After completing a lighter session on the track on Tuesday afternoon, it was full steam ahead on Thursday, with the majority of the group taking part in the main session, except for Nick Malceski, who walked laps and did light skills as part of his rehab from a minor hamstring injury.
Speaking to the media ahead of the session, midfielder Harry Cunningham said there were no big shifts to the Swans training program this week, despite the club securing the week off.
“Not much changes, except that we’ll get a couple of days off to get the body right for next week because we know it’s going to be a brutal clash again,” Cunningham said.
“We went into last week all guns blazing and this week, if there are any sore guys, they’ll have an extra couple of days on the team we’re going to play next week.
“But we’ll still train today and then we’ll have a training session on the weekend, and then we’ll all be watching the game on Friday night to find out who we play against.”
Despite posting a big win over Geelong in round 11 and suffering a loss to North Melbourne back in round four, Cunningham said the Swans had no preference as to who they would prefer to play against in next Friday night’s preliminary final at ANZ Stadium.
The young Swan, who will line up for his fourth career final next week, said he expected both potential opponents would lift for finals football.
“They are both pretty good sides and they are there for a reason,” he said.
“They’re both playing finals football, which means they’ve been playing great footy all year, so there’s no side we’d rather play.
“They are both quality teams and they both play their own style of footy, so it’s going to be a different game depending on who we play.”
The 20-year-old added that it was not worth dwelling on results from the home and away season, saying he expected both the Cats and Kangaroos to have improved since the last time they faced off.
“We don’t really look at past results because it was a long time ago when we played both North and Geelong and both teams have improved since then,” he said
“It’s a different game in finals footy, so anything can happen.”
