standouts for mine this year and both have all the ingredients to become very, very fine footballers in time.