Vietnam Swans

Dave O’Shea the unstoppable from Binh Duong, hasn’t stopped since last weekend’s round robin. Below is his review of the tournament. This is possibly his best tournament review yet – although he also did a cracking job after last year’s Indochina Cup when he was a first time tourer.

After so much hype and expectation, the round robin tournament between the Saigon White Swans, Hanoi Red Swans and Cambodian Eagles has finally been played and won by the Eagles. The three teams showed just why they are becoming giants of Asian football. The huge crowd at RMIT witnessed some brilliant tackling, hard running, awesome umpiring and amazing goals scored throughout the day. The spectators turned up en masse with high expectations and they were treated with three great games. All three games were played in great spirit.

A special thanks must go to the umpires, Scott Turner, Matt Nattalotto and Phil Johns. They were able to umpire the matches as well as doing their other roles throughout the day.

Supercoach Review

For those of you that took my advice on the rookie buys and brought in Stevie Conlan to your teams, you will be very happy after his dominant performance on the weekend. Steve scored massively in both games, but it was the second match where he was simply unstoppable. Steve kicked 4 second half goals and had a massive amount of hit outs and marks. He was simply unstoppable in the second half and single-handedly turned the match in his team’s favour.

Those that brought Lui into their teams would have been disappointed that he was a late withdrawal – another player with “general soreness”. This tactic of resting players was adopted by Geelong coach, Chris Scott last year before the AFL finals. Geelong went on to win the premiership, while some of the players from other clubs looked tired during the finals. Perhaps this is a tactic some of the Swannies players are using before the Asian Champs.

The other Vietnamese Native, Daniel, was solid and continues to get better. If you brought him into your team, keep him and wait for his price to rise.

A player that I missed in the preview was Qui Le. Qui was awarded the Rick Trewavis Medal for being the Most Courageous Swannie on the day (to read more about Rick Trewavas and the Medal, click here). Qui was everywhere throughout the day and picked up a huge amount of disposals. He will no doubt shoot up in value after the weekend. If he continues to win Swannies Awards, he still could be a good buy to get into your team before the Asian Champs.

Brett Jotta had his first match for a long time and like Qui had a huge amount of disposals for the Saigon Whites. Brett didn’t stop running all day and was one of the best players.

Those that paid top dollar for Ado Enright, will be happy with his performance. Ado received Best on Ground in his first match against Cambodia. In the second match, he was a bit quieter due to some brilliant tagging from his Hanoi mate John.

If you could get points for stopping key opposition players, John Shoulders from Hanoi would have racked them up. John was able to do a job on the key midfielders from both Saigon and Cambodia. Could he be the best tagger in Asian football?

Those that brought in the Italian Giant, Eduardo, would have been cheering when he kicked his first ever goal in a match. Edo had a huge number of hitouts in the ruck to go along with his goal. Another great performance from the ex Italian Basketballer come Aussie Rules Footballer.

Crazy Dan, Mark Stennet and Kyle all kicked some great goals and didn’t let their buyers down.

Lookalike

The Hanoi boys came to Saigon with some mean looking moustaches. Some of the boys pulled off the Mo quite nicely. Matty Townsend was told that he looks younger and more handsome.

Dan Hopkins was likened to a number of famous people and perhaps you can decide by voting below on which person looks the most like C-Dan.