How did Sydney win the premiership?

[TOT70]

They have:
the shortest full-back in the AFL (Barry)
A huge number of "in-between" players who are too small to be KPPs and too tall to be mid-fielders (Kenneally, C Bolton, Dempster, Barry, O'Keeffe, O'Loughlin and even Goodes)
No creative midfielders, just a bunch of taggers like Kirk, Crouch, Buchanon and Fosdike
Only one key forward
No kids
Few top 20 draft choices
At best, half a goal to goal line

They really have revolutionised the AFL. There are lots of lessons for the rest of the competition. Put together a running defence, an accountable midfield and a very quick forward line for starters. Then change the mindset on the "in-between" types. As long as they run hard and fast, it appears they are the most valuable commodity going around, esp in defence.

Marcus Drum, anyone?

 

[Silent Bob]

The run out of defence is vital. Rick Charlesworth, the former captain of the Australian Mens hockey team (and regarded as the best hockey player in the world for years) and coach of the womens team, reckons we have got it all wrong in AFL football. He believes that the best players should be in DEFENCE. That way your best players are not only defending the goals, but winning possession then setting up the attacks. Food for thought.

But more than anything the Swans played total team football. A whole lot of intangible things like leave your ego at the door and play for your team, your mates, for each other, for the jumper. Giving and taking hits for each other. Self sacrifice. 100% commitment to the contest and puting your head over the ball - ala Craig Bolton, Jude Bolton and Jason Ball all coming off with blood pissing out of their faces and heads. The way the tigers of old used to play........

 

[pahoffm]

Swans had a great list, most complete list in the AFL. 47 players in all.

It had:
Rucks: Jolley 200, Ball 201 & Goodes 194

Tall Defenders: Roberts-Thompson 195, CBolton 190 & Kennelly 190

Tall Forwards: Hall 194, O'Loughlin 190 & O'Keefe 190

Excellent Mediums: too numerous to mention.

Excellent smalls: Crouch 175, Williams 176, Schneider 178, Fosdike 178 & Buchanan 180.

That's Brisbane, Port & Sydney who have now won with excellent smalls, the one area that we continue to ignore at Tigerland. In a Grand Final, fewer marks, more time the ball spends on the ground, makes sense.

 

[tigersnake]

They have:
   the shortest full-back in the AFL (Barry)
   A huge number of "in-between" players who are too small to be KPPs and too tall to be mid-fielders (Kenneally, C Bolton, Dempster, Barry, O'Keeffe, O'Loughlin and even Goodes)
   No creative midfielders, just a bunch of taggers like Kirk, Crouch, Buchanon and Fosdike
   Only one key forward
   No kids
   Few top 20 draft choices
   At best, half a goal to goal line

They really have revolutionised the AFL.  There are lots of lessons for the rest of the competition.  Put together a running defence, an accountable midfield and a very quick forward line for starters.  Then change the mindset on the "in-between" types.  As long as they run hard and fast, it appears they are the most valuable commodity going around, esp in defence. 

Marcus Drum, anyone?

I think your half right.  A few words on your assumptions you list

Re Barry, yes a short FB, but they don't call him "leapin' for nuthin.  Huge leap as good as a few extra inches.  Also re the GF, Gardiner stupidly led out rather than tried to go one-out, which would have worked better with such a height diff.
Re: 'in betweeners'.  This debate always goes around and around.  A good player is a good player.  They all did their bit.
Re. no creative midfielders.  This is plain wrong, with the possible exception of Fosdike, who is just a player.  Kirk is very creative in the clinches.  Crouch has evolved from a stopper into one of the most damaging running HB/BP/MF in the league, and Buchanan can do both, or at least he did on the weekend.
One Key forward, kind of, but O'Loughlin is one of sorts, and Goodes heads down there a fair bit.  And the 1 they do have according to you is 1 you build a side around.
No Kids, suppose you're right on that one, but flag sides are usually at the mature end of the scale.
Few top 20, Hmmm, have to see the data, Fosdike, Bolton, Goodes. would other sides have many more?
Re half a goal to goal line, (see Barry comment), I think Robert-thompson has really come on, and see comment on key forwards above.

A key point I reckon is they play as a team and go in hard and smart, but also I think they are a bit generally underrated across the board.

