SYDNEY Swans coach John Longmire armed his players with a simple game plan that they executed with brutal effect in upsetting Adelaide on the Crows' home patch on Saturday.
The fervent Swans put numbers around and behind the ball to deny Adelaide's players time and space for most of the pressure-packed contest.
Longmire's team had 22 fewer inside 50s than the Crows, but the efficiency of its forward thrusts proved to be the sting in the tail of the strategy that brought the more-fancied Crows undone.
"There's no secrets to playing at this time of the year - you need to be fierce at the footy all over the ground," Longmire said after the 29-point win.
"When you've got it hopefully things go your way and when the opposition's got it you've got to put enormous pressure on and reduce their effectiveness.
"When you boil it down to that it is a pretty simple game at this time of year.
"There's no secrets - it's just a matter of playing good, hard four-quarter pressure footy."
With key defender Heath Grundy banned for a week by the Match Review Panel, Adelaide's Taylor Walker and Kurt Tippett were meant to give the Crows the edge, but neither was able to play a significant role with the Swans forcing poor delivery to the forwards who were outnumbered in the air and on the ground.
The Swans had every reason to feel a little daunted at the prospect of facing off against Adelaide, having won just two of the past 14 clashes between the clubs, but Longmire made sure his players' focus was squarely on the present.
"I'm not a massive believer in what's happened in the past," he said.
"[It's] all about what you can control in the future and the present … and what's happened in the past is largely irrelevant, whether it's good or bad.
"It's just a matter of living in the now. I think that's what our players have done and they've prepared and executed really well."
Longmire praised the efforts of co-captain Adam Goodes who snapped back into top gear with three goals in the low-scoring first half with an intensity that the coach said helped set the tone for the team's impressive display.
The win now sees the Swans with the luxury of a home preliminary final in two weeks, which looked unlikely after they suffered three losses in a punishing month of football to finish the regular season in third place after sitting atop the ladder after round 19.
"We've had a pretty crash-and-bash month or five weeks now," Longmire said.
"It's been a pretty hectic schedule, which I think has been good for us at this time of the year.
"It really tuned us up to play hard, tough finals footy, but I'm sure a few blokes will enjoy having a weekend not playing."
Ben McGlynn provided one of the few lowlights of the match for the Swans after he was subbed out with a hamstring injury.
The distraught forward couldn't hide his disappointment on the bench after his substitution, but club officials weren't willing to speculate on the severity of the injury with scans on Monday to shed further light.
