In this week's Game Plan, Swans forwards coach, Henry Playfair, talks about the functioning forward line in last week's win over the Eagles and the need for improvement against St Kilda on Sunday...

Looking back on the weekend’s win over the West Coast Eagles, we were pleased with how our forwards performed in Perth for the most part.

It’s always tough playing over in Perth, particularly because West Coast have been playing really well. The Eagles did have a few players out, and Beau Waters is obviously a key for their defence, but having said that, the Eagles have still won plenty of games throughout the year with players out, so to go over there and have a good win was really impressive by the boys.

While we didn’t take too many marks inside 50, on the majority of occasions we created a contest down there, which is what we wanted to do.

We also managed to kick a winning score in the end, so I think if we keep creating contests and putting pressure on the opposition then we will do really well.

Looking at our forward line over the last month, we’ve been really happy with Sam Reid’s recent form.

He had a couple of niggles early in the season, and because Sam is a really competitive person by nature and strives hard to improve himself, those setbacks were hard for him.

We did keep saying to him that if he maintained that focus and trained on the things that were important and that he needed to, then eventually the results would come.

Now, he’s starting to turn the wheel with a couple of good games, and now the challenge is to keep that going.

Looking ahead to this weekend’s challenge against St Kilda, we’re keen to make amends for our performance earlier this season.

The last time we met the Saints they were a fair bit harder than us, probably not only in the forward line but across the ground. Their body work was pretty good and they came across and helped each other in the air and we got caught not influencing the contest when we had chances too.

The Saints, on that occasion, were harder and they were stronger and they read the ball better so they really got a hold of us, and it’s something we’re really keen to rectify on Sunday.

St Kilda has been looking really dangerous over the last few weeks. They’ve kicked big scores and have defended really well.

They’ve got a list of great player and have roughly 18 Grand Final players playing on the weekend. They’ve got a lot of talent and when they’re playing at their best they’re really hard to beat. They showed that against Essendon, and while they have been a little bit inconsistent over the last couple of weeks, we know they are dangerous when they are going well.