 

[Mac]

Aahhh. Thank you Phantom. Someone who agrees the swans aren't just a bunch of hard working plodders. They are actually good players. You can't match West Coast if you have no skill or talent. You can't control the tempo of the game or carry out games plans to a tee if you're no good. And as you've pointed out, good players in each catagory

Everyone has underestimated the swans. I don't subscribe to the theory that they are the luckiest team to win a GF (Collingwood in '90 gets that title, coz every other team had severe injury problems)

 

[Tango]

No disrespect to the swans but the eagles (Worsfold) lost it rather than the swans winning it,

No fwd line and no changes, why wasnt cox played out of the square earlier and for longer, Gardner is a hack fwd and should have been on the ball or on the bench or better still in the stands, Seaby was holding up the ruck ok,

Why wasnt a small ie Sampi or Wirrapunda isolated at FFWD, the eagles played 6 fwds all day and the swans played 3 at best - often 0 which is the full flood.

Yes the swans were valiant, and Oloughlin kicked poorly, but the eagles didnt take their chances and in my opinion Worsfold lacked creativity and felxability in his fwd line and that cost him the game.

Even after all this the eagles nearly pinched it??

 

[TOT70]

I'm not disagreeing that they are a good team, I'm just interested in HOW they have become a premiership side.  They seem to have built this team by ignoring conventional wisdom.

Kirk is a wonderful, gutsy, hard player but he is also one of the worst kicks in the AFL, cramped style, no distance, helicopter spin, misses targets regularly.  He has a lot of mates in this regard in that team.  To a large extent, their courage and physicality compensates for poor skills.

I think their backline is fantastic, but where are the key position monsters that everyone salivates over in each draft?  They are a medium-sized hard-running unit, virtually every player in their defence can play on tall and short players and they are all built along very similar lines.

They don't play the loose player across half-back like virtually every other team does.  They back themselves one-on-one.  When they flood, they REALLY flood by running up and down the field.  They don't cheat by playing extra men in defence.

They don't have huge bodies like the Brisbane premierships teams, they are not hugely talented like St Kilda, they don't have dominant forwards and a classy midfield like Essendon of 1999-2001.

They carry support players in their squad like Spriggs, Doyle and James who would cause apoplexy on this site if they played for Richmond, have picked up more premiership players from the rookie list than from the first round of the draft and they traded a first round draft pick for a ruckman who couldn't get a regular game at another club.  They recruited one under 18 player onto their list last year.

They routinely trade draft choices for players, sometimes appearing to pay over the odds for them.  While Geelong were f@rting around with Ottens, they moved decisively on Jolly.  WHo got it more right?

Is this how the other clubs are trying to build their premiership teams?

I'm just fascinated by the fact that they have managed to win and will now become the benchmark team for the future.  

 

[pahoffm]

All I can say TOT is to look at your Grand Final Record again.

The groundwork for the Swans has been going on for years.

Most of their recruiting has been going on for years through picking up juniors in the draft.
They've picked up the odd player through trades to fill specific holes.

They picked up Ball in 1999,
Williams in 2000,
Hall in 2001,
Bolton & Davis in 2002, and
Spriggs & Jolley in 2004.

An example of how they never give up there top draft choices is that they got Jolley, but still kept their first draft pick to get Jared Moore. Moore in his first AFL season was an 18yo emergency for their GF side.

So, for me, the lesson is quietly, quietly, pick up an undervalued player through a trade or PSD where you can, but use your draft picks wisely.

 

[tigersnake]

Agree phantom.

TOT70, one thing that amazes me about the Swans is their attention to the basics. Things that should be taken for granted but aren't. Always a player at the defensive side of a pack, always a defender back in the square.

Tango, I don't agree at all. Sydney should have won the game by 3 or 4 goals I reckon, thats even allowing for a few missed sodas. If they had have kicked straight from easy set shots they would have won by more like 5 or 6. Eagles forward line was both hopeless, and very good defence by Sydney

 

[meltiger]

[quote author=Mac] You can't match West Coast if you have no skill or talent. [/quote]

We did. lol

& apart from not being awake at the beginning of the game and a disgustingly disgraceful umpiring performance from the rat at the Punt Road End would have beaten them.

Sydney we did beat.


Both without Brownie too nonetheless

 

[Tango]

Agree phantom.

TOT70, one thing that amazes me about the Swans is their attention to the basics.  Things that should be taken for granted but aren't.  Always a player at the defensive side of a pack, always a defender back in the square.

