Good evening all, it's another fabulous Swans week. Fresh off the impressive win at Perth Stadium - on the back of Franklin's freakishly good performance, the Swans are already looking ahead to Port Adelaide on Easter Sunday.
Port Adelaide already look solid flag favourites, if not dead set certainties to finish top 4 with the squad they have. Astute recruiting and thrifting where necessary landed them 3 big names in AFL that really should have cost them the farm, and then some.
It goes without saying, you pay a good recruiter whatever they're worth.
Both teams had wins on the weekend, Port against a less competitive team, but wins all the same. Sydney will need to be at their best to beat Port, and they'll certainly need a forward line to do it too.
You can't expect Franklin to carry the team on his shoulders every game, but he may well have to do it, with Sam Reid rated at best a 50-50 chance of playing this weekend.
Dan Hannebery looks like he'll play and given the forward line set-up issues, could see the debut of Tom McCartin or Darcy Cameron. Just like we discussed on last weeks' episode, if there was a game to debut Cameron, it was against the Eagles.
At the, the word was that Nic Naitanui wouldn't play, but in the end he did and he had an impact. Sinclair played pretty well and beat him around the ground, but you do have to wonder how Cameron would have done. Unless they bring in another super athlete, or beanpole Sandilands clone, it might be the right time to give him a crack.
Ryder's unfortunate injury has thrown the metaphorical spanner in the works for Port Adelaide, with Westhoff and Watts most likely taking the ruck contests, and Dixon taking it inside 50. I'm not sure if it works out in our favour to be honest, but it could be an opportunity to play either McCartin or Cameron, just to stretch their defence.
Our defenders are giving away at least 7cm on Dixon, Watts and Westhoff, so whatever we can do at the other end to stretch them will go a long way. Rohan is another possible inclusion, but he's as touch-and-go as they get.
A lot has been happening in the football world and outside of it, and while this is a football blog, specifically a blog about the Sydney Swans, I often find it enjoyable to write about other teams, events and even sports. I love and follow a lot of sports, and Cricket is right up there for me.
You could imagine my shock is dismay on Sunday morning when I woke up, grabbed my phone to check the cricket scores, hopeful that Australia were still in the match. I had built my weekend up around the fact that I'd watch them for a good couple of hours on Sunday night after the football; combine Formula 1, the Swans and then test cricket and it would have been a fantastic afternoon.
Instead, we got this, and as the days wear on, even the hours, more disturbing news emerges. The latest is that Warner orchestrated the entire lot, but it sounds more like blame shifting, while his own supporters inside the Aussie camp said that it was a team agreement and everyone was in on it. I wouldn't want to be CA in this situation.
Anyway, in this weeks episode I'm joined by Heather Quinlan, columnist and former Sydney Morning Herald journalist, and we review the weekend's game. We look at the round that was, give our heroes and villains and preview the Port Adelaide game. It's another great episode, so give it a listen and get your questions and comments to us ahead of next weeks episode - more new on that to come.
Happy Tuesday, enjoy the week and the episode! As always, hit us up on social media using the tag @theswansblog, or the hash tag #SwansCast.
Download - Whooshkaa - iTunes - RSS - YouTube
Got a question, a comment? You can send us an email anytime throughout the week to swanscast@theswansblog.com, or drop us a line on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram using the hashtag #SwansCast.
Liked the show? If you would be so kind as to leave us a review or rating on iTunes, or subscribe, it would be greatly appreciated!
Enjoy the podcast and more to come throughout the week.
Like what you’re getting? Want more Swans Blog, and the chance to have your input into our site and what we create? We have additional content weekly on our Patreon Service. This is your avenue, what are you waiting for? Sign up today and get more content like this.
If you'd like to support us, you can head over to our Red Bubble Swans Blog Shop, and purchase one of our hideously overpriced mugs, stickers or notebooks. Help keep The Swans Blog alive.
Since you're here...
... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading The Swans Blog than ever, but we don't accept advertising, and don't want to do so in the future. Unlike many other news and media organisations, fan forums and fan media, we haven't put up a paywall, or displayed ads - we want to keep our content as open as possible.
The Swans Blog is an independent fan blog and community platform. Our content takes a lot of time and hard work to produce. We do it because we love what we do and we believe our perspective matters - because it may be your perspective too.
If everyone who reads our blog, who likes it, is supporting it, our future would be much more secure.
Want instant access to the latest blog and news content from The Swans Blog?
Download our Android App from Google Play today.