Tango, I don't agree at all.  Sydney should have won the game by 3 or 4 goals I reckon, thats even allowing for a few missed sodas.  If they had have kicked straight from easy set shots they would have won by more like 5 or 6.  Eagles forward line was both hopeless, and very good defence by Sydney

I disagree, eagles had many misses as well, also they did not take a mark in their Fwd 50 till about the 3rd qtr - that is not attributed soley to good defence. Thye should have opened up their fwd line and isolated players inside 50, then the swans would have had to either man up further up the ground or play loose men - if they went the latter the eagles would have chopped them up with their run and carry, if they manned up there would have been greater space inside the eagles fwd 50 - Worsfold you got it wrong and played into their hands

Unfortunately the loss of Kerr was massive - if he was fit for the whole game i think the eagles would have pinched it - the loss of braun & matera also upset their balance and worsfold was unable to cover this.

Dont get me wrong the swans were great all year, their style of pressure 1 on 1 footy is ideal for finals, but they were lucky to get over Geelong - cats should have shut that game down better (not earlier) - the swans had chance an took it

Swans then were far too good for saints and smacked them, then hung on against a poorly coached and undermanned eagles outfit.

In my eyes that makes the swans lucky (maybe) but the cards fell their way, they hung iun and took their chances, and were well coached, disciplined and played as a unit

 

[AngryAnt]

The Swans were the best side in the Grand Final. People that because West Coast led the comp for most of the year, they must have been the best side. Look at the form coming into the GF - Swans had won 7/8 (or similar), West Coast had won 4/8.

 

[Tango]

agree, but in the end the eagles only played 1 qtr of footy, had 3 key players out or injured, played poorly and still nearly pinched it?

 

[TOT70]

An example of how they never give up there top draft choices is that they got Jolley, but still kept their first draft pick to get Jared Moore. Moore in his first AFL season was an 18yo emergency for their GF side.

So, for me, the lesson is quietly, quietly, pick up an undervalued player through a trade or PSD where you can, but use your draft picks wisely.

Agreed. They traded their first pick for Jolly and used their second on Moore. This bears an uncanny resemblance to 2001 when RFC traded their first round pick for Stafford and used their second round pick on Rodan. Daffy was chucked in as a sweetener but probably had a bit more value than that. Moore has only played a few games this year whilst Rodan was chucked straight into the deep end and spent the next two years sitting on the bench. Jolly would also be less highly rated than Stafford was at the time but had one advantage: he doesn't carry any injuries.

I also agree with you on another point, the value of having depth. They tend to recruit the speculative youngsters onto their extended rookie list and keep older players on their playing list. RFC have hardly used their rookie list at all. Not hard to see where the advantages are coming from.

 

[TOT70]

TOT70, one thing that amazes me about the Swans is their attention to the basics. Things that should be taken for granted but aren't. Always a player at the defensive side of a pack, always a defender back in the square.

Absolutely. This is exactly what I meant earlier when I said that they really flood, not just play a few players behind the ball. The first thing you notice from a Swans game is that there are always 14 or so Swans players within 20 metres of the ball and they are all looking to pair off with an opponent, not looking for easy possessions.

 

[pahoffm]

An example of how they never give up there top draft choices is that they got Jolley, but still kept their first draft pick to get Jared Moore. Moore in his first AFL season was an 18yo emergency for their GF side.

So, for me, the lesson is quietly, quietly, pick up an undervalued player through a trade or PSD where you can, but use your draft picks wisely.

Agreed. They traded their first pick for Jolly and used their second on Moore.  This bears an uncanny resemblance to 2001 when RFC traded their first round pick for Stafford and used their second round pick on Rodan.  Daffy was chucked in as a sweetener but probably had a bit more value than that.  Moore has only played a few games this year whilst Rodan was chucked straight into the deep end and spent the next two years sitting on the bench.  Jolly would also be less highly rated than Stafford was at the time but had one advantage: he doesn't carry any injuries.

I also agree with you on another point, the value of having depth.  They tend to recruit the speculative youngsters onto their extended rookie list and keep older players on their playing list.  RFC have hardly used their rookie list at all.  Not hard to see where the advantages are coming from.

Yep, pick 31, somehow I thought he was picked alot earlier. My mistake.

Shows that you can still have smart pickups past 30. I was always concerned regarding Moore's evident back soreness in last year's TAC finals.